10/1--Anson, and Moran and Herrington

Often, we discuss how some readings for our class seem a bit outdated today. Almost a moot point (or at least, overstated point), I couldn’t help but be struck by this critique while completing my reading. This, of course, is the nature of technology, and it is the nature of writing about technology. The topic of assessment within the field of computers and writing, however, seems to resurface frequently, suggesting many questions about this topic that have yet to be answered or addressed satisfactorily—an there are many more topics out there in our field just like this one.

In addition to questions about assessment, this week’s readings raise important questions about other issues that seem to transcend any particular time table, unlike the media which produce these questions. For example, Anson’s article in particular seemed dated, though its overall relevance in terms of the way we respond to students via technology was quite interesting and is still a question many tech-savvy teachers discuss. The Moran and Herrington reading also seemed relevant, especially in its discussion of evaluating hypertext and establishing a hypertextual “grading” heuristic. Additionally, discussions of how we evaluate student writings produced in different media lead to discussions about how we value and count faculty publications produced in various media, making this topic interesting on two fronts; it is particularly relevant as discussions about how tenure review boards treat electronic publications by faculty begin to surface.

I think the most important thing about studying the literature of our field, however dated it may seem at times, is drawing inspiration from it. Not only are we inspired by the projects and applications we read about, we can be inspired to question existing practices, or we can be inspired to take up questions that were never quite “answered.” One of these questions that came to me as I read the first article, “Variations on a Theme…”, was this: to what extent does the type of classroom we teach in determine our pedagogy? In other words, is a class that takes up technology as a major theme out of place in a non-computerized classroom? Or can we count the computers (and they are computers) in our students’ pockets and backpacks in the form of cell phones as making our classrooms “networked” even if there are no desktops in the place? Can we assume that the extent to which our everyday lives are impacted by technology makes teaching technology as a major theme in a writing class that’s not in a computer classroom okay? What types of assumptions do we make about accessibility and literacy when we assume this?

My point is this: it’s obvious to anyone that some of these readings are a bit out of date. But the fact that they’re older is not really the point: it’s what these works say (and don’t say), the questions they raise (and don’t raise, or don’t really answer) that make them valuable and relevant today.