Part III: Sustaining TPD

Video. Brainstorming Sponsorship: TPD Back Home (transcript)

Video. If There Were TPD Genies: Dreams and Wishes (transcript)

In 2006, Anderson et. al reported the results of their survey of instructors who employ multimodal composing pedagogies. A finding relevant to our discussion was that

97 percent reported that they trained themselves how to implement multimodal pedagogies into their classrooms, with 60 percent (the next highest reporting category with n=25) indicating that they also received pedagogical help from colleagues. (p. 74)

In terms of sponsorship and sustainability, then, the self-training for and self-implementation of technology-dependent pedagogies runs counter to the scholarship and position statements of our discipline’s stance on the necessity of integrating technology in our classrooms. Many policy statements argue for support, development, and training, not just for the technology but for the integration of technology in the curriculum and the classroom. The following statement from the Conference on English Education (2008) exemplifies this point:

Today new technologies are changing the types of texts we and our students create and interpret even as they are influencing the social, political, and cultural contexts in which our texts are composed and shared. Since these technologies are influencing the development of individuals, institutions, and communities [. . .], it is essential for English educators to turn a critical eye toward the benefits and affordances; the limitations and liabilities of integrating these newer technologies into our teaching.

Sustainable TPD, complicated by the exigency of self-teaching and the tenet of technology-dependent pedagogy, is further challenged by what Adrian Kirkwood and Linda Price (2013) found in their review of TPD research: that “the technological deterministic concept of the educational process” dominates TPD research findings (p. 333). Technological determinism, as Kirkwood and Price explained it, means that the technology and not the teacher is the agent of change.

As we anecdotally note, our experiences post-institute are congruent with the above complications. We have been self-motivated to maintain our TPD; we have been compelled to offer students critical technological literacy despite a dearth of material support; and our institutional sponsorship is largely characterized by technological determinism. For example, as our own experiences attest, the selection of a course-management system (CMS) dictates processes of and tools for document exchange, assignment design, and assessment efforts. Faculty who want to opt out of the CMS are responsible for going it alone. As Rik mentions, in the ideal scenario (or “with a genie”), sustainable TPD might involve engagement with the instructional technology gurus on campus. We envision a scenario in which an instructor attends a TPD workshop and then returns to her school in an institutionally supported position, as, for example, a "Writing and Technology Director." In this position she could, for example, work with local IT staff to investigate the affordances of existing campus technologies, examine the feasibility of new technologies from both the workshop and elsewhere as they emerge, research critical pedagogical engagement, and offer targeted professional development for her colleagues.

Our scenario necessitates an argument for institutional validation, perhaps through course release. Pragmatically, as participants in CIWIC and DMAC, as teachers who consistently integrate technology into our pedagogical practices, and as individuals who engage with technology for personal and professional reasons, we understand the material conditions in which engagement with technology occurs. Time is what might most be needed for the technology director we describe above. A course release is an investment in time that pays dividends for years. As we note, and as is supported by the Anderson et al. (2006) survey, time to support teaching and research is an essential factor for productive TPD. Therefore, if institutions are legitimately invested in supporting students’ technological engagement, stakeholders must be made aware of the time necessary to fruitfully implement TPD.

We share the assertions of computers and writing scholars Cindy Selfe and Richard Selfe (1994) and Stuart Selber (2004) regarding the necessity of attending to the politics of technology, which requires attention to local politics regarding implementation of what was learned in TPD, and which also play a huge role in determining university-wide policies such as course releases. Even when support is garnered from a broad base (including department, college, and administration), ongoing institutional support is still needed to have any long-lasting effects.

The return to the home institution is even more critical than leaving for TPD in the first place. CIWIC, CIWIC-NM, and DMAC sowed the seeds of critical technological literacy, but we found, and research on TPD concurs (Duran et al.; Kopcha, 2012; Mouza, 2006, 2009; Selber, 2004), that the return to the home institution means a return to a culture of, to varying degrees, less-than-critical technology consumption. Indeed, such consumption is sometimes required, as with university policy mandating the use of an institutionally purchased CMS or the use of computer labs set up with other disciplines or uses in mind. TPD like CIWIC and DMAC has sowed an amazing amount of seeds over 30 years, but the fruits of that labor wither on the vine unless all of us engaged in such work return to connect with others around our campuses to keep growing in an era of proliferating technology and proliferating academic responsibilities.