In “Why Napster matters to writing:  Filesharing as a new ethic of digital delivery” Danielle Nicole DeVoss and James E Porter contruct an intriguing argument for ways in which Napster and filesharing have influenced perceptions of ownership in written material.  They urge teachers to stress the positive ethic of writing collaboratively and using others’ work/writing in a way that is acceptable rather than to threaten punishments for plagiarism.

While society is becoming more accustomed to publishing online in various forms, the majority of the instructors of writing and authors have been participating in a print-based society.  How do we make such a transition without compromising (what we may only perceive to be) the intentions of writers of the past?  Would writers of the present be ready to relinquish ownership in this form?  What is this form?   

In the high school where I used to teach English, I was quite devoted to turnitin.com and I admit that I’m not sure I’m ready to embrace the concept of “sharing” writing without citation–perhaps because I don’t have a strong understanding of the approach/product.  DeVoss and Porter acknowledge taking another writer’s work as your own is wrong, and they emphasize the need share information with the public to bring forth new ideas.  Are they proposing we work towards omitting documentation when we utilize material or only when we manipulate it?  And how do we establish such a distinction?   

In Datacloud:  Toward a New Theory of Online Work, Johndan Johnson-Eilola discusses some of his early struggles with allowing students to use IM in his computer-based classroom.  His concern that students would use InstantMessaging (IM) for personal use seems valid, but how do instructors weigh the benefits of having such communicative tools against the potential set-backs in an instructional setting? 

Johnson-Eilola’s concern goes beyond the undergraduate classroom.  As users of technology, many are constantly looking to communicate with the tools to which we have access.  My business uses MS Communicator–a form of IM that can only be accessed, in our set-up, by employees (whether they are in the building or in another country).  When I attended a training for my job out of state, the instructor was adament about requesting the learners not check their emails or IM during the instructional time.  Although my IM status was set to “Busy” I was still getting IMs from co-workers at home:  “Hey, how was your flight?” “What’s the weather like down there?”  While these forms of commication were easy to ignore, it wasn’t so easy to ignore the pop-ups indicating I had received an email pertaining to my current project.  We’re pulled to open and respond to reconcile outstanding issues.  I assume others felt the same, as we received several admonishing reminders that we would be allowed time to check out messages during the break.

Despite the potential distractions, IM provides immediate transfer of information, whether it be a file or discussion.  Johnson-Eilola recognizes these benefits, but I question to what extent his concerns about IM reflect a larger concern of instructors’ hesitance to allow computers/laptops in the classroom (for non-computer-based courses).  This would likely move the point of focus in the classroom from a lecture podium or white board to the student’s own screen, but is this a bad thing?  It may initiate a new kind of distraction, but how else are we to obtain progress?      

I found Martin Kevorkian’s Color Monitors:  the black face of technology of america to be intriguing but somewhat skewed.  His argument is grounded in the premise that movies and advertising depict black men as skilled workers of technology, thereby (inadvertently?) reinforcing their positions of weakness through enslavement to computers. 

The first point I had difficulty reconciling was the idea that navigating computers with such skills is anything but progressive.  And as one who works closely with developers to create the courseware that is helping to train our military, I found his delineation of roles in corporate America insulting.

I will admit that I had never considered or recognized the logic behind casting black figures as slaves to technology, and I found some of Kevorkian’s explanations contradictory.  For example, in Die Hard, he describes the white man’s role as one of heroic action in contrast to the black man’s passivity, but later uses Independence Day to reinforce his argument.  Despite the role of the black technician in this example, the prevailing images I have of this film’s characters entail Jeff Goldblum as the computer whiz and Wil Smith as the action hero.  Yet this casting, however obviously contradictory, is not addressed.

