the month of June

In his forward to (Re)Visioning Composition Textbooks: Conflicts of Culture Ideology, and Pedagogy, Gary Olson notes that since 1987 when Kathleen Welch published “Ideology and Freshman Textbook Production: The Place of Theory in Writing Pedagogy,” scholars in composition have pointed out the “normalizing, even anti-progressive force that textbooks play in composition pedagogy” (ix). In that article, Welch notes that not only do most composition textbooks not seem to reflect writing pedagogy theory, many also present “unconscious theory” (269). I believe that course-in-a-box software is in need of this same kind of critical work that’s been done with textbooks over the past twenty plus years and that it too presents “unconscious theories” (although I’m not entirely sure of how “unconscious” it is on the part of software developers, but that might be sounding a bit conspiracy theory-ish): 1) is that knowledge, particularly the kind of knowledge produced in higher education must be protected behind firewalls (and yet at the same time, students never truly get to “own” their own knowledge as whatever gets produced within these CMSs is removed at the end of the semester) and 2) that knowledge is best produced in a highly structured and closely surveyed environment where everything a student does can be watched by not only the teacher and other students but by administration (this also goes for everything that an instructor does). The hierarchical and rigid structure of most course-in-a-box software emulates the classroom with desks in straight rows with an instructor at the front who is the central authority figure and can see all of the room, thereby, cementing the teacher-centered approach to teaching/learning that so many of us in composition discarded long ago. As Matthew K. Gold puts it, “The problem with Learning Management Systems lies in the conjunction of three words that should not appear together. Learning is not something that can be “managed” via a “system.” We’re not producing widgets here — we’re attempting to inspire creative thought and critical intelligence.” And a similar sense, the accuracy of the description “course-in-a-box” says a lot about the outdated, “normalizing,” “anti-progressive” force that these systems are having in our classrooms. Self-contained systems like Blackboard and Angel, etc. are a one-size-fits-all approach to pedagogy, which, we (at least in composition) have addressed in the form of textbook production as problematic. Gale and Gale open their book discussing how often a first-year teacher or teaching assistant is ready to dump the assigned text at the first given opportunity. They discuss the frequency with which instructors pick a bunch of handouts over a single textbook or how many instructors prefer to compile their own readers. This approach of the pile of handouts and/or customized reader is very similar to the loosely-pieced-together approach to classroom new media tools that many, including myself, are suggesting as an alternative to ready-made, self-contained CMSs.

In his blog entry called, “Parsing the Box,” “Boone” writes, “Moreover, I think there’s a tendency on the behalf of many educators to default to the closed system out of fear or laziness, and this tendency should be challenged.” I can further solidify his loosely held belief about why educators tend to use course-in-a-box software with stats from my research study conducted last year. Yes, two of the top reasons are fear, and let’s say, “ease” of use (see Bradley Dilger). The other reason is the lack of knowledge of any alternative(s). And this, I believe, is partially the fault of system administrators and campus instructional technologist. Now that is a broad sweeping claim, and I certainly don’t mean all of them. This happens because, as Trip Kirkpatrick points out in the discussion that follows Gold’s post “Against Learning Management Systems”, “Because fast-cheap-and-out-of-control is scary. It requires keeping up with tech, it requires learning new things regularly, and it requires taking risks.” In other words, this alternative to ready-made CMSs in the form of small-loosely-pieced applications and software components appears risky to administration. Part of the appeal for administration to software like CMSs and ePortfolio software is the tight control they have over it. They get access to “outcomes” for assessment purposes and get to manage the outcomes to a large extent. Furthermore, as Kirkpatrick writes, “Finally, of course, there’s the budget. When the Provost’s office asks how much is needed to implement a “small-pieces-loosely-joined approach”, those without experience doing it won’t even know how to figure out how to answer the question.”

Bradley Dilger, in his essay, “Ease and Electracy,” (from New Media/New Methods: The Academic Turn from Literacy to Electracy) points out that his work is incomplete and therefore does not present a comprehensive pedagogy, which is understandstandable. Also, I feel that Dilger’s work around ease is very relevant to my chapter on the use of CMSs, considering the fact that many instructors choose not to use new media because it appears too difficult, too daunting for them and still others choose to use these ready-made CMSs because they offer ease of use. However, I was also left with many questions.

