Learning to Communicate: Bakhtin's Theory (continued)
Recently, other scholars have also noticed the dialogic nature of computer-based education and have attempted to describe this relatively new writing situation. Finding the erratic nature of dialogic communication energizing, Fred Kemp claims: "the value of written conversations and extended e-mail exchanges (such as found in Internet discussion lists and on NetNews discussions) lies in the organic and open-ended nature of knowledge making they display…" (187). He equates computer-based communication with a postmodern pedagogy and indicates that it has additional advantages than simply teaching students to write. However, he also maintains that a consistent level of awareness of audience is something that is not achieved in computer-based communication (185). And perhaps he is right; for in this situation, writers' awareness of audience is just developing. Students may go from feeling completely unaware of how other readers will interpret their message to a stage of heightened paranoia-fearing the way that their writing can be misinterpreted.
