Toward a Better Society

If my post is a bit warshy, bear with me; I've got a head-ache "this.......big".

So far, I can get into the approach Selber is using in this book. He has already addressed several questions and issues that I had rolling around in my head, and I can only hope that he goes more in depth in to answering those questions...and that I'll be able to understand them when they show up despite the jargon and convoluted theory-speak. Thus far, he seems to be touting what Keith said is one of the goals of the course: that technology can and should be controlled. I found myself agreeing with a lot of his determinations, but I couldn't help wondering whether or not he was telling me what I want to hear. His research seems to be quite extensive, and he has been quoting a lot of pedagogy gurus that I'm already familiar with, which dramatically contributes to his ethos rapport.

One key point that I was able to latch on came out of one the quotes he included, which implied the ultimate goal of reconciling computer/technology use with educational needs: "The community has had an agenda: the need to develop a view of how computers could help writing teachers move toward better, more just, and more equitable system of education--and insofar as education incubates culture--toward a better society."

I am starting to see that I have been too easily offended by technology and have harbored a not-so-subconscious negative attitude towards its pervasive insertion into classroom pedagogy. Selber implies that such an attitude is, of course, unfair and is often not based on logic. At the same time, we should not totally abandone a level of resistance and fuctional/critial analysis about whether or not the technology will contribute to our ultimate pedagogical goals.

Another one of his main points seems to be that this resistance to technology contributes to the writing instructors loss of control over it, and that we must actively engage the technology and shout out a critical voice at the creators of the technology so that we can facilitate the creatioin of programs and tools that better match our needs. Does that make sense? Anyway...

I have already "engaged" technology in my 1010 classes by using blackboard. I also made sure to tell my students that if they were having a hard time with the interface, that it was likely a flaw in the design and not because they are ignorant. We even talked about a frustrating feature of blackboard and how to get around it in the future. Thus, I like to think at least that I'm already helping them to adopt a more critical view of the technologies thrust upon them. Maybe I can even get a few of them to write a "review" essay on blackboard.