Head to Head

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How does a computer venue change the process of learning how to write/write academic prose/develop a sense of a personal writing process/see oneself as a writer? How does a computer venue change/alter/affect our understanding of who a writer is – or what writing is? Can questions like these ever really be answered? Isn’t the investigation of these questions – the reaching for convincing speculations even more important than finding a convincing answer? Thus spoke Shovczon.

Shovczon responds. No. Answering the questions is more important. In terms of the first question, I think we need to consider some of our perceptions regarding our students. First, a narrative is often spun that students are way more attuned to new media than we are and that we need only get past our own anxieties regarding technology, catch up with them, and pass the baton into their waiting hands before they streak off and out of the arena. I feel that, although, they may use some kinds of technologies avidly, often their "literacy" with technology is confined to those technologies and hampered by them. Richard Ohmann kind of writes about this in "Literacy, Technology, and Monopoly Capitalism." Meanwhile, teachers new to teaching writing in light of MOO, wiki, and other new media often are reluctant to extend themselves, offering sentiments similar to those of the students gathered here.

I think you had better go back and read the Behind the Scenes entry. It's shorter and more to the point.