The Unbearable Confusion Over Technology
Collin offers another critique of WPA Outcomes and technology, something I discussed earlier. So here’s a little follow-up:
The biggest obstacle to understanding the relationship between technology and writing (and pedagogy) is instrumentality. By that, I mean a belief that the technology itself must always be foregrounded. A course in Web Writing? Then you have to teach Dreamweaver. A course in Visuality? You have to teach Photoshop. A course on Computers and Writing? You have to teach from a handful of books written by compositionists. And so on. Expand this mentality to reading exams, dissertations, articles, and you have an insular movement which believes the question of technology is addressed only within its own conversations and exact representations of technology (i.e., imagine a technology-oriented course which does not foreground a computer or using a computer; such a course would resist the simplistic representation we have accepted regarding “computers and writing”). Of course, we should teach HTML, image-manipulation tools, and from our own work. But these are only a few pieces of a larger puzzle.
This is a problem. It is a problem because if offers a limited gesture. But it is not a pedagogical gesture either; it teaches little if anything. We can take the basic concept of the network as example. If we are recognizing the complex ways ideas form, the relationships or sociality of meaning that digital environments foreground (but that have existed previously), then we might begin with spaces which actualize this activity - like a Wiki, content management system, blog, etc - but we also have to consider a number of ideas, objects, people, movements, etc. which further our thinking regarding this activity. One does not have to be in a Wiki to think about, write, or teach, this activity (though, one can be in such a place). I note that the importance of being in the space is not as essential as some believe because I am more interested in the logics of writing, new media, technology, than the space itself. The spaces are important (I like being in the computer classroom), but they should not be used as excuses (”Well, I guess we can’t have technology because we have no money for computers”) nor as force fed administrative moves (”From now on, all instructors must teach students to make a Web page”).
We can teach a technology-oriented pedagogy without computers. And we can (and usually do) teach a non-technology oriented pedagogy in a computer classroom. The WPA statement speaks to a continuation of the latter, not an attempt to address the former. The WPA statement, and others like it, suffers from perspective. It is fixed in a specific perspective (critical thinking, but other mainstays from the history of writing instruction). It suffers from a logic stagnation. To shift perspectives, one has to engage with non-instrumental (non-expected) objects and meanings. To shift perspectives, one has to be open to new logics, like network thinking. Calling something “computer literacy” is not indicative of a shift. The meanings attributed to literacy are merely carried over into technology-based pedagogies as if they are still relevant. Using computers for “research strategies” and “drafting, revising, responding, editing” is not a shift. These are practices we already engage in. They are useful practices we will continue to engage in. But they are not reflective of new kinds of logics emerging.
Enough for now. As I note in Collin’s comment section, the time has come to stop “making statements” and stop repeating the thoughts developed in the 1980s. If the old guard wants to think about technology and writing, it must now turn to the younger generation and be more open to their ideas. It is not our responsibility to adapt to the old guard and beg for acceptance. We are already here, on the Web and in print, and our ideas are accessible. At the least, then, it is time to engage with network thinking within the field - and then hopefully, the field will be able to engage with such thinking outside of itself as well as it learns new methods and practices.
UPDATE:
I went over the WPA-L archives (since I am no longer on the list) and saw that our discussion was posted. But Ed White has this to say: “I’m really glad to see our discussion picked up by people interested in but outside our community.” And that is part of the point I’ve been making all along: perspective, knowledge outside of one’s insular self, networked connectivity, and so on. Ed, we are in this community. We’ve been in this community for some time now. We are not outside. If anything, you are now on the outside, as writing instruction must account for the focus on technology. The statement we are critiquing reflects the “outsideness” of this situation.
I’m not sure about my reaction to the idea that the space is not really all that important. On one level, I see this as true and a welcome correction to technological determinism. At the same time, I think the spaces are crucial–really, I think for two reasons. First, divorced from the spaces and technologies, the teaching and thinking done regarding computers and writing becomes more theory than practice. Once abstracted we don’t need computers to teach computers and writing, but then we may be teaching theory–not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Second, I just gotta think that the spaces and technologies shape the thinking and communication. I’m thinking of the discrepancy between the wordpress/movabletype/drupal writers taking up the OS plank here and its instantiaion on blogger–something you mentioned in your earlier post. Without having to ply labels like literacy or communities of knowledge, the mind set in the first group seems different and for me in large part linked to the different skill set.
