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Online Public Discourse Communities: Reconfiguring College Teaching. Presented by Judy Arzt.
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Online Public Discourse Communities: Reconfiguring College Teaching Presented by Judy Arzt
“Digital technology and new media–for better or worse–are here to stay … you can’t turn off the Internet. Digital technology isn’t going away. There are hundreds of thousands of sites in the World Wide Web ….Digital technology is part of our lives, a part of our lives that we know will only continue to grow. We can’t afford to dismiss it. Rather we must–embrace it–indiscriminately, but thoughtfully. We must seize the opportunities to do things we’ve never been able to do before. Don’t look back!” Steven Holzman, Digital Mosiac
What does digital mean for higher education? • Online bulletin boards for cross-campus discussions • Web authoring projects • Meshing of theory with praxis • postmodern and social constructivist theories • collaborative learning and writing across the curriculum • Teaching new literacy skills
Presentation Goals • Describe exemplary case studies of classroom practice • Examine emerging theories in the field • Offer examples from my own teaching
International Debate Project • Linked students from the University of Rhode Island with students from around the world • Fostered writing across the curriculum, collaborative learning, and global awareness • Emphasized importance of instructor’s role to structure the context and provide discussion topics Linda Shamoon in Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum
Cross-cultural Project • Urban, black students at Howard University and rural, white students at Montana State University exchanged work online • Howard students were assigned to write about race relations • The students collaboratively produced a book, On (the Color) Line: Networking to End Racism • The technology engendered online public discourse Teresa Redd in Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum
Collaborative Web Site Project • Students in a computer science class and an English class developed a college’s Web site • Students invested time in the writing task and developed a strong sense of community Michael Strickland & Robert Whitnell, Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum
Instructors’ Comments “We like to think of the Web as an ongoing laboratory with the biggest windows in the world. When anyone can look in and see what you’ve produced, your incentive to collaborate and do well is greatly increased. This is a heady sense of empowerment and ownership.” Micheal Strickland & Robert Whitnell
Visual Literacy • The visual nature of the Internet will revolutionize the way we communicate • Hypertext juxtaposes verbal and visual, altering the communication process • Students need to produce “cultural relevant text,” incorporating the visual Gunther Kress, “’English at the Crossroads: Rethinking Curricula of Communication in the Context of the Turn to the Visual”
Postmodernism Online classrooms foster student-focused instruction, collaborative learning, commitment to task, and participatory classroom structures Lester Faigley in Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century Technologies
“Computers embrace postmodern theory and bring it down to earth.”Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet
In networked classrooms students create the agenda. Their online composing is the content and curriculum of the course.
Classroom Dynamics • The instructor is a “learned coordinator” • The instructor “controls less” and “says less” • The classroom is a “knowledge-making enterprise” where an “egalitarian state” is realized” Richard Lanham, Carolyn Handa, Thomas Barker & Fred Kemp, Computers and Community
My Classroom Experiences • Web-site tools and bulletin boards have made public discourse and writing synonymous • Descriptions of experiences with • first-year composition class • graduate education class
Time Capsule • Memorializes historical events from year 2000 • Table of contents page lists these events • Items on table of contents become hyperlinks for entry into the hypertext capsule
Memoirs • Topics with public appeal • Photographs are incorporated • Juxtaposition of verbal and visual drives textual revision
Profiles • Interview people from the college community • Public nature of the Web makes accuracy of reporting critical • Final Web profiles inform the public about the people at the college
Commentaries • IEDP allows students to exchange ideas with students throughout the country • Students gain a broader perspective on controversial issues • Discussions help students learn how to craft an effective argument
Reviews • Study reviews on the Web • Advance Web authoring skills • See classmates’ reviews on the Web • Generate heated class discussions
Research Papers • Extend commentaries into research papers • Consider topics in relation to public viewing on the Internet • Use strategies to aid viewers • break long texts into chunks • use graphics to underscore ideas • add links to authoritative sites
Computers in the Classroom Course • Web sites expand students’ audiences for writing • The sites provide information about K-12 software and how to use it • Students create individual sites and a class site • Viewers include educators from across the country and software publishers
Internet Lessons for K-12 Students • Easy for K-12 students to do online work • Parents learn about their children’s school projects
Web Sites Empower Students • Students work on sites after the course ends • They create sites far more complex than initially envisioned • Their work exceeds syllabus requirements
IEDP with Graduate Students • Found common discussion topics were critical to the project’s success • Connected the experience to the possibilities for similar projects on the K-12 level • Gained experience for doing online projects with their own students
Conclusions • Students are eager to participate in online writing projects • Students need our guidance • Our teaching needs to be reconfigured in relation to what the technology offers • We need to address new literacy skills applicable to online writing
And More Conclusions • We must assume responsibility for the direction that online writing takes in the future • We need to envision how online technologies enrich communication, create opportunities for public discourse and make writing a publicly critical act
