I'd like
to explore the value of place and synchronous time in education, specifically
the dangers and potential of distributing those places and times virtually.
Responding directly to a set of interesting questions meant to focus this
session ...
1. What is the current mission of teachers
and scholars involved in computers and writing in light of technological
advances and shifts in worldview relating to the purpose of education?
We should/will be in the forefront of higher
education in establishing creative combinations of synchronous/asynchronous
interactions between students, students and teachers, as well as between
the world-at-large and our students and ourselves. Add to this mix the
importance of building a sense of a learning place--either corporeal or
virtual--via an increasingly available mix of media, and it's clear that
we are facing a rich research space with institutionally explosive implications.
One example: we now often work in computer-supported labs, classrooms,
and centers (technology-rich sites) that have been declared bankrupt by
leading distance learning advocates (*Sir* John Sl Daniel, *Vice*-Chancellor
Open University, UK). Shall we abandon these technology-rich sites to the
onslaught of an entirely distributed educational system or should we begin
to demonstrate the value of combined synchronous virtual/corporeal learning
sites?
2. What areas have shifted that may cause
us to rethink our mission?
We have a changing student body. Four-year
college teachers tend to call this body of students nontraditional: they
are often older, attending school part-time, working, are mothers and fathers,
retired, poor, sometimes underprepared and from all segments of our society.
Statistically, in most states they are now the most common students in
higher education. In many states they make up from 60%-75% of the student
population. Two-year and community colleges are often their first point
of contact as they try to realize the theoretical dream of life-long learning.
These institutions have long since recognized these realities and are,
from my perspective, on the front lines of critical technical literacy
education. The life situations of our most common students make the argument
to save synchronous virtual/corporeal learning sites more difficult but
not impossible. Four-year institutions have a good deal to learn from colleagues
in two year and community colleges.
3. Where is the electronic writing classroom
headed pedagogically?
We will be charging through media rhetorics
that are hard to imagine with audiences real in ways that can be quite
upsetting. Part of our planning will have to involve connecting our students
with others and working hard not to exacerbate the gulf between technology
haves and havenots. No easy task.
4. Where do we want to be?
We want to lead our institutions in an
approach to education that is highly interactive, interpersonal, interdisciplinary
whenever possible, and much more connected to the world outside our institutions.
We should be helping determine distance learning objectives based on excellent
pedagogy.
5. How will computers help to promote and
promulgate current composition theory?
They continue to force us to look more
closely at the theoretical assumptions of place and time in the learning/communicating
processes of our students and ourselves. They make commonplace items come
alive: the distance (physical & virtual) between the teacher and student
and between other students, the workspace surrounding us (physical &
virtual), the technologies of communication (from pencil to webpage), the
fiscal environment surrounding the physical/virtual place, the institutional
politics surrounding the fiscal environment. They allow us the opportunity
to bring the common*place* of our teaching into focus. Now, how do we make
time to attend to these newly uncommonplace issues as well as our disciplinary
demands?
Will new composition theory develop in
light of educational technology?
Yes. |