In her blog on Takayoshi’s and Selfe’s chapter “Thinking about Multimodality,” http://tatetalks.blogspot.com/ Heather Tate admits to being intimidated by modern-day technology. Her fear is a common one and one that I share. In the past, technology has always intimidated me. I considered my computer to be nothing more than a glorified word processor, one that froze up on me more times than I can remember. But creating blogs and wikis has broadened my technological horizon and like Heather, I think it's important to pass on that knowledge to our students. Southern Miss classes, however, are not really designed for multimodal teaching. Heather writes, "instructors will need to put in extra time training themselves." But I worry about the extra time instructors will need to put in to train
their students. Most freshman classes are not smartrooms with computers and projectors; in fact, most are held in old buildings with twenty-year-old desks and faulty heating and air. How do we teach students without the proper equipment? One of two options comes to mind. One, we lecture and have the students take notes, or two, we take small groups of students to the library and show them how to create links or include photos into their papers. But neither option really seems plausible. First of all, we can't forget that as composition instructors, it is our job to teach our students how to write and writing instruction consumes a lot of class time. Can we really sacrifice hours of class time to technology instruction? Lecturing, moreover, is not really an effective way to teach computer applications. Students need to see and do first hand. As for the second option, is it really fair to expect grad students, poorly paid and severely overworked grad students, to meet with each student outside of the classroom? And can we expect our students to be willing to meet outside of class? I don't know about the rest of you, but I heard a lot of grumbling when my students learned that they would have to meet with groups of students outside of class for project four. Like Heather, I do think that "our composition courses could adapt some of our existing assignments to make them even more multimodular," but I have to say that that is going to be harder than it sounds. Remember how much time it took to explain to your 101 students how to include photos into their photo essays! Again, I think too much responsibility for training our freshman is being placed on comp teachers. Isn't their a way to get all departments involved in multimodal teaching? Wouldn't it be more effective if all disciplines encouraged their students to engage with technology? Or should we keep putting all the weight, and all the blame, on comp teachers?
their students. Most freshman classes are not smartrooms with computers and projectors; in fact, most are held in old buildings with twenty-year-old desks and faulty heating and air. How do we teach students without the proper equipment? One of two options comes to mind. One, we lecture and have the students take notes, or two, we take small groups of students to the library and show them how to create links or include photos into their papers. But neither option really seems plausible. First of all, we can't forget that as composition instructors, it is our job to teach our students how to write and writing instruction consumes a lot of class time. Can we really sacrifice hours of class time to technology instruction? Lecturing, moreover, is not really an effective way to teach computer applications. Students need to see and do first hand. As for the second option, is it really fair to expect grad students, poorly paid and severely overworked grad students, to meet with each student outside of the classroom? And can we expect our students to be willing to meet outside of class? I don't know about the rest of you, but I heard a lot of grumbling when my students learned that they would have to meet with groups of students outside of class for project four. Like Heather, I do think that "our composition courses could adapt some of our existing assignments to make them even more multimodular," but I have to say that that is going to be harder than it sounds. Remember how much time it took to explain to your 101 students how to include photos into their photo essays! Again, I think too much responsibility for training our freshman is being placed on comp teachers. Isn't their a way to get all departments involved in multimodal teaching? Wouldn't it be more effective if all disciplines encouraged their students to engage with technology? Or should we keep putting all the weight, and all the blame, on comp teachers?
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