Computers and...

What I believe is so successful about Hawisher et. al.’s history of computers in the teaching of writing is its ability to integrate the technological aspect into the history of the field to the point that it is nearly transparent. Instead of privileging the history of computers over composition studies, or writing about them separately, in each chapter Hawisher et. al. expertly integrate both histories into one, being careful to balance the history of people with the history of machines. As Hawisher et. al. note in Chapter 4, technology has been becoming more and more transparent in comp studies since the early 90’s—as observed by the diminishing number of presentation titles beginning with “Computers and…” (186). It seems that Hawisher et. al.’s history demonstrates Inman’s concept of the cyborg era, in that the history has struck a balance between people and machines, and does not privilege the machine over humans (as was done early on in the history of computers). I think, though, that Hawisher et. al.’s concerns by the end of Chapter 5 are still relevant ten years later, with funding issues and training concerns—however, I wonder if application of Inman’s principle would help here? If we considered people’s needs and the site’s needs along with the technology requirements, common problems might diminish.

--eliz25