Reading Response #1: Autobiography of a Techie [30 Aug 2006|01:55am] [ mood | thoughtful ] [ music | Idyllic Music Podcast ] Caveat I admit I feel a little apprehensive about this first post, and that has mainly to do with my status as a person who's not part of the rhet/comp department. I've read precious little scholarly discourse about rhet/comp. Furthermore, I'm not sure what degree of initiation into the rhet/comp discipline is assumed. I guess I'll do my best. :) It’s Just a Megabyte I was particularly interested in Selber's and Kitalong et al’s essays. I acutely sensed the need for the development of a critical technological literacy when teaching English 112 last semester. I chose the "Cyberspace and Identity" and unit to supplement multiple-source essay one. When teaching the essays in the unit, I found that my students were very resistant (or apathetic) when I asked them to think critically about technology and how it affects their lives. They were especially vocal in denouncing Sherry Turkle's argument that, when multi-tasking in particular cyberscapes, the self exists as a group of overlapping but separate fragments that can be cycled through. According to Turkle, "each of these activities takes place in a 'window,' and your identity on the computer is the sum of your distributed presence" (WARAC 277). My students were adamant that Turkle was “going way too far” and “reading way too much into” technology. This reaction, of course, revealed the “instrumental view” of technology that Selber mentions, where users of technology either accept or reject technology because “it is simply a neutral tool employed to understand experience and solve problems” (11). Domo Arigato, Techno-Auto-Bio One way I tried to approach this issue was by focusing, when facilitating full-group discussion, on the students’ personal experience with technology. I found that many of them used social-networking programs like Facebook and MySpace, and that a few of them even used blogs (the bloggers were slightly more reflective and critically-minded when discussing technology, most likely because of the reflective nature of blogging itself). This helped somewhat, but I was still met with considerable resistance and a disturbing degree of apathy. I suspect that assigning the technology autobiography before any of the reading in the chapter would have increased the effectiveness of the students’ discussions. Particular questions on Kitalong’s list, such as “whom do you identify as being most technologically ‘literate’ in your life?” and “do you think there are social consequences or potential impacts on your lifestyle that depend on your technological capabilities?” would perhaps get students moving toward a critical literacy as defined by Selber. If I were to assign the TA, I might add a few more specific questions about the technologies many of our students tend to use frequently (such as Facebook). As evidenced in Kitalong, technology is inextricably intertwined with economics. Since I also taught the “What’s Happening at the Mall?” unit in 112, I might ask students to write a combination technology autobiography/consumer autobiography (TACA!) to get them thinking about the socioeconomic consequences of consuming technology, and about being a consumer in general. (I wrote way more than I was supposed to! I’m sorry.) This Week’s Study Hall Podcast  (COMING VERY SOON) I do a little more personal reflection on computer courses that focus on functional literacy only, critique GeekBrief TV’s recent “How to be a podcaster” episode, and muse over critical perspectives on electronic music and the music industry. And I’ll play some music. 1 comment|post comment

Week One, Part Deux [30 Aug 2006|06:58pm] [ mood | rushed ] [ music | click click of Erin's keyboard ] My undergraduate institution, at the time I was a student there, was technology-bound. Right before I entered my freshman year, the school built a shiny new "tech" building with state-of-the-art computers, photo-manipulating software, programming software, etc. All the classrooms were "smart" classrooms with internet connections for students at each seat, digital projectors, and a "smart board" where anything written on a white board with a marker would appear in another window as text. Even with all of this access, I still found that most teachers and students did not utilize it as fully as the school had envisioned. I never saw a student take their laptop to class and connect it to the port. Teachers used the projectors, but only for one sparse, rigid Power Point presentation after another. Students weren't allowed to even enter the digital photo workshop unless they had proof of an assignment and were accompanied by a faculty member or a member of the tech staff. So no students or staff used that room at all, and it ended up becoming a "playpen" for the tech staff (yes, that is an apt metaphor). The effect of all of this was that I had to discover a lot of technology on my own, and outside of educational contexts. I made my first personal webpage when I started college, and started learning digital photo manipulation and html. But, this was only because I wanted to entertain myself and put out an online presence to others that was completely personal and outside the realm of school and education. If the school wanted to provide me with technology--which they did in the form of internet access and a laptop buying program--I was more likely to use it for recreation rather than education. post comment

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