Who Needs Internet Invention?
There are 'thems that do' but there are however strong 'thems that don't.' Experiment
with pedagogy, I mean. That is, there are, of course, good teachers/good people in both
camps, but for me because this discipline is about how to have ideas and
what to do with them, it is important to keep rethinking the basic assumptions.
Such a book as Internet Invention will help you revise your pedagogy and perhaps your
program.
(For another review of Ulmer's Internet Invention see http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/reviews/ulmer_review.htm in Computers and Composition Online.)
There are, however,and strong disincentives to experiment
with pedagogy. You don’t get paid enough and/or your job/promotion/morale is
based on students liking you (student evaluations). I’ve taught classes that experimented with some really
difficult texts, heuristics and classroom activities AND I was slammed
on several occasions by students who did not feel "good" (secure, knowledgeable)
in the class. So, to be honest, I think the people who will use a book
like this, or David Blakesly's Dramatism, will be either courageous or
tenured, and probably both. Still, books like this, because they would so improve
any teacher's understanding of how/why/what they teach, should cause administrators
to seriously review and revise the assessment structures in the university
so that experimentation is not discouraged. I have taught the kind of pedagogy
that Ulmer lays out here in a 300 level (non-English major) course and
I was decimated by students' whining and ultimately crushed by their evaluations.
Perhaps the second edition of Internet Invention could include strategies for teachers
to create a creative environment.
