Week 9 Reflections

I wonder if participatory culture is evidence for the idea that hierarchical relationships are not as effective as voluntary relationships. With participatory culture, everyone chooses whether or not they want to participate. Therefore, the motivations for participating are self-generating rather than being generated by the instructor. In many cases, instructors have to work to engage students with Hamlet. But students do all of the work themselves when generating enthusiasm for Harry Potter.

The use of afterschool programs to help students develop multi-modal skills is something I never thought of and which seems obvious now. Afterschool programs could have a much more informal structure, could be much more student-driven and do not require the facilitators to actually evaluate the students, yet the students can be encouraged to self-evaluate. I still think multi-modal technology should be taught in the classroom, but afterschool programs might have much more of the potential to flexibly explore technology proficiency.

Jenkins brought up instances where children more fully understand certain perspectives by playing the roles of characters within a story, such as with the case of the student playing the loyalist who was shot at and arrested. I agree that students can become more engaged when taking on the roles of characters. These actions help students sustain a higher level of engagement with ideas, but will these students then ever learn to maintain engagement with texts simply by reading them. Students might not learn how to effectively empathize with different perspectives without actually role-playing a particular character.

I think I’ve heard somewhere before that for Internet multitaskers, the Internet is becoming almost like a prosthetic brain. Jenkins mentioned how some skilled multitaskers are able to overcome limitations in short-term memory by simply remembering where information is at rather than committing information to short-term memory. Books seemed to serve that same function though. For example, instead of remembering recipes, we have recipe books. The Internet just allows us to more quickly retrieve information than flipping through a book if we know how to use it proficiently.

I like Jenkin’s analogy of the hunter and the farmer. One of the biggest messages that my psychology 101 class tried to put forward was that the human mind is adaptive. That’s an excellent thing since a glance at history will show how rapidly our world can change. Old models of education were built for an older world and if educators want to really help students succeed, they must help students adapt to the current world instead of forcing the students to adapt to the educator. Instead of being an abnormality, the rewired brains of the Internet generation might simply be adapting like we always have. They’re successfully adapting to the new environment and we must help them as best we can, since many skills might be useful to younger generations, yet might not be obviously useful, such as critical thinking skills.

I hope collective intelligence is the new model for solving societal problems. There are many students who seem to wish they could have a positive impact on society, but do not know where to begin. The online collective efforts such as the Haiti relief efforts allow philanthropic individuals to quickly connect with others who can give them a crash course on the relief efforts. These collective efforts also fill the need for affiliation, though in a very positive way. The fact that educators teach students to think independently more than thinking collectively might result in students developing an inaccurate view of their future work life. The education system suggests to students that they must succeed in school ultimately so that they can eventually succeed in the workplace. Therefore, the education system implies that the individualistic and competitive style of education is only comparing them for the future work world and that the collectivistic and multimodal world is merely a diversion from the world of work. 

Reactions to Week 7 Readings

Critical technology usage is a skill of the 21^st century. As most individuals have access to numerous forms of expression, they can now make critical choices about what technologies they will take advantage of.  On the web at least, the most effective students will be those who are able to accomplish their goals using the most effective tools possible. In any given situation… why is a video more useful than a text? Why is an audio more useful than a picture? Maybe the content that the student is exploring is more visually-oriented in one case. Maybe in the other case, the speaker’s voice is important. What better way to express the speaker’s voice than through speaking?

I thought Borton and Huot’s ideas revolving around reciprocity between students and teachers were compelling. I wonder what effect reciprocity would have on students when all of their instructors show their humanity by demonstrating that they do not know everything but that they do happen to be specialized in certain areas, such as looking for rhetoric in written and spoken word. Collectivistic learning environments seem exciting, with each student bringing any skills he or she has to the table with the effort of improving the class’s cumulative learning. This reciprocal learning might also help improve evaluation. What’s the point of evaluation outside of school other than to help us understand if we accomplished our specific goals.

