In Retrospect

	In Retrospect . . .

1.	There are probably three main areas of the course that I will alter the next time I teach the class: 1.) my approach to teaching the technology; 2.) the time and timing allotted for the reading and discussion of the articles and hypertext fiction; 3.) the writing assignments.
2.	Though I remain convinced that allowing students a certain amount of discomfiture regarding their learning process, in my desire not to focus on "teaching the technology" I probably went a bit too far. There is a delicate balance between allowing students to have the perception that they must learn on their own (and own their learning) and not giving them enough support to do that in the most beneficial way. I think that some of the sense that students had as reflected in their observations and responses were quite valid. One of the problems was in the way that I decided to have them learn about writing web pages. Instead of teaching them more than the rudimentary HTML tags and the basic organization of web pages, I asked them to go through a tutorial in a WYSIWYG application as homework. In theory, this was a good idea; the particular application represented itself as a very easy-to-learn web page editor. I had gone through the tutorial myself and used the editor to create web pages during the summer, simply to ascertain the level of difficulty. Unfortunately, there is a lot of difference between an experienced HTML author and a novice – a difference that is not readily apparent to the experienced author! I will probably return to my prior practice of teaching HTML tags and simply make them aware of the various WYSIWYG editors which they can learn on their own.
3.	Another problem was the way in which the students learned Storyspace. This also might relate to the fact that I've been using the program for several years and may have underestimated the difficulty the application poses for the novice. Their initial instruction was primarily with the Storyspace reader, since their first reading assignments were the two Eastgate titles they purchased for the course. However, there is a significant difference between reading in Storyspace and writing in Storyspace. Even though I did end up giving a special class on the program, it was after they had already begun their first project and I became aware they were having significant problems with it. A more important change, however, will be the time and timing allowed for the reading and discussion of both the articles and the hyperfiction readings.
4.	Most of our discussions about the readings occurred in the first half of the semester, interwoven with issues of rhetorical analysis and questioning the ways in which hypertext might change writing and reading. One of my students offered a personal critique about the design of the course by way of saying she wished we could have had the discussions of the earlier weeks later on in the semester when they felt they had become very familiar with hypertext. However, by the second half of the semester, students were so involved in their research and writing projects that we spent a lot less time discussing the material. While it is still important to provide the earlier articles in order for the students to have some context for the ongoing conversation, I want to free up more time for in-depth discussions later in the course about the issues each has uncovered through their research, reading, and writing of hypertext. One way to do that will be to alter the writing assignments.
5.	In designing the class, I was concerned that it fulfill the University of Texas requirements for a "writing intensive" course (16 or more pages, double-spaced). The course had four "formal" writing assignments, the projects. In addition, of course, each student wrote their own OLR consisting of two initial short writing pieces, their own observations, and a self-reflective interpretation of their learning at the mid-term and at the final. In addition to those assignments, there were written peer-reviews for each project in which each student reviewed two other students' work in a formal response, several online forums, a requirement that each student participate in the e-mail listserv discussions, and a requirement that each student find and annotate web-sites for the AddLinks page. In reviewing the amount of time and effort the students spent on the additional writing, I think it went too far. In the future, I will eliminate the third project by combining it with the fourth (which is essentially what ended up happening anyway). More importantly, I plan to eliminate most of the online forums and reduce the requirements for the formal responses in peer-reviews. While the reviews themselves are important, I think that the advantages of peer-revision can still be gleaned without the additional requirement for a response paper. Notes should suffice.
6.	I want to mention a few final thoughts about teaching in the c-a classroom. I feel quite fortunate to be so situated that I can even explore the kinds of pedagogical issues in which I am interested. Obviously, this kind of work requires institutional support both financially and philosophically. Financially because the expense of cutting-edge technology and computer classrooms is quite significant. Beyond that, however, one needs the kind of support for the exploration of pedagogical issues that has been occurring at the Computer Writing and Research Lab for over a decade. Not only is there support within the CWRL, but the Division of Rhetoric and Composition, the English Department, the College of Liberal Arts, and the University of Texas-Austin have all lent support to the continued efforts of graduate students and faculty to expand and take advantage of the new technologies in research, literature, and education. I hope that the rush to "online" and distance education doesn't overrun and replace the valuable asset of in-class ca courses.
7.	The enthusiasm for distance education, in some quarters at least, seems motivated primarily by economic factors rather than pedagogical ones. It is my hope that serious long-term study of teaching and learning practices in both ca classrooms and distance learning environments will increase. While learning theories based on distributed cognition, situated learning, and learning as an ecology are exciting and seem quite promising, much more needs to be done by way of empirical, long-term studies. My effort in this narrative has been simply to provide an anecdote of my own small efforts to implement some of what those theories imply. The kinds of studies that we need for a more thorough examination of these theories and practice will require much more commitment institutionally and nationally on both the financial and philosophical levels.

In Retrospect . . .