Solution: Assessment

Technological literacy not only refers to functional computer skills, but also to the more complex values and practices that are associated with computer use. She points out that our literacy practices, including communication, reading, and writing, are steeped in social and cultural contexts, and they influence (and are influenced by) our cultural understanding of “literacy.” In addition, she specifically mentions the government, educators, private businesses, and parents as cultural forces that affect our perception of literacy and that perpetuate a “commonsense belief in technology” (p. xxii). Yet, as Michael Spooner and Kathleen Yancey remind us, “The fact that a pedagogy seems innovative or uses new technology does not prevent it simply from reproducing the prior paradigm” (p. 255). Selfe likewise reveals that online environments do not offer the utopian, democratic equal footing we imagined for students, but that they instead perpetuate existing cultural patterns like racism and class distinctions. In response to this problem, Selfe advocates what she calls critical technological literacy, which refers to a self-reflective view of technology and an awareness of the social and cultural contexts surrounding technological literacy.

This last concept is what Selfe calls “paying attention,” and I believe this is an indirect call for course and program evaluation—that instead of merely lumping online composition courses into our simple assessments and traditional paradigms, it is time we developed new composition-specific methods for evaluating our courses. In other words, if we are to find the best balance between technology and learning and avoid its possible perils, we must formally and self-consciously scrutinize our own pedagogies. As Cynthia Selfe asserts, it is our "ethical responsibility to understand how literacy and literacy instruction directly and continually affects the lived experiences of the individuals and families with whom we come into contact as teachers" (1999, p. xix).

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