I think peer review sessions might be more helpful in multimodal courses. Students often consume the types of texts that are created in a multimodal course on their own and they have some expertise, as an audience, about what they like or don’t like. Since students rarely read academic essays, I can’t imagine classmates being about to provide feedback from the perspective of a consumer of essays in the same way that they can provide feedback from the perspective of a consumer of movies. However, we brought up in the class and Alexander mentioned in our readings how haven’t always acquired the skills yet to articulate why they like a particular multimodal work.  For example, students might have a difficult time explaining exactly why they like the beat of the song placed over the video essay and why the beat fits well with the rhetorical goals of the essay.

I’m crazy about the “Technology and Literacy in Your Future” section. I think a lot of students would be more motivated if they understood that instructors were not simply wasting their time but were instead actually trying to teach them skills that they would need in the future. However, what might also be helpful is if the classes became more targeted after the students studied members of their intended fields so that students could learn more about the types of rhetorical and writing skills that they will actually be using for a good portion of their lives. I’m not saying that students should only be limited to the types of writing that they will be doing in their cubicle; there’s nothing wrong with branching out a little bit.

Beach et al’s advice that students should not be given too many details in feedback is sound. Not only are too many details overwhelming but students are also less likely to remember important points of revision if they are overwhelmed with the less important points of revision. Revision should work one step at a time. Students need time to practice new writing techniques and break old habits. I remember when working as a writing center tutor, we focused on higher order concerns before moving on to lower order concerns. If a student was supposed to write an analysis of a work of literature and instead provided a summary, I could care less if the student walked out of the tutoring session with a comma splice. I cared a lot more that the student understood what analysis was in the context of an academic essay and that the student was capable of asking the kinds of questions necessary to write an analysis. Of course, instructors have the power to actually write on the student’s paper, so the student can read the papers later on. Remembering comments can be more difficult when you have a discussion face-to-face in a conference if the student has been given a lot of information. Memory can also be a problem in the brainstorming sessions that Beach et al described, with the student and instructor coming up with all sorts of brilliant ideas, 90% of which are forgotten when the student parts with the instructor and maybe another 9% are forgotten if the student doesn’t write these ideas down quickly enough.

Week Six

Beach et al’s story about Derek was a good example of how students can express themselves through other multimedia. Students who might have a potential for developing great critical thinking skills might become bogged down by their difficulties with writing mechanics. Given how second nature writing is to us, we often forget that writing is a very technical activity. Many students have more experience speaking than they do writing. Students can expand their critical thinking skills and later perfect their writing style and mechanics.

I believe that critical thinking skills are far more difficult to teach than writing skills. Students are drawn to different kinds of literacies, perhaps through their own competencies or perhaps through various features in their personalities. Students who are allowed to gravitate towards their preferred literacies can spend more time focusing on rhetorical choices and less time trying to master unfamiliar literacies.

Also, oral communication skills and public speaking skills are almost as important as writing skills in life outside the classroom and may be more important to some students. Beach et al pointed out that students do a lot of writing when creating the scripts used for the podcasts. Maybe the fear of embarrassment plays a role in encouraging students to get their writing just right, since they will have to be actually speaking in front of their fellow students.

I wish more instructors would record their classes in a podcast format. I’ve listened to several podcasts released by instructors from other universities on subjects that I’m interested in but do not have the time or money to take courses in. I almost pursued a degree in psychology and I still enjoy learning about psychology. I’ve listened to plenty of podcasts released by university instructors that include recordings of the entire classroom discussion. The only downside to these podcasts is that I had to listen through parts that were not very interesting like the parts where the instructor was taking attendance. The podcasts were very long, so I could not realistically skip through parts of the podcasts without losing large chunks of the material. Turning classes into podcasts seem like a complete win-win situation. Students have a place where they can refresh themselves on the content of the course. Interested listeners can have access to information that they normally couldn’t afford to have access to. Most excitingly, Beach et al told the story of Sprankle’s third and fourth grade classes where students dramatically improved their writing when given a real audience. This is not surprising, given that one of the main reasons why people write outside of the classroom is to reach an audience.

