Digital Tech and English Pedagogy

Ciccoricco, D. & O'Steen, B; "Digitial Technology and English Pedagogy: From the Traditional Essays to Fabric of Digital Text" from Karois; a Journal of Rhetoric, Technology and PolicyIssue 13. 1, http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.1/praxis/ciccoricco-osteen/index.htm, retrieved 8/5/08

Digitial Technology and English Pedagogy: From the Traditional Essays to Fabric of Digital Text reports there are two significant ways that their class web project exemplifies how reading and writing practices change online: "The first takes place not when students and teachers simply use digital tools but when they learn to use them reflexively, which is to say whenever they become aware of the peculiar affordances (and limitations) these tools entail in relation to other and/or older media.
The second grows out of the rhetorical and navigational stucture of the web project itself, which is intended to incorporate two ways of organizing and presenting information — two ways of writing — simultaneously and toward mutually enhancing ends. Specifically, it places an associative or lateral linking texture over (or under, or in between) a linearly directed (albeit looping) one."

The authors ask: Does digital technology have a place in English pedagogy? re we expected to expand our definition of literacy to include visual, mediated literacy?

Gregory Ulmer is a leading guru on this conversation and makes the point that the printing press also caused a stir amongst scholars in the Humanities.

Drawing on Wilbur Hatfield (1935), a post Dewey thinker, the authors report on experience being the best eduator for a student-centered classroom.
They argue, "Teachers and students should develop an understanding of English as a discipline that includes more than the skills derived from literature discussions and writing essays."

One interesting point made in this article is the digital reality of using images to coincide with text. The authors write:
"The result was that many students devoted a lot of time and energy into searching for and selecting images — even to the extent that it was taking some time away from the task of linking in the final workshop. The students enjoyed this aspect of the assignment, and their choices reflected a genuine and enthusiastic engagement with the idea of creating a dialogue between the image and text."

Perhaps most enlightening from this study is the implications they write at the end:

"First of all, it is an exchange between an English teacher and digital tools: English teachers who are conversant with digital technology can better recognize the changing face of literacy and are able to convey to students that traditional conceptions of literacy and new conceptions of "media literacy" are not mutually exclusive. Second, it is an exchange between the technological and the literary. This relationship is symbiotic and mutually enhancing — after all, as literary production becomes more technical, there is no reason why it should become less literary. Finally, the project is a conversation between students. The Web is a communal and participatory medium. Its application in academic settings should reflect this quality. It is, above all, an open-ended conversation."

I am still back in forth with my thinking about reading long texts online, but also with the way you can navigate from one place to the next. My eyes water and because I'm not built like E.T. with large, optical lenses with rich rods and cones, I get a big buggy about the lighting. This, coupled with the warmth of my lap top also doesn't make for comfortable reading. It does, however, make taking notes online a lot easier.