Conclusion

These CDs still might do more. The ability to include audio files, for example, offers a chance for students' voices literally to be heard, and this capability is not realized by either CD. Moreover, the activities on the CDs, like those in other texts, still ask students to compose static, two-dimensional texts. Thus, while students are instructed that arguments happen in and sources for research can come from a wide range of media, the texts students can create are limited to particular forms. Of course, technical limitations make the creation of more complex, three-dimensional texts more difficult, but ideally an instructional text would allow students to analyze and produce the kinds of multimodal, multimedia texts these CDs explicitly incorporate and value.

That these CDs are standalone texts illustrates a productive shift in valuing multimedia in composition and research instruction. Web site and CD companions to print texts have been around for a number of years, but they have not been marketed as complete texts in and of themselves. Though i-cite and i-claim can be packaged with other print texts, they are also presented as individual independent titles-enacting the idea that nonprint sources can be legitimate academic texts. i-cite and i-claim offer important opportunities for engaging with multimedia texts that are crucial for preparing our students to use such texts in their research and writing. Even more beneficial are the opportunities these CDs offer for students to see themselves as legitimate researchers who can-and should-participate in knowledge production in academic spaces. Regardless of the textual forms students create and use, that they see themselves in this role is crucial to their-and our-future success as meaning makers.

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