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Articles Conference Reviews |
200794MorrisSession 9.4: Technology, Blogs, and Literacy
Suzanne Rumsey (Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne), Jessica Rivait (Wayne State University) Suzanne Rumsey, Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne: “Adaptation, Adoption, Alienation: Technological Literacy Across Time, Space, and Place” Suzanne Rumsey made an interesting presentation on what she calls “heritage literacy” in the Amish. She stated that heritage literacy is our intellectual inheritance of literary practices and technology use, which are very often multimodal. Our uses of technology, she stated, change over time as we adopt new ones (taking them by choice), adapt them (modify our uses), and alienate other technologies. Through this presentation and her larger project, she hoped to show—in part—how much individuals draw upon their own intellectual inheritances in choosing technologies and their uses. She interviewed members from 15 families of Amish heritage in Northern Indiana. She also collected “literacy artifacts” from these participants such as recipes, journals, photos, and memoirs that dated back several generations. Throughout these investigations, she found many interesting literate practices as well as interesting uses of technology in the Amish community. For example, two participants, a mother and a 13 year old daughter, were interviewed. They have no car, computer, or telephone, but the daughter has been learning to use a computer at school because her parents think it will be important if she chooses to “work out” (that is, outside of the Amish community). They have no car but choose to use a gas powered lawnmower. Other people in the community keep cell phones for their businesses. Another example she gave was adapting an old recipe for new measurements, and how electric mixers are sometimes used but pie crusts are typically made by hand. One of Rumsey’s main points is that the contradictions between belief and practice show an ongoing decision making practice about technology—one which we all participate in. She asked if there were any technologies that we reject—many people suggested not wanting or needing a Blackberry, or not always using computers when we don’t have to. I immediately recalled being holed up in our office with several other graduate students making panels for Computers and Writing—we could have rearranged all those presentations in a Word file, but chose to print them out and stick them together with paper clips all over our office floor instead. Heritage literacy (that which develops over time and is inherited through our beliefs and our parents) is an important concept to study because it attends to literacy deviations across time, space, and place, and because it challenges current understandings of multimodal literacy (such as seeing quilting as a community driven literate practice) by incorporating culture into meaning making. In understanding generations in a holistic manner, we can emphasize the connections between different groups and family members and study how literate practices develop through a person’s heritage. Jessica Rivait, Wayne State University: “Inciting Waves of Social Consciousness: The Question of Celebrity in Grassroots Community Computer Networking.” Jessica Rivait began her portion of this session by defining literacy as it connects with service work. She wishes to study ways in which we can use literate practices for social change and connect social change and service with the digital. In this case, she was looking at senator John Edwards’s trip to 13 college campuses during the summer of 2005 to launch a grassroots campaign the connect service organizations across these campuses via the internet. He would provide these organizations one centralized website to build community on, discuss issues, lend support, and share experiences that—in his plan—would strengthen all of the organizations in both their local and national ability to make change. During these meetings he met with leaders of student organizations and asked them to return to their campuses, excite their peers, and move them to action (and to visit the website to join a coalition of peers). Two years later, Rivait logged in to check the status of this movement that she was originally very pleased with to find that the website was all but empty. Despite Edwards’s celebrity, none of the students were actually networking. She then wished to study why this movement rhetorically failed, when it originally seemed destined for success. First, she noted that most service groups disseminate information online rather than perform networking via their website. She also noted that despite getting the support of student leaders, little was done to consider what non-leaders might think of the site. Since Edwards was, in effect, a failed rhetor, she asked how failed rhetors affect service learning efforts. In many ways, Edwards’s idea was a radical one in suggesting that students could network with people outside their community to enact local change. These student leaders were already part of larger national groups—which might have complicated their participation. She believes that student leaders should choose their own causes, not simply be told that their cause is X by a larger group. She concluded by noting that new media initiatives like this one should also consider that many students who enjoy service aren’t particularly computer-savvy. Those designing such sites should take into effect the means and purposes of the group when choosing a tool (rather than just choosing one because it is “nifty” or what they, themselves, would use). Students should be involved in the technology choosing process if service community building efforts are to be aimed at them. Rivait noted that some of the only action that’s taken place for Edward’s community building is on MySpace—where the students were already congregating.
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