I may be naive or simply lack perspective, but I don’t think attempts to display diversity are hidden agendas to advance white interest.  Despite Kevorkian’s extensive discussion of a black man’s automated voice in AT&T, there are (to my understanding) more Caucasian recordings (today I called CVS pharmacy and the other day I called for my 401k, neither of which were black voices, and I can only say that I don’t recall a black automated voice recording, which reinforces the idea that such examples are selective) and despite this, the argument is not made that the Caucasion voice displays the white man’s loss of identity to the computer.  I’m inclined to think diversity in any casting–whether it’s an automated voice system, a narrator in a simulation, or an advertisement–is an attempt at equality, not dehumanization.

While Edward Tufte presents a logical argument for the analytical limitations surrounding use of PowerPoint in his text The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint:  Pitching Out Corrupts Within, there is room to further address the positive elements of using the tool in both business and classroom settings.

Tufte’s analysis of the NASA PowerPoints used to assess shuttle Columbia’s re-entry in 2003 illustrates the need for detailed documentation in order to develop a credible argument.  Agreed, but how often are PowerPoints used as the sole source of material in any teaching circumstance?  My experience with the tool has not been so limiting, and while any presenter has the power to manipulate and persuade with ambiguous phrasing, from my experience, just as many can use the tool to focus learners’ attention on a concept that is supplemented by other modes.

As a former teacher with a SmartBoard, an interactive tool that projects what is on a computer, but also allows users perform various actions by touching the screen, many of my lessons incorporated PowerPoints that posed questions for my students around points of focus.  For complex concepts, the PowerPoint provided a visual that helped students trace the ideas we were discussing.  Tufte asks “Exactly what is the presenter’s story?”–but is he considering the various roles of the presenters (or facilitators, just as likely) and the audience? 

As an instructional designer, a few months ago I prepared a workshop teaching managers how to utilize a computer program.  The two-day workshop was developed around a 100+ slide PowerPoint serving a variety of purposes (not strictly note-taking) that helped carry interactive learning.  Learners had a packet of materials that supplemented the PowerPoint as well as a copy of the slides with space for note-taking.  Is there a problem with using the tool as a delivery method? 

Once (that I can recall) I was on the receiving end of a presenter who used the PP as a complete crutch, reading line by line.  It is demeaning and ridiculous, but is this really the norm?  To avoid this, MSPowerPoint allows creators to enter notes to expand upon material they can discuss (rather than line by line delivery).

Also, Tufte uses the example of students who submit 6 slide PowerPoints with limited verbiage.  For a student who is nervous about presenting, slides can serve the purpose of keeping him/her on track. But is this necessarily the only product to be submitted?  Can’t the detailed documentation/write-up coincide? 

Many of Tufte’s points about the way we process verbiage on PowerPoints are valid, but there’s room to explore the true use of the tool and re-evaluate the roles of those receiving the information and those ”delivering” it.   

When I was studying literature as an undergrad, I can recall one student inquiring, “What is the purpose of literary criticism?”  While the discussion that followed made us consider the various lines of critical theory published by scholars, with the class’ closure we discussed how literary criticism is a means to provide new ideas. 

At the high school where I used to teach, getting students to use literary criticism as a means to reflect on their own ideas was a challenge.  Students are introduced to the Media Center databases as freshmen, but by the time they came to me as juniors I often encountered two extremities in their responses to literature:  Either they responded strictly on how they felt with limited support OR they relied so heavily on the literary criticism that their own papers showed little development of original thought.   There were others, of course, who could take one idea and blow it so far out of context that its original meaning was unrecognizable…My goal became to show my students how to build upon ideas to create a meaning of their own, but I also suspected this would not be possible unless they recognized the sources of their own responses.  

