reading notes

Notes on Selber[SS], Computers and Technical Communication.

The easy questions:

When was it published?

In 1997.

LINK: Selfe identifies 1997 as a critical year for something internet related [look this up!].



What group of scholars is the author addressing?
Teachers and administrators in the research discipline of tech comm The focus is on pedagogy : "the possibilities for tech comm in the academy".

What is the genre and what type of research is the author doing?

Critical anthology -- SS wants the book to be a "Burkean parlor".

LINK: SDF on virtual communities.

The hard questions:

What was going on in the field when the author wrote it – how does the book reflect the conversation that has been taking place in the field?

The most important thing to think about here is the fact that there were other "computers and" conversatiosn going on: Computers and language arts, computers and composition, computers and English studies.

What aspects of knowledge does the author focus on and why does the author focus on these aspects of knowledge?

SB focuses on "the full range of pedagogical and prgrammatic issues specifically facing tech comm teachers and program directors in the digital age".

What is the epistemological background?

A humanistic approach to tech comm (Miller).

What is the argument?

Weak: We need to take a critical, contextualized view of computers and tech comm.

What evidence does the author bring?
1) computer courses in tech comm programs are often skills based
2) Computer courses in tech comm integrate technologies in conservative ways, focusing on efficiency and speed.
3) Computing spaces in academic tech comm don't support the demands of industry
4) Few tech comm programs have systematic strategies for integrating computers.

What perspective does the author take?

Selber's "critical, contextualized view" of computers and technical communication.

What perspective is under-represented or missing?


Selber says he's not focusing on particular "artifacts of an industrial culture": IP, specific platforms, commands and that kind of stuff. This is how Selber winds up making sweeping generalizations about technology and culture -- cf his interpretation of GUI: It's good!

Chapter notes:

Selber, Hypertext spheres of influence. S argues that htext development and use is influenced by a range of pedagogical, institutional and industrial forces. This is precisely the kind of claim that gives Selber his honororary snooze button. I won't sleep with him at ATTW.

Johndan in Wild Technologies: I've read this article many times -- it's the one with primary and secondary instrumentalization. (Secondary inst. recuperates primary inst).

LINK: Secondary instrumentalization and heidegger's turn to art at the end of Essay Concerning Technology.

LINK: Like Selber, Johndan -- NOOOO, STOP, Johndan! -- seems to think that GUI is liberatory : experimental and nonhierarchical.

Wahlstrom's article: An ecological model of literacy, a liminal space where old stuff is fading out but new stuff isn't settled in, the ark of rammed earth as a "transcendent interface" (w/no silver gods), words becoming things (not just the 10 commandments but the tablets), the liminal digital space and a shift back to some of the old rules. Wahlstrom is enthusiastic about the virtual classroom -- contrast with SDF.

Burnett and Clark, "Shaping technologies: Electronic collaborative interaction". The main argument is that our communication is shaped by coll. technologies more than it shapes them. Tries to get beyond a tool metaphor.

Allen and Wikliff: New communication technologies challenge traditional assumptions about learning, work and writing.

NOTE: Why is it that the main theme of every chapter in this book is DUH?

Howard, "Designing computer classrooms for tech comm programs". Interesting: at the time of thsi book, most university labs supported desktop publishing but not interface design. In terms of our lab, I would say that it does support interface design but it is only used for desktop publishing, and that students use a desktop publishing metaphor to do their multimedia assignments.

Emphasis on what to buy, not on finding ways to hack and customize. These people (Computer people in English studies) are eating Plato's cookery off a digital menu.

(!) Interesting: Howard talks about the layout of a computer classroom. He touches on power circuits, air filtration, lighting and static. H comments that lots of people have already talked about the layout of a computer classroom, including the pod vs row arrangement. He has a special meaning for computer classroom: the students use the computers and the teacher can teach in it (not a technology-equipped traditional classroom or decentralized lab).

Words words words: our computer classrooms and labs at WSU appear to have been assembled by sleepwalkers. There should be a grad student design team for the computer lab.

I disagree with Howard: instead, I would give my 3060 students a shoestring budget and let them design the computer classroom as a community-based tech comm project (they have to write memos, proposals, etc). That way, they're forced to take a critical, contextualized approach because they're planning for how people will write with the technology rather than mindlessly writing with the technology.

Wearner and Kaufer: "Guiding tech comm programs through rapid change".

Ecker and Staples: "Collaborative conflict and the future: academic-industrial alliances and adaptations". Support "balanced and unresolved collaboration" with a hint of "get over your fear of industry". Still, ES are alligned with the traditionalprinciples of academic freedom associated with the Boyer report. However, they think tech comm should break away from the "disciplinary definitions of english departments" and be interdisciplinary and technology-related.