Kim Reading & Thinking Notes 11/18
Rodrigo, R. OWI on the go.
Rodrigo argues that online writing instructors need to attend to the trend of students participating in courses on the mobile devices, and couches this discussion primarily amid OWI principal 1, ensuring accessibility, and OWI principle 2, instruction should be focused on writing, not learning the technology. The use of mobile devices certainly complicates the tension between these ideas, and I was compelled by the idea that attending to the challenges of using a mobile device for participating in online writing instruction is part of a commitment to access which may require instructors to provide students with some technology support. The argument that mobile devices challenge conventional binaries in the digital divide and provide primary access for some to the internet clearly demonstrates why thinking about how to support students’ use of mobile devices is so important. Though I have never taught online, reading this article made me think of instances where I have encountered students using mobile devices for my course. The frustration of a student from a developmental writing course at TCC because he couldn’t easily submit his work through his mobile phone sticks out particularly because of its clear connections to ideas from the article and because I’m afraid I wasn’t as accommodating (or sympathetic) as I should have been. I also think about my students at VWC, for whom access isn’t generally issue, who pull up course readings or drafts of their own papers on their phones. I’m afraid I fit the category that Rodrigo suggests of instructors who couldn’t imagine seriously completing work on my phone. I haven’t really thought about how students might use or want to use their mobile devices or ways that I can support those efforts. With that in mind I decided to to out trying to navigate my own course on my iphone.
VWC uses Blackboard, so I searched Blackboard in the Apple Apps store. There were a couple of options, but I decided to download the free Blackboard Mobile Learn App. Here's how Blackboard markets this app:
Robison looks at the connection between game design and composition curricular design
She connects game designer Chris Novak’s process of working both from the bottom-up and top-down to the theoretical foundation necessary for comp curriculum. Game designers must always have a clear sense of what they want players to think and feel in the back of their mind, remembering always that fun should be the ultimate goal. Robison says composition instructors must similarly have a theory grounding all curricular decisions. Game designers can’t know what players’ experiences will be, but need to try to anticipate them as part of the design process. Similarly, composition instructors need to anticipate students’ needs and experiences as much as possible, but be flexible enough to adjust when working with the actual students.
Robison’s analogy uses the goal of fun when designing games to correspond to the need to have a theoretical foundation for curricula and to think about this foundation throughout the process of curriculum design. While Robison doesn’t seem to be suggesting that the goal of fun is what composition instructors need to think about, I found myself wondering, does fun have a place in the composition classroom? Should I be trying to make activities and assignments more fun? This could certainly increase students’ desire to participate. However, as I thought on it more, I realized fun in games is what make them “compelling” in Robison’s term, but I’m not sure fun would make writing compelling for students. Instead, I thought about the idea of usefulness? Constantly asking myself how will this be useful for students, not just in my class but in their other courses and everyday lives, and making these connections explicit and transparent for students, could help compel them to want to write.
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