Technorhetoric...?
Few, if any, people
question whether or not to use computers to write these days. Every
semester, it is true, one or two of my students still reach for a pencil
to compose drafts (even though they are sitting at computers!), but most
of our students cannot imagine a world where the pencil is their only
choice.
For the past seven years, I have surveyed my students at the beginning of each semester about their access to, knowledge of, and previous use of computers and the Internet. Of course, my "survey" is not representative by any means—it covers only two institutions, both of which have made concerted efforts to make technology available to their students. The changes over the years in students' responses to the surveys, however, are telling nonetheless: for the past three years, even though most of my students report that they have access to computers and the Internet, they use the Web and email, and many of them participate in chat room or instant message discussions, nonetheless most of them claim to have little or no knowledge of "computers"—and far less comfort with them. That is, students are using computers in a variety of ways, but they are not being taught in any systematic way how to make use of extant information technologies effectively, let alone how to think critically about new ones. They know enough, in other words, to know that they need to know more.
But, aside, perhaps, from the omnipresence of the technology itself and, sometimes, the additional burden imposed on writing teachers of teaching students how to use the technology when necessary, the writing classroom hasn't really changed. That is, our students use computers for communication, for research, for composing, for revision; their projects may take different forms—from traditional (for-print) essays to MOO or chat room transcripts, WIKIs, BLOGs, presentations, or Web pages—but has writing itself changed? How do changing definitions of reading and writing—of literacy—change what and how we teach?
Technorhetoric...?