Choosing among media:
I'd like to see (or have us develop) some kind of list of the uses/advantages/disadvantages for personal/professional/pedogogical purposes of the many and multiplying types of electronic communication. Clearly, few of us will want to be blogging, Blackboard discussion-boarding, e-mailing, tweetering (whatever that is), texting, using My Space and Facebook, etc. all at the same time, at least not if we also plan to eat, sleep, and, heavens to Betsy, read a book! Sometimes, and I hate to admit this so publically, I actually use an old fashioned landline telephone WITH A CORD! And I have been known to (with a sense of guilt) talk to one person on the phone while e-mailing another from my desk. Clearly, in our personal lives we've all made choices about which forms of communication we prefer and which we choose to use within a single relationship. And of course these choices evolve, though probably not as quickly as they do for our students or at work. So, when it comes to work, I appreciate being introduced to a variety of media, but I'd like to have a chart where I can see in one place the various features/uses/etc. of my options. Is there such a thing? Because I just cannot gorge on all this stuff at once!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I am having a real problem handling so many media. For example, My Comp. Lab, Blackboard, and a blog all have "classroom management" features. Which one do we use? At my symposium in Naples, Florida, they previewed a totally digital version of the McGraw Hill Handbook by Maimon et. al. It wasn't just a pdf file of the book. It was totally interactive. It also has a "classroom management" feature. So there is another option!
ReplyDeleteI have also long wanted to have a place/space for my English 1110 students to "publish" the essays they write in my class. So should I put them on Blackboard? A class Blog? The My Comp Lab course site?
As far as privacy goes, no one can post to a Blog unless they have permission from the author of the Blog. However, they can read what others have posted.
I put this on our Bb discussion - but after reading the posts here, I think the ideas are relevant.
ReplyDeleteI just had a conversation about media and how people find information with my co-workers. At my day job, I run an intranet and am responsible for writing much of the content and publishing other departments' documents. One of the biggest pushes in the past six months has been to provide content via video, mp3 files and Captivate presentation (a glorified PowerPoint with voiceover).
In industry, we're being asked to change the way we deliver content. Writing a clear document is no longer enough. And as much as I'd prefer to simply submit my copy, run an edit, and post a PDF of a Word file, not many people take the time to read it. I have issues with this - but they're beside the point. The bigger arena is that people want their information, stories, articles, HR materials... to contain more than words. And they're getting used to having it this way.
I don't think this poses a shortage of work for good writers. Someone still has to compose the video script, write the news stories, organize the material and make it easy for people to find quickly. Good writers have always done this. Now, though, they're being asked to work more closely with designers and videographers.
Many of my students come to class already familiar with posting to blogs, making simple videos with their digital cameras and running their own websites. Some of the material they post is terrible. Some is worthwhile. As a teacher, I see my job as being aware of what technology can offer and then constantly remind them that the core message of whatever they're trying to say - still requires all the good old-fashioned writing skills. Everything else is decoration and helps get the message out to more people. And it may be someone else's job. Or, maybe having these skills makes them more marketable.
What's interesting to me is that my students and superiors at work both tell me the same thing: Why read if not necessary? BTW - my bosses are older and have been in the tire industry since the 1970s. They're old enough to want to do thing the "old" way. But they don't. They want to deliver their message, both internal and external, in the way that will have the most reception. If people want video, my job is to give it to them. (BTW, I don't produce videos; I work with a videographer.)
In the classroom, I concentrate on teaching students to provide a good, solid message with some rhetorical artistry. To further that objective, I require everyone to turn one paper into a class presentation with an audio / visual component. I don't care if they choose PowerPoint, to show a video clip, bring in a CD, or make a poster-board graphic. Usually, people choose PowerPoint. If they don't already know the program, they often want to learn it.
Sorry for such a long post. I guess I rambled more than I intended. I'm just very interested in all the overlap between my day job and what I see happening at Lakeland. Very cool stuff going on.
