Cross-Training Teachers For Multiple Computer Spaces

More often than not, WPAs are faced with scrounging about campus to provide their instructors with a sufficient amount of adequate computer spaces in which to teach. With little control over the available technologies in these spaces, WPAs may find that they must ask their instructors to teach with differently configured computers from semester to semester or even from class to class. To properly prepare these instructors, an analysis of the hardware and software configuration of the multiple computer spaces available to them should be an integral part of the development of any teacher technology training program. This section provides a short description of the major cross-training issues to be addressed in developing a technology training program across multiple computer spaces followed by the potential benefits and potential concerns of each issue. Additionally, a template computer space checklist, a sample checklist completed for the University of Arizona's Writing Program, and a list of questions have been provided to facilitate the analysis of multiple computer spaces.

The major cross-training issues and the computer space checklist found in this section were informed by the current situation faced by administrators and instructors in the Writing Program at the University of Arizona, as the sample checklist suggests. However, these tools have been tempered, as much as possible, by a general review of theories of teaching with technology. As such, the major cross-training issues cover a range of concepts WPAs should consider when developing teacher technology training. The cross-training issues addressed here are intended to act as outliers and points along a continuum of possible issues, from which WPAs can begin an analysis of the multiple computer spaces found in their own writing programs. Likewise, the computer space checklist contains a list of software that represents a range of programs from those most likely to be found on campus to those readily downloaded from the Internet. While neither the discussion of cross-training issues nor the computer space checklist can comprehensively address all of the situations in which WPAs may find themselves, the list of questions provided at the end of this section should help stimulate thought about the ways in which these tools might be adapted to meet specific needs.

Finally, assuming that the technologies in a space mediate the teaching that goes on in that space, instructors who teach across multiple computer spaces may find that their teaching expands in multiple ways as they adapt their teaching to multiple dynamics. As such, the tools provided in this section are not oriented to help WPAs arrange schedules so that individual instructors teach all their courses in the same or similar computer spaces, although these tools will help accomplish that goal. Rather, these tools are provided to help WPAs develop teacher technology training programs that train instructors to comfortably move from one computer space to another.