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 And a similar sense, the accuracy of the description “course-in-a-box” says a lot about the outdated, “normalizing,” “anti-progressive” force that these systems are having in our classrooms.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.”

In Transitions: Teaching Writing in Computer-Supported and Traditional Classrooms, Mike Palmquist, et al assure writing teachers who are interested in using technology that they don’t need to be an expert, “although you need to be familiar with the basic functions of a particular program to use it effectively, you don’t need to know all (or even most) of the functions of the program to be an effective writing teacher” (185). This attitude flies directly in the face of the kind of complicating work that I described Bradley Dilger doing in his work.

“In a writing class where producing text is more important than ‘presenting’ it, teachers are extremely successful with only a basic understanding of a particular word processing program” (186). The basic idea here is that presentation — color of font, specific layout features, etc. — aren’t important to writing. I’m not sure that this was ever the case, but certainly in terms of the new media practices found in a writing classroom ten years after this book was written we know that this is not accurate. Writing with technology, creating and producing a text *are* about presentation, the message gets told in part by the presentation.

Palmquist, et. al also address the issue of time/labor involved with learning a particular program well enough to teach (with) it. They suggest creating the “class plans far enough in advance” so that “you can learn the program before you assign it to the class” (186); however this recommendation is met with resistance from a teacher named “Caitlin” who comments: “When you have 75 students and you’re working to keep your head above water, the last thing that you think about doing is using some sort of new technology that would take, maybe two or three hours for you to sit down and figure out how you’re actually really going to make it work in the classroom. It’s something that just doesn’t happen” (186). And while these sentiments are nearly ten years old, they still abound in English departments and writing classrooms. This frustration, lack of time, unwillingness to invest, etc. is what I see time and again in my survey responses and results.

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”?

I am lurking in Kim and Megan’s Personal Essay Filmmaking class for the next couple of weeks. The deal is that I’ll give them feedback in exchange for learning how to *finally* use my digital video camera. This will bring me back to the summer days I spent in my basement making videos with my little brother and best friend. Right now, however, we’re practicing embedding videos. Unfortunately I don’t have one of my friend and I performing the Eagles’ “Take it Easy,” so I’ll bring you this video instead (I actually have no idea what this video is; I’m just practicing after all):

Typically, Friday mornings begin with dissertation writing. Lately I’ve been trying not to get bogged down in all of the materials that I need to read more closely and integrate more carefully and thoroughly into my work (like all of the debates around assessment and accreditation as instigated by the Spellings Commission), and I’ve simply been trying to “slop” words onto the page. But today I got bogged and came to realize how much I need to develop and unpack what I mean by “open source.” And then there are all the groups, movements, and organizations working with open source concepts that are also doing work relevant to my own: the open educational resource (OER) community, the open source initiative (OSI) organization, and the schools like MIT who are working with open courseware, and it goes on and on — website after website, article after article, wikipedia entry after wikipedia entry…. How’s a girl supposed to keep all of this organized both in her head and on “paper”?

So instead of plugging away at creating chapter descriptions for my introduction, I wrote this blog entry — to moan a little and to try to see a bit more clearly the unruly monster of “open source” that I’m dealing with.