One of the divisions that I see in composition particularly around use of new media is the question of “to code or not to code.” In other words, there seems to be a split in composition between those who understand the underlying layers of the technology they’re using and those who rely on the ease of the user-centered, intuitive interfaces of course-in-a-box type software like Blackboard or Angel. Dilger addresses this type of user (both as student and instructor) who sees technology as a force beyond her/his control. Dilger suggests iteration, which he defines as, “repeating the same task with slight differences each time” because it harnesses “the modularity and variability principles of new media” (131). Dilger’s suggestion for using iteration as a pedagogical approach, which I don’t completely understand (probably because, as he says, it’s incomplete) “would also provoke student interest in the creation of technologies by offering direct connections between technologies and human agents. In this way, the simplistic view of technology typical of ease would be disrupted; it would be difficult for students to claim techonologies they shaped were natural forces beyond their control” (132-3). Primarily, it seems, Dilger is working, in this essay, to complicate technology and new media, which I think is important and lies at the root of my desire to see tech tools, in particular, course-in-a-box software studied as objects worthy of critical attention (by both instructor and student).

In his incomplete version of this iteration pedagogy, Dilger explains that he’s not suggesting we turn students into programmers but rather he wants to “disrupt two assumptions (1) some people are programmers, and some people are not; (2) progamming is an advanced form of computer usage exclusive to experts” (132). He’d like to see what we consider “programming” change, and he describes this change as already taking place in document production. His example: “Everyday word processors allow writers to make decisions about page numbers, font selection, and other book encodings previously restricted to expert designers or printers” (132), but clearly this is not “programming” (even, I think, if we consider that term in some out-of-the-box way). I get that he is comparing this shift from in-the-hands-of-experts to in-the-hands-of-the-everyday-user, but also, earlier in the essay, Dilger describes the What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (or WYSIWYG) editors that are used in so many current new media applications as an example of ease and its problematic nature and the transparency of technology that he is concerned with. Drawing on Marcel O’Gorman’s 2000 article, “You Can’t Always Get What you Want: Transparency and Deception on The Computer Fashion” that argues “as the desktop computer becomes more simple to use and more attractive to behold, the user is unwittingly faced with an increasing loss of power and control over the machine,” Dilger (who shares similar concerns) gives the example of creating a hypertext link: instead of learning how one functions, a person “learns how to make links with a certain program” (119). I guess my confusion stems from the fact that I don’t see a huge difference between this and the example of choosing font and page numbers in a word processing program. If we are going to attempt to erase, or at least blur, the separation between programmer and “not programmer”/expert and everyday user, then these functions are going to need to be…dare I say it…”easy” — usable with ease. But more importantly, I am left unclear as to what ultimately Dilger wants to see changing in terms of how we define “programming” or “programmer.” I get that he doesn’t want this digital divide of those who program and those who don’t, yet I’m not sure to what extent he expects teachers and students in a composition classroom to really understand and engage with code. I’m not intending this as a critique. I’m genuinely interested, because it’s something I’ve struggled with in using tech in the comp classroom. Dilger writes, “If, as I believe, ease shapes the way we understand the concept of technology, then composition instructors–who have always been ‘teaching with technology’–should understand ease” (110). And “ease” in the more specific context of this essay, focused on new media practices, “often means refusing to see the code: preferring a simple, pragmatic approach which doesn’t involve the complication of complete understanding” (109). Given then some of Dilger’s examples and his desire to rethink “programming,” I wonder if something as simple as revealing the code of a webpage or showing students the difference between the HTML screen and the standard WYSIWYG screen or the difference between using the code feature or not (I just noticed that wordpress has changed from the two screen options that used to be there) might begin to address some of Dilger’s concerns.

Another idea that I want to stress in my own work is the idea of dropping CMSs and LMSs entirely and and utilize the bits and pieces approach as an alternative. In this discussion of the Desire2Learn/Blackboard battle, readers are suggesting interesting combinations of PLE use along with “loosely joined possibilities”, “bits and pieces we find laying around the place,” etc. A commenter with the username Gardner suggests the ultimate first-year-writing experience: having a user created PLE. I think this type of assignment might be a response to the ideas that Dilger is laying out in his essay.

When Dilger describes the “lack of generalized knowledge” that “can cause serious difficulty if trouble arises,” he brings in Blackboard as an example: “widely used because it makes website production easy–with it, creating a sophisticated course website requires minimal technical knowledge of hypertext. To the instructor using it, the complex hypertext file structure is transparent” (119). And what if it wasn’t? (Again, I ask this ask of genuine interest, coming from place of my own concerns and confusions). What if the instructor had an understanding of the underlying system that makes Blackboard work, how would that change her/his relationship to the technology? Would that make her/him a more hesitant user? More willing to venture “outside the box” and use other available technology? Would it cause him/her to question the presence of corporate software on college campuses?