In the summer of 2006 I delivered a demo for my class at Rowan (National Writing Project Summer Institute) which I called “Assigning Value to Multiple Perspectives:  A Question of ‘Meaning’ Displayed Through Ideology.”  In short, the purpose of the demo was to help teachers/students recognize that there’s a reason they respond to literature the way they do (with consideration to the personal and the social) and to help the learners recognize their varied perspectives in the context of past and present societies.  The demonstration developed around three videos:  Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” from Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, Madonna’s “Material Girl”, and Nicole Kidman’s role of the ”sparkling diamond” in Moulin Rouge.  (If you’ve seen the Giorgio Armani commercial, you know variations of the original song continue.)  The demo called for learners to apply Feminist, Marxist, and Standpoint theories.

I began using varied versions of the demo to begin my classes and help students recognize the transitions in thought they would encounter in my American literature course.  This also encouraged my students to respond with their ideas without losing sight of context. 

In Richard Miller’s book Writing at the End of the World he speculates, “The danger of the written word, is thus, its promise; the fact that it can’t be finally and completely controlled means it forever retains the power to evoke new possibilities” (194).

In my Writing for Electronic Communities class, I am attempting to revisit and re-evaluate my understanding of reading and responding to writing.  With advances in technology and the ability to publish on-line, literary theory may no longer be reserved for select scholars.  Through blogs and other forums, students have the ability to participate in the discussions from which they may otherwise have felt removed.  Part of me is clinging to the published documents of critical theory and part of me is looking to the theories of my own demo to better embrace the possibilities of knowledge and understanding on the World Wide Web. 

In The Wealth of Reality An Ecology of Composition, Margaret A. Syverson describes a case study she conducted in order to explore what happens when students write collaboratively.  The students were middle to upper-middle class enrolled in a first-year composition course and the assignment entailed writing an essay proposing a solution to a particular problem.  (Students chose controlling the noise level in the dorms.)  Students chose to write the essay together, huddled in a dorm room around a computer while one person typed the ideas they dictated.  The resulting essay was disappointing.

In my WEC class, we recently completed a group Usability Project.  It was my first collaborative writing assignment in graduate school (in the sense that we were all writing and submitting our names on a common document) which I attribute to the fact that I have been enrolled in a writing program, which more often than not is considered independent work (even if writing is socially constructed…)  But unlike Syverson’s students, the only times we huddled were in the classroom to plan our courses of action.  All other correspondence took place through email and online chat.

As I was reading the transcripts of the students’ conversations (they were audio-recorded while working) I envisioned how different the study may have unfolded if it had taken place today, almost 20 years later.  (At one point a student marveled over the fact that the computer contained a thesaurus, as this apparently preceded the convenience of dictionary.com.  I will admit it was at this point that I flipped back to see when the study was conducted.)

But to what extent has technological advancement altered the way we have come to see and understand collaborative writing?  In my job, one of my projects has entailed writing a manual to help learners navigate one of our products.  I’ve been back and forth IMing our SIM guys for support, my project lead has written notes throughout the piece, and it’s almost ready for the customer.  Smooth collaboration.  But I can’t say with any confidence that I would just as easily be able to produce a position paper with a group of people, no matter how intelligent or cooperative.  I’m interested on hearing more of the class’ take on cooperative learning structures.  I know they’re advantageous, but why do some of us resist them?             

I’ve been finding myself torn concerning issues we encounter in my graduate class, Writing for Electronic Communities.  Currently we’re reading Geroge P. Landow’s Hypertext 3.0, which explores the way hypertext is extending the possibilites in authorship and shifting power in the process. 

When I was teaching high school English, I was adamant about students formulating and exploring their own thoughts and celebrating themselves as thinkers and as writers.  But in doing so, I was accustomed to bringing them back to the book–printed text that offered an extension of multiple interpretations, but through an unchanging and linear reading.  If a student’s assertions seemed poorly supported, we could turn to page ____ and read where he/she was getting his ideas.

The idea of shifting to this mode of non-linear reading and writing overwhelms me.  In my career in instructional systems design for computer based training, we offer the learners choice in their use of simulated equipment, but the questions we need to consider are How far do we let them go and How do we bring them back when they’re off track? 

