Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Response to Silicon Snake Oil
As you probably inferred from class discussion yesterday, I completely agree with you. In today's readings, I thought Dr. P's article was quite fascinating in relation to the 2 camps of people (experienced teachers who didn't want to change their pedagogical strategies that they found successful, younger teachers who wanted to experiment). I think in relation to technology, if you undertake technology within your pedagogy, you have to be prepared for constant change of your curriculum and strategies. The technology will keep changing, and we will have to be committed to adapting as needed. To me, this is exciting. However, I also know the demands of academic life at times can be rigorous and I feel overwhelmed with everything I need to do. Therefore, I think he is right in saying we need to carefully examine what pedagogical tool we should use, and decide when technology is the best method.
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3 comments:
You both might want to take a look at Composition in Convergence, a book I wrote back in 2005. It discusses several important issues for you to consider as you examine why/how/what happens with instructors who blend new media into their teaching, with a particular examination on how assessment needs to be reconfigured.
One of the critical components for your theory to address is the evaluation/assessment of emergent writers. Without that aspect, few people will pay attention. Evaluation/assessment are the buzzwords for accreditation purposes as well as internal administrative purposes.
Mike Williamson at IUP knows me well and he can talk to you in greater depth about the book and what I'm trying to do with these ideas in terms of the IUP philosophy.
Evil doctor --
I agree. As a teacher, there are so many dimensions to consider when trying to use technology to teach writing. Although Dr. Pagnucci's article is somewhat dated, he brings up issues that are still revelant today. The public/private nature of blogging or posting essays for public consumption and how students admit to censoring their writing because some of the content would have been to personal.
Jessica, I think for the purpose of this project, we could address this issue of evaluation/assessment in the implication section of the paper.
And since you have Dr. Williamson next session (and hopefully I will too) we could see how to take this project to the next step.
One of the chapters in Convergence discusses how students need to know how to own their own words. There are legal ramifications to this, which I do discuss in that chapter.
I'm not familiar with Gian's article, although I know he has published in the area.
Mike's a great guy and I know he'll be of terrific help to both of you as you refine this project.
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