The more I write, the more I wind up with questions, so I’ll try to wrap up here. At the end of his piece, Dilger argues that the idea of ease need to be carefully considered “by composition instructors teaching the production of new media” (133). This is very different than the instructors who teach with technology (loosely defined) that Dilger mentions in the opening of the piece. And it is also different (I think?) than teacher who use new media practices in their writing courses. So I am curious as to exactly the intended audience/type of composition teacher that Dilger is thinking about here. All and all, I am just really trying to get out how we can complicate technology and the use of new media in the classroom and undo that transparency, which Dilger so well describes, while also not alienating faculty and other users. How can we actually teach that technology is not neutral to teachers who can then pass that on to their students, if so many of the faculty are unwilling to and fearful of these practices and/or opt for the course-in-a-box software that is so emblematic of “ease”?

It’s the start of week four, and I still feel like I have the semester within my control. It hasn’t slipped away from me yet, but apparently blogging has. It’s been over a week since I’ve attended to this blog, and I made a pact with myself that I had to blog at least as often as my students (once per week minimum; it’s only fair), so I’m overdue. I have one student who has clearly taken to the online writing forum that we know as a blog, and he has blogged nearly everyday since he started his blog two weeks ago. His writing is entertaining — smart and witty — fun to read. All in all, I’m super impressed with my students’ blogs. This semester they are doing themed blogs. The topics they’ve chosen range from social issues to celebrity gossip to sports to biochemistry. I’ve had a good time reading them so far.

Continuing with semester news: I was assigned to teach in a classroom that is slightly larger than my living room (I live in a bungalow in the middle of the city; my living room is NOT large). It is a classroom that is used for religious education for elementary school students (there is a bunch of kid produced artwork along the back wall that begins with “Blessed are the fourth graders…”). The space is clearly meant to hold small children, not a bunch of eighteen year olds and their writing teacher. The room is filled with rows of tables that can’t be moved at all because there simply isn’t enough space. I am accustomed to having students move into a circle/square/rectangle shape, and so was initially baffled by what to do with the space. Ultimately I found that I couldn’t do anything with it, but the space issue seems to be working to our advantage. For some reason it appears that the small (living room size) space has lent a living room type intimacy to the class community. Students seem more willing to participate in class and have shared joking comments with me and their peers about the challenges of the space (to play our ice breaker/name game students had to do a lot of swiveling to see the faces of their peers). I’ve been surprised by how well it has been working out, although I wouldn’t necessarily want to teach in such a cramped space again (not to mention the lack of technology — the neck cramp that results from trying to look at the large LG monitor that acts as both computer monitor and screen for the entire class to view).

I have a series of other blog entries that I’ve been carrying around in my head: adjunct labor, the Ani DiFranco show at the Palace, the dissertation work, seeing and reading Atonement, and recent thoughts about Facebook and Twitter. Coming soon….

For all the anxiety that I had going into each of the three classrooms that I was assigned to teach in yesterday, my students seem — on the whole — to be quite an interesting, entertaining, friendly, thoughtful, and lovely bunch (and I mean none of that in a condescending way). I just finished reading through the three sections worth of questionnaires that I give them to fill out on the first day. Here are a few of the things I have learned:

• Favorite authors among college students (at a four-year, private (Catholic affiliated) liberal arts institution): Nicholas Sparks, Jodi Picoult, John Grisham, J.K. Rowling, Khaled Hosseini (a good number of my students have read or are reading The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns). One book mentioned by a student that caught my attention (having never heard of it) was This Present Darkness — apparently this falls into the genre of “Christian thriller”, which I also never knew existed.
• Approximately 94% of them have Facebook and/or Myspace accounts
• Many (I’d say about a third — maybe slightly more) transferred from community colleges and/or other colleges — mostly state schools
• The majority don’t blog (in fact, only 3% have ever blogged before, and none do currently) but have heard of or are familiar with them.
• Sports (playing) and hanging out with friends lead in the hobbies/activities department

All in all I am hoping to hold onto the magic and enthusiasm with which both students and instructor met the first day.

As I revise last semester’s syllabi to this semester’s schedule, I am trying to rein myself in and not go all nuts trying new things, making major changes, and all of that. I love playing with curriculum and pedagogy, brainstorming all the possibilities and spending time strategizing, but this is my last semester at CSR, as they’re not renewing my contract next semester (I’ve reached the two year mark, which marks the end of contingent faculty contracts), and since I’m basically teaching the same courses as last semester (and as far as I know the semester went relatively well), I don’t see the point in going into total overhaul mode. It’s strange, but I haven’t gotten my evaluations back from last semester, so I also don’t have a lot to go by in terms of feedback about what worked and what didn’t.

I really wanted adopt a new grading system this semester. I have been considering trying contract grading, but I guess I am just one of these “not ready to let go” people. I guess I’m just feeling like it will be a lot of work to pull off for this semester that is starting in less than a week.