Computer Writing and Research Lab | University of Texas at Austin

Techno-crutch

Submitted by jonathanlamb on March 31, 2008 - 10:49am


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I just stumbled across this four-year-old article from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

When Good Technology Means Bad Teaching

The article gives three pieces of supposedly helpful advice to professors who try to use technology in the classroom. It says to avoid

- Reading PowerPoint slides verbatim: Many professors cram slides with text and then recite the text during class, which some students say makes the delivery flatter than if the professor did not use slides.

- Wasting class time fumbling with software and cables: Professors who are uncomfortable with technology can spend too much time troubleshooting instead of teaching.

- Failing to moderate chat rooms: Some professors require students to make weekly contributions to online chat rooms, but then never monitor the results or mention the discussions in class, making the discussions seem like busywork.

Remember when Powerpoint was the cutting edge of pedagogy?

Certainly this is good advice, but I wonder whether the current (read: Web 2.0) state of affairs has presented us with a very different set of problems. Instead of competence, the primary struggle we (that is to say, I) face is implementing technology without getting lost in it. For example, I've been using a wiki to have students collaborate on editing an essay, but the students are so excited by using the wiki that they don't think hard about the essay. Sure, I've turned it into a teaching moment, stressing how easy it is to miss what constitutes good writing. Still, though, I'd have preferred actually to practice good writing.

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Wikis and writing

Submitted by laurasmith on March 31, 2008 - 3:42pm.

I'm interested in your musings about the different set of problems that Web 2.0 technologies present. I had a really similar experience using a wiki-based writing assignment in my RHE 309K class. My wiki assignment focused more on basic information-gathering about public art, so students weren't actually writing extended arguments on the wiki, but I was not quite happy with the way the wiki turned out.

I'm really eager to try a wiki assignment again with different parameters--and I'm interested in getting them to actually craft more extended arguments on the wiki (as it sounds like you're having them do?). Now that I've seen some of the issues and pitfalls (and also more possibilities for wiki-uses), I feel better equipped to design the assignment, and also to deal with problems that arise during the semester.

I wonder if wiki-based writing would be a good workgroup focus for next year? I think there are a number of us interested in working with wikis in the classroom. I'd like to work with others to troubleshoot using wikis in writing instruction, developing and structuring assignments, etc.

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wiki-based writing

Submitted by SarahJett on April 7, 2008 - 11:40am.

I'd be interested in what would happen with a wiki-based workgroup. I think using wikis in the classroom opens up some very exciting possibilities, but my fear of slowing down class has kept me from trying anything like that this semester. I think a group that enabled instructors to become more comfortable with/adept at using wiki-based assignments seems like a very practical idea. We'd have the opportunity to troubleshoot and tweak assignments ourselves before trying them out in the classroom.

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Tone problems, too.

Submitted by gavinbenke on March 31, 2008 - 2:04pm.

I think this is a really interesting post. While technology in the classroom has enabled me to come up with lesson plans and assignments that wouldn't be possible otherwise, there's nothing worse than when the technology fails right before class. Students can quickly become bored if an instructor is fumbling with a program or multimedia display in the first five minutes of class. I've found that when this happens, rather than lose a significant amount of class time, I move right into the lesson, even if it means losing a visual aid or something along these lines. While classroom technology can be great in the classroom, it also might mean instructors have to become increasingly flexible in the event of a technical glitch.

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