When reading certain genres of hypertext, there is no off-track.  Learners have the ability to navigate the direction of the text.  I’ve tried to imagine how I would hold discussion on a piece of hypertext fiction without the ability to ground the students by turning to a specific page.  I imagine clicking endless links on the Smartboard to access readings some may have not encountered.  The possibilites for thought seem endless, but what would be the unifying effect?    

The term MUD was foreign to me until I read Sherry Turkle’s article, “Who am We?” which discusses how MUDder’s roleplaying influences self exploration and identity and Juliann Dibbel’s “A Rape in Cyberspace” which discusses a MUD community’s response to an online rape and the incident’s effect on the victims.

My experience and understanding of MUDs is limited, but I’m having difficulty accepting the communities, which I understand to be fictitous, as a means for authentic exploration of self.  In one respect, I can see how the graphic rape experience that Dibbel presented carried over to the MUDders’ realities, so the potential emotional investment is evident.  I’m also considering the personas we project in real life and how we adjust in our varying personal and professional environments to maintain social code.  But are these codes and standards so engrained in us that they continue to drive the MUD communities and participants’ interactions?             

Chapter 1:  Meaning

Wenger claims, “Human engagement in the world is first and foremost a process of negotiating meaning” (53).  Consider a community to which you belong (or another in society).  How have dimensions of participation and reification interacted to create the meaning that has shaped that community? 

Chapter 3:  Learning

Wenger claims, “Because the world is in flux and conditions always change, any practice must constantly be reinvented, even as it remains ‘the same practice’” (94).  Can we just as easily reinvent ourselves?  How does our ability (or inability) to do so influence the way we participate in these communities?    

Chapter 4:  Boundary

Wenger claims, “Institutional boundaries draw clear distinctions between inside and outside.  By contrast, boundaries of practice are constantly renegotiated, defining much more fluid and textured forms of participation” (119).  What boundaries are we negotiating as members of WEC?  Are there institutional boundaries in place?   

Chapter 5:  Locality

How does a “constellation” differ from a “community of practice”?  (I thought I understood the distinction on page 127, but as Wenger continued, the terms of relation became a bit muddled.  Contributing to this confusion was the fact that I read almost all of Part I with the misunderstanding that Vignette I was provided to ground readers in a sample community of practice.)

Coda I:  Knowing in practice 

Consider the questions Wenger poses:  “What does a flower know of being a flower?” and “What does a computer know of being a flower?”  Apply Wenger’s philosophy to the questions surrounding technological advancement, specifically writing for electronic communities?  (the practice, not the course…)  How do we attempt to measure what is compromised against what is gained? 

In Understanding Me, Marshall McLuhan discusses how advancements in technology influence the way readers/writers internalize the written word as both observers and participants in ever-evolving social constructs.  Even though McLuhan delivered his lecture, The Future of the Book, in 1972, his questions continue to resonate in a time when the Web is giving a new function to publication.

Even today, there is a certain elitism associated with becoming published.  There’s a validation that comes with an editor’s approval:  being published means a writer’s work is worthy by (someone’s) standards, though how we choose to measure that worth is subjective.  We read news articles with the understanding that someone has ascertained the facts.  We read books to gain insights on ideas that someone has decided were worth sharing.  And though we may write to explore our own, writing to publish influences our approach.  When we read something in print form, we know that work has met someone’s stamp of approval. 

McLuhan discusses how xeroxing has moved personal writing to a public domain, empowering readers by making them publishers.  With consideration to continued advancement, the Web has provided writers with the same opportunity.  Anyone with the ability to create a Web page or blog has the power to post and be heard–without the approval of a publisher. 

As our concept of literary property changes and more people own the liberty to publish their ideas, how does this affect the way we perceive literary work?  (What is literary work?)  If we write for introspection, will the freedom to publish also perpetuate freedom in our writing that would otherwise be stifiled by the idea of a more critical audience?