Online Public Discourse Communities: Reconfiguring College Teaching

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Online Public Discourse Communities
Reconfiguring College Teaching

• Presented by Judy Arzt

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Digital technology and new mediafor better or
worseare here to stay you cant turn off the
Internet. Digital technology isnt going away.
There are hundreds of thousands of sites in the
World Wide Web .Digital technology is part of
our lives, a part of our lives that we know will
only continue to grow. We cant afford to
dismiss it. Rather we mustembrace
itindiscriminately, but thoughtfully. We must
seize the opportunities to do things weve never
been able to do before. Dont look
back! Steven Holzman, Digital Mosiac
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What does digital mean for higher education?

• Online bulletin boards for cross-campus
  discussions
• Web authoring projects
• Meshing of theory with praxis
• postmodern and social constructivist theories
• collaborative learning and writing across the
  curriculum
• Teaching new literacy skills

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Presentation Goals

• Describe exemplary case studies of classroom
  practice
• Examine emerging theories in the field
• Offer examples from my own teaching

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International Debate Project

• Linked students from the University of Rhode
  Island with students from around the world
• Fostered writing across the curriculum,
  collaborative learning, and global awareness
• Emphasized importance of instructors role to
  structure the context and provide discussion
  topics

Linda Shamoon in Electronic Communication Across
the Curriculum
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Cross-cultural Project

• Urban, black students at Howard University and
  rural, white students at Montana State University
  exchanged work online
• Howard students were assigned to write about race
  relations
• The students collaboratively produced a book, On
  (the Color) Line Networking to End Racism
• The technology engendered online public discourse

Teresa Redd in Electronic Communication Across
the Curriculum
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Collaborative Web Site Project

• Students in a computer science class and an
  English class developed a colleges Web site
• Students invested time in the writing task and
  developed a strong sense of community
• Michael Strickland Robert Whitnell, Electronic
  Communication Across the Curriculum

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Instructors Comments
We like to think of the Web as an ongoing
laboratory with the biggest windows in the world.
When anyone can look in and see what youve
produced, your incentive to collaborate and do
well is greatly increased. This is a heady sense
of empowerment and ownership. Micheal
Strickland Robert Whitnell
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Visual Literacy

• The visual nature of the Internet will
  revolutionize the way we communicate
• Hypertext juxtaposes verbal and visual, altering
  the communication process
• Students need to produce cultural relevant
  text, incorporating the visual

Gunther Kress, English at the Crossroads
Rethinking Curricula of Communication in the
Context of the Turn to the Visual
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Postmodernism

• Online classrooms foster student-focused
  instruction, collaborative learning, commitment
  to task, and participatory classroom structures

Lester Faigley in Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st
Century Technologies
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Computers embrace postmodern theory and bring
it down to earth.Sherry Turkle, Life on the
Screen Identity in the Age of the Internet
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In networked classrooms students create the
agenda. Their online composing is the content
and curriculum of the course.
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Classroom Dynamics

• The instructor is a learned coordinator
• The instructor controls less and says less
• The classroom is a knowledge-making enterprise
  where an egalitarian state is realized

Richard Lanham, Carolyn Handa, Thomas Barker
Fred Kemp, Computers and Community
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My Classroom Experiences

• Web-site tools and bulletin boards have made
  public discourse and writing synonymous
• Descriptions of experiences with
• first-year composition class
• graduate education class

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Time Capsule

• Memorializes historical events from year 2000
• Table of contents page lists these events
• Items on table of contents become hyperlinks for
  entry into the hypertext capsule

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Sample Time Capsule Page
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Memoirs

• Topics with public appeal
• Photographs are incorporated
• Juxtaposition of verbal and visual drives textual
  revision

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Profiles

• Interview people from the college community
• Public nature of the Web makes accuracy of
  reporting critical
• Final Web profiles inform the public about the
  people at the college

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Sample Student Homepage
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Commentaries

• IEDP allows students to exchange ideas with
  students throughout the country
• Students gain a broader perspective on
  controversial issues
• Discussions help students learn how to craft an
  effective argument

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Reviews

• Study reviews on the Web
• Advance Web authoring skills
• See classmates reviews on the Web
• Generate heated class discussions

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Research Papers

• Extend commentaries into research papers
• Consider topics in relation to public viewing on
  the Internet
• Use strategies to aid viewers
• break long texts into chunks
• use graphics to underscore ideas
• add links to authoritative sites

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Computers in the Classroom Course

• Web sites expand students audiences for writing
• The sites provide information about K-12 software
  and how to use it
• Students create individual sites and a class site
• Viewers include educators from across the country
  and software publishers

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Internet Lessons for K-12 Students

• Easy for K-12 students to do online work
• Parents learn about their childrens school
  projects

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Sample Internet Lesson Plan
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Sample PowerPoint on the Web
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Web Sites Empower Students

• Students work on sites after the course ends
• They create sites far more complex than initially
  envisioned
• Their work exceeds syllabus requirements

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IEDP with Graduate Students

• Found common discussion topics were critical to
  the projects success
• Connected the experience to the possibilities for
  similar projects on the K-12 level
• Gained experience for doing online projects with
  their own students

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Conclusions

• Students are eager to participate in online
  writing projects
• Students need our guidance
• Our teaching needs to be reconfigured in relation
  to what the technology offers
• We need to address new literacy skills applicable
  to online writing

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And More Conclusions

• We must assume responsibility for the direction
  that online writing takes in the future
• We need to envision how online technologies
  enrich communication, create opportunities for
  public discourse and make writing a publicly
  critical act