That said, I think zooming out like you suggest does make sense for revisions one might make to the statement. Perhaps there should be a bullet suggesting something like students having an understanding (or experience with) the ways technologies shape epistemologies.
I’m also with you on the final gesture–keep mashing, mixing, and otherwise writing with abandon.
Comment by Dan — July 9, 2006 @ 10:15 am
I agree with you, Dan, on all points. Let me see if I can rephrase. The spaces are important (I want a Mac lab on our campus!), but I find instrumental gestures to be only emphasizing these spaces: the computer classroom, the computer, the technology itself. Of course these spaces are important and they shape beliefs. But the problem is when composition or computers and writing or any other area of study sees only the space itself (the question of perspective). So, we become over-obsessed with an issue like access, for example. Having access, of course, matters. But - for the reasons you note as well - we are shaped by technology whether we have access or not. Mashing, mixing, and whatever attribute we give to new media affects those who engage with newspapers, magazines, video, movies, the Web, and so on whether or not they have a computer to do this work as well. This, in essence, is the argument made elsewhere regarding the history of writing and the shaping of various institutions by print culture - even when most people couldn’t write.
If anything, the access argument must be extended away from just owning a computer to access to information, ability to discover threads and patterns among disparate ideas and points, Ted Nelson’s point when he made up this idea called “hypertext.” A good deal of composition pedagogy (thesis) has prevented this gesture. In my book, I argue that the logic for broader access has been there for us to work with, but the field ignores it because of perspective problems (like the way it views 1963 as its “rebirth” because of a handful of texts).
I would call that a shift in space emphasis. Physical space, conceptual space, new spaces of idea development and organization.
Blog space, too, can play into this kind of work. But there are numerous pedagogical approaches that work against it: “blog your daily thoughts.” Then we are back in the non-new media space, the expressivist-space, the non-access space, the space of the individual, the space of Wayne Booth’s “scholar in society.”
Comment by jrice — July 9, 2006 @ 10:27 am
Here’s your Mac lab. But don’t get that particular LaserJet; it’s a piece of junk. Go for a 4200 series.
I don’t think it’s time to stop making policy statements. Quite the reverse: if we don’t make them, W will be doing them for us very soon. Given what (little) I know about the FCAT, NCLB, etc, I’d expect “W’s Way to Write” to be a disaster of epic proportions. These documents can embed a non-instrumental take on technologies (writing, networking, computing) and in fact can model it by performing the abstraction from specific to general which prevents the instrumental (and/or pragmatic) use of technology from becoming the recommended use.
Doubtless one of the problems is that the statement is reverse-engineered from classroom practices which are fairly instrumental to begin with. So right method, but wrong source material.
Comment by cbd — July 9, 2006 @ 11:53 am
I guess. But I’m not convinced that policy statements do much or have done much in our history. One of the least convincing texts I’ve read regarding this is the Outcomes book put out by Utah State press. Lots of fanfare, lots of hyperbole, lots of everything but evidence of what actually is being done or taught via this document. Policy statements let us feel like we have a handrail to hold onto, but beyond that (and I’m not sure we hold on anyway), I don’t see what they have done. I’ll ask about the other (political/pedagogical) side as well: No Child or any other Bush administration inspired document. It gets us riled up. It makes public school teachers have to hold onto a rail, but where is the evidence that anything good came out of it? Pick another flavor. I still want to be shown the money.
Comment by jrice — July 9, 2006 @ 12:17 pm
Just wanted to post a follow up to your update. It’s hard to figure out if there is a real dichotomy brewing between list and blog conversations here. I’m honestly curious about the status of both spaces. I’d hate to configure the blog writers as marginalized p-nut gallery, wreckless experimenters, “haughty” technophiles, naive windmill tilters, etc. Don’t want to write the listserv community as technophobe, status quo, institutional voice, etc. either. And to be fair, I haven’t read the WPA messages other than Ed’s carefully. But still I sense some palpable differences–a lot of which probably fall under the original musings in the postings here. Or, maybe it is just a matter of perspective, like you say.
I posted a msg to the list thinking about this inside/outside construction. I’m actually kind of excited to think that there might still be a dramatic tension between technology promoters and mainstream composition. For a while, I thought that split had disappeared.
