"It's the Email that's stupid, not you? Right?!" - Nick Burns

I just had to share a clip from one of my favorite SNL sketches (it is technology-related)! If you have never seen Nick Burns, you have to check it out! MOVE!

I’ve always been interested in technology, and I’ve picked up on it fairly easily ever since I took a class on computers in the workplace my senior year in high school. In 1997, the class focused on basics like word processing programs, PowerPoint, and how to format resumes and memos. But, it was a good introduction that helped me become more familiar with the language and general functions of computers, which in turn helped me through college as technology quickly advanced. In my first-year English class, we designed our own web pages, and I enjoyed the challenge of learning some basic HTML. I am by no means a technology expert, but my friends and family seem to call me first when their computer crashes or they want to know how to change the margin size in a Word document. My undergraduate work was in Communications, specifically graphic design and desktop publishing. During this time, I cultivated a love for visual design and the power of images, and I still enjoy graphics as a hobby. I enjoyed Diana George’s article “From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing.” I too am interested in “a clearer understanding of what can happen when the visual is very consciously brought into the composition classroom as a form of communication worth both examining and producing.” I have found that as a student in writing courses, most of my instructors only used visuals as supplemental to writing or as prompts for writing. I think it would still be controversial today to suggest that a “visual argument” is no “less complicated” than the “typical argument essay” that is assigned in a writing classroom.

As I entered the workforce and gained experience in the field of graphic design, I discovered that my true passion was for teaching instead. But, as I entered into that new profession, I took with me my zeal for technology as well. In one of my education courses, we created a philosophy of teaching, in which I included the following:

"I believe that it is essential for an instructor to incorporate computer technology into his/her classroom. Reasons for this are that students will need to use computer technology in their future educational and work endeavors, the Internet can help to keep educational topics relevant, and some students learn better by seeing the information in colorful and interesting formats such as MS PowerPoint presentations. I incorporate the Internet, Email, homework chats, PowerPoint, movie clips, distance learning, and other technologies into my classroom."

I still agree with most of what I wrote, but I would add that I also think it’s important for teachers to make use of literacies that are already familiar to their students and consume their lives outside of the classroom. I think new media intimidates some teachers, but we don’t need to be experts in order to incorporate some of these genres (such as the blogging presented in Carolyn Miller and Dawn Shepherd’s “Blogging as Social Action”) into our instruction. In fact, we can learn from our students and they can learn from each other in a collaborative classroom that uses new media. However, I do know that there are many challenges, such as the issue of students’ private lives being broadcast to the public in blogging or chats or other social media like Facebook or Twitter. But, as George states, “students (today) have grown up in what by all accounts is an aggressively visual culture.” Just as we can’t ignore the social and cultural issues that exist for our students outside of the classroom, we can’t ignore the technological and visual influences saturating their lives.

My son Max (2 1/2) loves to take pictures of himself using our laptop's webcam. It's amazing that his vocabulary includes Internet, Ebay, Dot Com, and others that would have been foreign to me at his age. To think of how familiar he'll be with technology when he enters school makes me even more enthusiastic about its inclusion in education. We need to make use of what the students already know (and enjoy).

Looking back, I didn’t get the chance to incorporate all of the technologies listed in my philosophy during my three years of teaching, such as homework chats and other forms of distance learning. But, I did incorporate it in other ways, and I often had assignments that included a variety of choices, some that allowed students to use different technologies like graphics programs or video editors. I was continually impressed with the creative products that students submitted, from slide shows that incorporated text, pictures, and music to videos to comics illustrated using MS Paint or Adobe Illustrator. These projects were not easier and did not use any less of the higher order thinking skills we expect from students than those projects submitted by their classmates that used only the written word. I found that some of my colleagues underestimated the imagination of their students and followed the philosophy that using visuals and technology was a way of “dumbing down” the English/Composition classroom or was only “play” to make a “required class more interesting” and therefore not up to their academic standards (quotes from George’s article). I questioned, as Diana George does in “From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing,” “Why it is that we (their teachers) don’t seem to understand how sophisticated these literacy practices actually are.”

Although I thought it was not exactly relevant due to it being outdated, the Charles Moran article “Technology and the Teaching of Writing” did at least demonstrate the remarkable advancement and changing nature of technology since the 1990s. For instance, some of Moran’s statements seem to illustrate that he may not have anticipated just how rapidly technology would grow. He writes, “We will always be teaching students for whom writing online is a new or strange experience.” I think writing online is probably only new or strange to a very small percentage of our students today, even if they don’t all have the same access to it. Also, his discussion of whether teachers will or won’t decide to incorporate Email in a course seems like an ancient debate, as I think most teachers do in some way (even if only to offer it as a means of communication). Today, I think debating social media or blogging and its inclusion in the classroom would be timelier. The one thing he discusses that I do think is still relevant is the issue of access. For example, even today, one of the elementary schools in my district cites that 70% of their students have home computers. I’m sure this figure is even lower in some inner-city districts and much higher in more affluent, suburban districts. So, I agree with Moran that “Access is the issue that drives all others before it.” I think we need to get to know our students and understand their experience with and access to technology. That way, we can work with them to revise an assignment based on these factors.

This chart is from the Pennsylvania Technology Inventory. It shows that within the Capital Area IU 15, although computers are available to students before and after school, they are not able to access them on weekends or holidays. This gives students with home computers an unfair advantage. I'm sure that in other areas of the state or other states in the country, access is even more restricted. Therefore, the "digital divide" must be at the forefront of discussions surrounding technology in the classroom. Wikipedia defines the digital divide as "the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all."

For this class I chose to do my journal overview on Computers and Composition Online, and I’m reviewing a book titled Multimodal Composition: Resources for Teachers, edited by Cynthia Selfe (who was mentioned in some of this week’s readings). It explores the use of multimodal assignments, which incorporate words, still images, audio, and video, in composition classrooms. It also discusses the challenges posed to composition instructors who incorporate this type of technology. I am definitely a proponent of using technology in any educational setting, and I’m particularly excited about the possibilities that link composition and new media in the classroom.