Techno-Literacy Awareness

One main point that the Hawisher article discussed is something that has been referred to as essential for gaining techno-literacy throughout this semester: awareness. This is, in fact, the goal of any of these lesson plans we’ve read about and invented this semester. Stuart Selber, in the first article we read this fall, talked about building techno-literacy, and doing it through making students aware of technology’s reality. I’m beginning to see BGSU’s ENG 207 as a class in developing techno-literacy through building student awareness of technology’s faults and myths as well as its merits.
I really think that last week’s example lesson of analyzing computer advertising to challenge the myths about technology (the prime one being “e-spaces breed equality”) can build student awareness very effectively.
Hawisher’s article, which effectively challenged the myth of e-spaces as equal and ungendered, works to build awareness of technology’s reality, and in turn builds real literacy.

--eliz25

Students' Right to Their Own IM

Just recently, I saw a flier for a presentation entitled “Banishing Facebook 101: Making more Efficient Use of Computer Lab Time.” This title alone assumes that the writing done on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are pointless and should be avoided. But in fact, analyzing these alternative languages in the writing classroom can work to our advantage as teachers. In Banks’s Race, Rhetoric, and Technology, he states:
“Recreational spaces like BlackPlanet allow for a fuller, more organic view of African-American rhetorical production: vernacular sites like this provide the opportunity to see what patterns emerge outside the prescriptions used to prepare speakers for public communication” (73).
Banks discusses the necessity of valuing Black vernacular English to see how it can contribute to writing pedagogy. In a similar way, we as writing teachers need to value our students’ own vernacular and not abolish it from the classroom; as students’ languages can work to enhance our own teaching and the students’ learning of various discourse communities. Blackman offers several excellent ideas for how to do this. I believe that valuing online languages is vital not only so we are able to relate to our students, but also to analyze how their language is developing so we are better prepared to teach them other discourses. Blackman’s ideas are fascinating: I would love to use some of them if I get a chance to teach 207 (Intermediate Writing).

--eliz25

Predicting Obsolescence

I found Bolter's final claim concerning the future of MOOs in chapter 4 to be very interesting. He referred to a picture of The Palace MOO, and suggested that future MOOs would go further with video and animation in order to remediate film and television. It is interesting to note that not only have MOOs fallen out of favor, but its replacement--instant messaging and online chat--have gotten farther away from the visual and privelige the text, which is the opposite of what Bolter predicted in this chapter. Of course, I agree that visuals are incorporated more now on the Internet than ever before, but they seem to be in different areas. Visuals are prevalent in design and in hypertext, but other than image maps, do not seem to be interactive, at least to the extent Bolter predicts. The most interactive of internet spaces--chat rooms--rely almost exclusively on text. While graphics may shape and define the chat space, they are not interactive elements. One explanation for its obsolescence could be that the graphic MOO--like the one pictured on p. 76--was overly visual; perhaps graphics impeded the text communication. The MOO seems like a fascinating concept to explore; it would be interesting to question why its popularity never lasted.