Hawisher and Selfe’s questions about the power structures surrounding the classroom, while profound, have limited value to teachers. The teacher, possessing, imparting, and quantifying the knowledge, has the power. Knowledge makes them de facto rulers in the classroom. The answer to questions about whether classroom computers are entrenching and benefiting existing corporate and political powers, is similarly obvious. Yes, they are. Power always controls pedagogy for the benefit of power. If you have a quixotic bent, you can turn these issues over and over. But to me they are already answered.
Still, the lowly writing teacher has to teach the student. Better questions for them concern effectiveness. How do you teach writing, thinking and communicating instead of teaching technology? How do you keep from wedding the student to a certain platform, software or medium? Will students leave your class able to organize their thoughts into compositions transcending any specific technology, be it ruled paper, MS Word, Dreamweaver, or whatever comes next? Preparing teachers to harness and use technology takes real training. A practical concept I found in Dickie Selfe’s paper has to do with sequencing assignments. I felt the fear of being thrown into the deep-end with Dreamweaver as an undergrad in Dr. Bowie’s class. I was more concerned with mastering the technology than with the content of the website I was building. Spending more time using the software, even making our reading discussions into individual web pages, would have made me more comfortable and more able concentrate on content.
I have run out of my meager allowance of words before discussing the intriguing essay by Lanham. I hope we will discuss writing in a remix culture.
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