Same as It [N]ever Was: Some rough thoughts on how technology may be influencing the English classroom

About a year ago, I conducted an inquiry similar to the work of Hicks, Young, Kajder, and Hunt (2012) in which they explored lessons learned about writing, technology, and multimedia as documented in the past 100 years of English Journal articles. My inquiry was slightly different in that I was looking more generally at the influence of emerging technologies (copy machine, typewriter, moving picture, etc.) as documented in the English Journal. My findings were very similar to the findings of Hicks et al. (2012). While the technologies brought about different ways for students to engage in content, nothing really changed. It is at this point that the authors and I went our separate ways.

I completely agree with authors' call that we need to stop looking for that magical technology that is going to change everything and get to the work of teaching English. I agree because I believe the technology itself will not change anything; however, the ethos associated with emerging technologies could. As popular technologies are taken up by the culture and infused into daily life, they influence the way we see things. Media technologies have historically held a strong foothold in our society as well as our English classrooms. As media is based in communication, it is easily integrated into English curriculum. In the past decade, media has become exponentially more interactive. The ability to broadcast, or narrowcast, on a global scale is now possible for anyone with an internet connection. All mediums of publication are now more accessible than ever before. This change in access to media creation has expanded the ways we communicate. The influence this change is having on how we see things is starting to enter the classroom.

Currently, it is very challenging to identify exactly how our shifted perspective is influencing our approaches to education, but the influence is there. I believe that Hicks et al. (2012) had it right when they quoted Ghandi encouraging teacher to be the change they want to see. It's not about the technology. It's about how the technology is shifting how we think about and approach communication. The technology itself will not change anything, but we will.

Who owns this tweet?

A couple weeks ago, a fellow grad student and coworker at LEARN NC stuck her head into my office to apologize for something she has posted on Twitter.  Recently,  I was tasked with creating a social media plan for LEARN NC. The Twitter account was the first thing I had access to.

That particular afternoon I posted a link to the New York Times article Mooresville's Shining Example (It's Not Just About the Laptops). Just a few minutes later, my colleague post a link to the article on her Twitter account. As soon as she had realized that she had done this, she stuck her head in to explain that her dad had sent her a link to the article and she didn't realize until she had posted her tweet that I had posted about it as well.

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Frozen...

Photo by Lara604 Over this past summer, just after my last post, I started my doctoral program's comprehensive exam process. This consisted of six weeks of writing in response to two questions followed by an oral defense. Through this experience, I have found myself frozen at the keyboard. Even once my comps were finished and I had defended, I still sat, frozen in a staring contest with the blank page. However, I am now engaging in a sprint with my dissertation proposal. As such, I have to get over the hang-ups I seemed to have developed in the past four months.

After taking a month too long to draft the first chapter of my proposal, I handed my advisor a rough draft. After reading it over, she commented, "It was really just you talking for the first few pages..." I explained that every time I started to write I got bogged down. I couldn't get myself past the citations that I know I need but don't have at hand. So I said screw it. I sat back and just wrote without thinking or worrying about the citations; I can fill that crap in later. She laughed and told me that is exactly what she would have told me to do and that I had the hard part done; I started.

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