And - considering how much more information is being shared and how widely available these tools are to anyone with a computer - I find that teachers have a tremendous opportunity to let students know just how much influence their words can have. It behooves them to write well. The consequences, both good and bad, are far greater than if they were writing in a vacuum with only one person (the teacher) reading it.
I hear what many of you are saying about media overload; however, this is the first time in my long career that I've been presented with the opportunity to dialogue online with teachers in my field about writing. Opening opportunties for this kind of dialogue has to have a positive effect on our teaching.
ReplyDeleteIt's very helpful getting Lori's input about the overlap between what's going on in industry and what's going on in academia.
ReplyDeleteJayne's comments and my own concerns lead me to the conclusion that to a large degree, the choices we make about where to post will have to be arbitrary. Clearly, one can't be going to all locations all the time, and equally clearly there is a lot of redundancy out there. So at least in the classroom environment, to a certain degree we will be forced to be arbitrary.
I'm thinking of a first-week task in future Comp. I courses where I have students indicate all the possible types of oral/written communication in which they engage; with whom; for what purposes. We'll look at what is determining their choices: the tech. to which they have access; their skills; their relationships; some kind of logic; emotional reasons that defy logic; etc. We'll compare our choices/experiences and see what they reveal about us individually and as participants in different communities. And that can be a segway to explaining the choices I've made regarding the technologies we'll be using in the class.
I like the ideas you all have up here so far about using technology. I too am often faced with technology overload. In an attempt to find my place in the digital composition world, I have students doing all kinds of communication and, as a result, feel overwhelmed and a little tired of sitting in front of a computer most days.
ReplyDeleteAs for chatting about technology choices, I had a great discussion with my students about the composition triangle and the role it plays in daily communication. We discussed the purpose, audience and voice of texting, blogging, FaceBooking (apparently MySpace is totally "out," though I love its privacy elements and blogging options that FB does not allow--again, a totally different purpose and, consequently, voice), emailing (for friends, business and teachers) and formal academic essay writing. They loved that chat and found it really helpful in figuring out why the heck they do what they do, even if they hadn't really thought about it before.
Hello everyone,
ReplyDeleteI recall when I taught 8th grade that I went from teaching one big research paper to doing 3 small research projects--one would be a poster, one a speech and one a paper. My thinking is the skills of organization, writing a bibliography and paraphrasing would be better learned if repeated than if only done once a year. I had hoped that the 4th quarter I could then give students the option for a final research project in which they could decide which form of presentation worked best for them. I left that job before I worked it all out but I am wondering if that is how I want to start to teach even at the college leve? Any thoughts?
Lynne Elyl
In response to Lynne, interesting question. I know people teaching 1110 and 1120 at Lakeland have tried both approaches, though always we need the 8-10 page research paper at the end of 1120. The 8-10 page threshold for many of our students is analogous to what the doctoral dissertation or masters thesis was to many of us: a massive psychological and organizational hurdle. For the same reasons there are so many ABD people walking around, there are many students who do everything in 1120 except the final research paper. But I agree practicing many of the skills along the way is important. I'm a great believer in the educational effectiveness of redundancy!
ReplyDeleteThe extended written researched text is something that is central, I believe, to any college-level student. Without this developed critical text, I can't be confident as a composition instructor that my students understand how to integrated and synthesize the ideas from many sources into a single researched text. With that said, I do believe that there is a role for multimodality within the confines of that final research assignment and/or one of many assignments leading toward it. Offering options, for example, for presenting their research, is a great consideration. In the past, I have had my students produce a final website that reflects their entire researching experience, including their interviews, observations, photographs, scholarly sources, performance videos and self-reflective journals along the way of this journey. The choices they made to produce this final project in a visually-appealing manner are ones with rhetorical purpose and value in our contemporary educational environment. Have any of the rest of you integrated these kinds of projects into your research writing courses?
ReplyDelete