Comment by Dan — July 9, 2006 @ 4:35 pm
Overall, I think you’re right about the tension. When I was on WPA-L (and other experiences I’ve had), I noticed that dissent is frowned on or dissenters are dismissed as not being nice or realistic. It’s good to debate and disagree; in fact, it’s healthy.
The one real problem I have (as much as I am still not convinced that Outcomes work and that we need to write Outcomes or someone else will write them for us) was this White comment. That felt unhealthy. It felt - hey, I don’t know who they are; therefore, they are not in our tent. Obviously, that’s not true. Our CVs demonstrate that we are very much in this community. We have been active on WPA-L (before a number of us left the listserv). We know who he is. We know who lots of people are. We are trying to be less insular. I wish I could say that about others. Composition needs to broaden its perspectives. It has needed to do so for some time.
Regarding the technology issue, I still don’t understand why this community would not reach out to a younger generation and either ask for advice or ask for participation. While I don’t want to be involved in Outcomes, I can think of a number of smart people who probably would want to be involved - people I agree with and people I don’t agree with regarding technology and teaching. They might serve such projects well since they have active research and teaching agendas when it comes to technology.
Comment by jrice — July 9, 2006 @ 5:31 pm
I’ve not followed this much other than what’s been written here and on Collin’s blog. I glanced at the Blogger site last week, and from what I’ve seen, everyone’s been dead on here. And I hear you on the lack of inclusion of the younger generation. I volunteered to help with the technology plank, hoping that my status as a Kairos ed board member and a member of the 7Cs Committee might offset my all too often perceived outsider status. I might be wrong, but I had the distinct impression at the time that I was being politely brushed off. And from the discussion on Blogger, it seems that my one suggestion made on WPA-L last year–that the use of the term “technology” for computer/digital technology implicitly suggests that writing can and has been non-technological. On the one hand, it’s almost cliche to point that out, but on the other hand, I see little evidence in the Blogger discussion that this point is understood. I point to the criteria that defines a “critical understanding of digital literacy” as a case in point.
As you note, Jeff, it’s as much about noetic processes and habits of mind and practice than it is physical access to and use of specific technologies.
Comment by John — July 9, 2006 @ 6:32 pm
It is quite odd, John. And it further alienates a newer generation…not that this generation is so much bothered but that it is separated, apart, remote. Several have left WPA-L. They have taken their discussion elsewhere, like among their own spaces online. And many have the expertise to help these folks further their work in meaningful ways.
Comment by jrice — July 9, 2006 @ 7:11 pm
As Jeff sez, there’s a problem of gesture and the limits of gesture.
What is desired are various gestures, and these gestures are happening.
Are they happening here? Yes, they’re happening here.
Comment by gvcarter — July 9, 2006 @ 8:53 pm
[…] In place of blogging, I’ve been writing some notes on a potential article that I’d like to send out sometime before the summer ends. It’s on mechanics–rhetorical mechanics–as a worthy pursuit for compositionists. This is something that is difficult for me to write, since there seems to be a distinction I’m tacitly making between saying yes to “technology” and the knowledge of material equipment for production (audio recording, digital recordings, editing programs, etc.). But, in light of the conversations going on right now, I should see some exigence opening up for this kind of argument. On one hand, the argument is old (we have too much work to do without having to learn _____). Okay. Whatever. I’m not gonna jump in the middle of that one. But my point is that the work of learning and experiementing with these kinds of mechanics is a gesture of rhetorical potential. Start seeing these things as our available means of production. […]
Pingback by Working Blue — July 9, 2006 @ 8:57 pm
planks of technology…
I’ve been following the discussion of the proposal for a technology plank on the WPA Outcomes Statement on the WPA-L and on “>Jeff’s and Collin’s blogs. As has been mentioned around, there is a sense of insiders and outsiders to…
Trackback by digital digs — July 10, 2006 @ 11:12 am
[…] The Unbearable Confusion Over Technology on Yellow Dog. Jeff discusses what he calls the “instrumentality” (”…a belief that the technology itself must always be foregrounded.”) of the OS. […]
Pingback by the forgotten canon » Blog Archive » Walking the “Techplank” — July 11, 2006 @ 5:26 pm