The future of technology in my teaching/research

After reading many theorists' ideas about technology and literacy (see below), I have a different perspective on how and why to use new technologies in my classes. Like most people, I resist new technologies that I don't know how to use. But this past year, due partly to a class I took at Boston College, I was thrown into WebCT and needed to use it as part of the coursework. Immediately, I saw uses for my own teaching, and I attempted to get my classes up and using WebCT. The problem was that I didn't put it on the syllabus, and while I did have some great success in certain cases, I received enough push back from certain students that I know I have to revise my syllabus to include WebCT. I also need to point out that my schools VPAA, Dr. Frank Scully, has been pushing faculty to use WebCT and is very enthusiastic about it.

Here are some ways I have and will use WebCT. Wait, first I want to speak more theoretically about the role of technology in the classroom, THEN I'll get to my specific uses of this specific technology. I been forced to think more about what technology is, about its past and its future, and where it begins and ends. I never thought of the written word as a technological advance, but after reading about this idea, it seems clear. The larger overall view presented in many pieced I've read lately contains some type of acceptance of the movement of technology--as opposed to a blind rejection of anything new--coupled with a critical eye aim at the benefits or detriments of incorporating new tools--as opposed to a blind acceptance of anything new. I have also thought more about the continuum between what I will call 'us' and 'it'--the idea that technology is somehow separate from us. People complain that it "changes the way we think/read/act, etc.," but claims like this miss some major points: first it separates us from out technology; second it assumed (by saying that something is changing) that any of these aspects were every static or monolithic. The first point here may need more development: We are not separate from out technology. Yes, it shapes the way we think, but then our thinking in turn shape the technology we want, need, use, which in turn shapes our thinking. It reminds me of Gee's (1999) point that without a context, no word has any meaning, but without words, there is no context; that these two entities eternally mirror one another. For me, the same idea seems to apply to technology. The bigger point here is that changes in thinking are not in themselves bad or wrong; they are just changes. Same with changes in language. These elements were never stable, probably never meant to be.

With this idea in mind, I think of the students coming in to college composition. They have very different ideas of privacy than most people didn't 20 years ago. That's just one example. The newer technologies that we wonder if we should bring into the classroom--these are part of their primary Discourses. To NOT bring them in seems to violate every notion of Freirian Praxis (that's for you, K.).

Back to WebCT: I find that my students have a notion that if they write something, they want it to be up for view, even if it's a minor, more internally motivated type of free thinking on paper. Where I used to assign small reaction papers, informal one-page little numbers, just to get them thinking; and where I used to collect them, maybe reading or maybe just making sure the did them-- for the students, this makes the writing seem like it was "pointless." This may not be a new attribute; we all like knowing that our work has affected someone. But now I have stopped asking them to turn them in, and I ask them to post them on WebCT. There is something about the idea that it's out there, that anyone CAN read it-- I think that this gives them more of a sense of purpose. **further investigation would be needed for me to have a more confident declaration to make... I think that this notion of posting naked thoughts might have been difficult for students even a few years ago, but again, my speculation is that it is not a problem for most incoming college freshmen. Big assumption perhaps, but it's something that I could research, or at least see if others have.

That's one way in which I think WebCT is an amazing tool. Just putting something out there may give it more of a sense of purpose, and since those smaller, less formal writings (kind of like this one) form the basis for their larger ideas, the more they feel the small writings matter, the more likely they are to get the bigger effect of doing them.

My goal for this year is to think up more creative way of using online technology like WebCT, perhaps even blogging, to give the students access to the feeling that their writing actually exists in the real world; that it can serve, as Freire might say, as "consciousness intent upon the world," as a praxis, not just practice. (K.? you feelin' me?) X.

Yes, I'll need to think of more concrete applications, but that is my goal for the year. I want to use my students' incoming proclivity for posting thoughts online as a pedagogical tool.