Whenever I look at some kind of technology like blogs, videos and audio, I always wonder what one technology adds over another technology. With videos, certain images or scenes can serve instructional purposes, especially when the students are demonstrating something visual such as how to create a poster. But if the topic is not visual in nature, such as if the class is simply having a back and forth conversation with each other about To Kill a Mockingbird, for example, I wonder what the point of a video conference might be over simply having an audio conference, especially since some students might feel self-conscious about how they look. Maybe video conferencing vs. audio conferencing could be the choice of the students, since some students might find video conferencing cool. Beach et al seemed to be getting at the idea that with Vlogs, students might make a variety of rhetorical choices such as how the camera is positioned. Beach et al also pointed out that some of the students started off simply as “talking heads” and later began incorporating different features such as a cowboy hat. 

Reactions for Fifth Week

Daniel Keller’s asserted that keeping up with technology should not be a factor for determining why digital technology should be used in the classroom. I disagree somewhat, since composition instructors run the risk of having irrelevant course content when their classroom discourse is not compatible with the ways in which students are creating and consuming digital content in the classroom, as well as learning how individuals are communicating and looking at rhetorical possibilities.

I agree with Keller’s claim that instructors have the potential to help students think about their texts in critical ways. Critical thinking does not seem to be taught to students as much as formulas for getting good grades. Popular media rarely seems to encourage critical thought but instead seems to focus on the presenting of a serious of unquestionable facts or cultural references. Questions are sometimes thrown out at the end of programs, but only occasionally. If only critical reading were emphasized sooner, students might develop stronger writing skills when they are able to learn the fastest.

Many of the film and image-related topics such as camera angle and fadeout might carry somewhat of a learning curve for instructors more fluent in concepts such as tone and metaphor. However, this lack of familiarity with these concepts might benefit students to an extent, since the instructor can engage in modeling for the students by demonstrating how rhetoric can be explored with unfamiliar mediums. In other words, students can see first hand how the instructor handles his or her unfamiliarity with digital mediums.

If multimodal forms of learning become more common in the typical classroom, I wonder if students might benefit from taking a computer course specifically designed for orienting them towards technological skills that are most commonly used in the classroom. One potential drawback to this is that technology is continually changing and blogging, for example, might become irrelevant when some more effective methods replaces the blog. By that, I mean that the specific benefits of the blog are augmented in a future technology. Maybe there are skills that can be taught that help students master new software applications more quickly. The fact that I have been exposed to a variety of software applications early on in my life might have lead me to develop skills for mastering software programs that I’m not familiar with. Branscum and Tascano pointed out that successful teachers are able to rely on their previous experiences when creating effective Multimodal Composition courses and students can also likely develop skills that can transfer to ever changing technology.

I found the four C’s on page 85 to be very helpful. Particularily, I thought “compatibility” and “cool” were useful concepts. Students with high-technology proficiency can be frustrated by over-instruction just as much as students with low technology proficiency can be frustrated with under-instruction. In my experiences as a student, professors who remain calm during tech glitches or poor configuration kept students calm, but these setbacks still waste precious class time. But this time doesn’t have to be wasted as Branscum and Toscano pointed out. Technological mishaps can be a teachable moment.

Should assignment due dates be flexible in a Multimodal Composition course? I say… of course! As students and teachers, we’ve al had experience with the typical essay. We have a general sense of how long it takes to write one and many times, the reason for a late assignment is that the student procrastinated. However, with technology, we must be more flexible with the time-consuming learning curve that students have to get over.

Shipka brought up the debate over what instructors should teach in the composition classroom. In an ideal world, I would say that students should be given a broad range of choices regarding what they could choose to write and then should at some point be given the option of choosing which type of essay they want to focus on. Instead of having instructors decide what writing skills the students will learn, why can’t students make that decision? Shipka said that students shouldn’t be free of standards with regard to their writing. However, couldn’t students be allowed a model where they tell the instructor what they would like to write and the instructor could help them understand the standards for the genre they are aiming for? Unfortunately, many students are only interested in figuring out the formula that will give them the A and instead of telling their instructor what they want to learn, they will likely get frustrated and ask to see the prompt.