While researching this topic, I made a very important yet simple conclusion: technology is not bad. In fact, without technology, our world would be behind in more ways than one. Technology is responsible for spreading vast amounts of information to a broad audience in almost no time at all. Why then, is technology seen as a bad thing or utterly out of place when combined with academia and a classroom setting? There are several articles examined in the following paper that makes a case for web-writing, some about using twitter in the classroom, and others about cultural identity and how web-writing helped students to discover themselves in an unexpected way. This paper attempts to uncover the benefits of technology in the classroom, and more specifically, how the audience aspect of web writing influences the stylistic choices of the web-writer. In that way, hopefully it will become clear why web writing is a critically important tool not only for academic growth in the classroom, but for cultural growth and establishing one’s identity.
In the article “Tweet Me a Story,” Kate Messner shows how twitter, when properly applied, can be a useful tool for learning. At first, her students were bewildered as to why the twitter page was displayed at the front of the classroom. What was once a strange notion of having technology, specifically twitter, in class is becoming more of the norm. And why shouldn’t educators embrace it? Messner explained the role of twitter in her class by saying, “it is a teaching tool that we take advantage of when it fits our teaching and learning needs and when special opportunities arise” (Messner, 2009). Messner is arguing the practicality of using the internet to reach fellow students and scholars. Through the seventh grade class twitter, they were able to pose a question and have it responded to by several scholars and writers, exposing them to ideas from an audience with a sophisticated knowledge of the subject. Because their audience was now the entire twitter world, they felt the need to craft thoughtful tweets for a broad audience. Because of twitter, the class was able to get a sense of what it was like to write for a large and audience of differing backgrounds. Below is a sample of my personal twitter feed, which is diversified in information and content:
Many other professionals and teachers have supported the idea that incorporating online media and writing into the classroom is a vital learning tool. In a journal of adolescent and adult literacy, Donna Alvermann speaks of the way that students, when given the opportunity to use multimodal content when talking about their identity, their creative energy flourished and their writing and content was interesting and compelling. Writing a blog essay about their personal identities produced a much different result than a typical hand written essay would because the students were genuinely interested in the process and the product that would come of their work. Additionally, this interest was motivated largely by the idea that there would be an audience on the other side of their writing. Alvermann noted that the students, knowing that a large and diverse audience would read their work, put much more time and effort into perfecting their essay and presentation. Studies have shown this conclusion as well, as she goes on to say “increasingly, researchers are pointing to the centrality of audience as a major contributor to adolescents’ fascination with self-created online content” (Alvermann, 2008). In that way, instead of writing for one specific person or teacher, the students recognized the challenge of writing for an audience from all different walks of life. With a broad and unpredictable audience, there is more pressure to express exactly what you mean, because comments and criticism could come from a variety of different viewpoints.
Twitter is not the only tool being used for classroom writing. There are other forms of media and online writing that can allow students to increase their creativity and writing skills. While twitter is a useful exercise for condensing thoughts and ideas, when a certain topic needs to be explored at length, a vehicle of conversation and free write is more applicable. In the article “Getting Uncomfortable: Identity Exploration in a Multi-Class Blog” Rochelle Rodrigo and Jennifer Kidd talk about the unique experience that a group of students at Old Dominion had in exploring the topic of cultural identities through blogging. The aim of this project was to explore the phenomenon of “colorblindness” and cultural awareness. By using a blog format, the students were asked to write about their identities and read their fellow students blogs and see whose culture they related to or identified with most. The results of the study were interesting in that students became aware of how uncomfortable they were with other cultures. While the results from that perspective were somewhat discouraging, a positive aspect of the study was the way in which the students improved their writing skills. The author talked about how the students, aware of the audience aspect, were more conscious of the quality of their work. Students agreed, saying they “benefitted from reading and learning from one another’s text” (Rodrigo & Kidd, 2011). Like twitter, this idea of sharing one’s writing with others generally encourages a higher quality of writing. Perhaps because the students knew their writing would be viewed by their fellow students, there was motivation to write better and for a broader audience than just a professor or one person. Shown below is a blog that has a great tonality and sense of identity:
Other studies have shown similar findings about the benefits of blogging instead of traditional writing. In an article titled “Anonymity in Blended Learning: Who Would You Like to Be,” the author talks about the benefits of being able to create an online identity. The way that a person can take on any identity is unique to online writing and can be used to develop a person’s sense of identity. Furthermore, blogging under an anonymous identity is generally the preferred mode of writing because students can express themselves to an audience without feeling that they would be critique on a personal level. This is explained by Miyazoe and Anderson in the article, as they say, “in blended learning in writing instruction, anonymity is often associated with peer feedback because anonymous peer feedback is used as a minimally threatening common teaching strategy. It was found that with the anonymous component, writing performance was higher” (Miyazoe and Anderson, 2011). The higher performance in the students online writing could therefore be due to how there was no way to connect the words to the writer. The author, therefore, was free to write openly and honestly, something that many students and writers are not accustomed to in a classroom setting. Therefore, though anonymity hides the author’s identity from the audience, paradoxically, the freedom of expression in their writing gave them more identity and credibility than ever before in their classroom writing experiences.
It is my personal opinion that bringing in a digital writing aspect to class can have a great impact on student’s intellectual and personal growth. One of the best aspects of web writing is the freedom and room for creativity that it gives the reader. If you ask any student, they will tell you that creativity in terms of assignments for class is encouraged, but only limited to what they believe the teacher wants to see or will deem good work. If teachers were to introduce twitter, blogging, and other modes of technological writing into the classroom, the creativity and subsequent academic growth in writing would increase exponentially. In my own experience, technology has only become commonplace in the classroom during my time at Dickinson. During my schooling prior to Dickinson, technology was a pastime for students and essentially a foreign concept to my teachers. As the years progress however, more educators are realizing the vast benefits that bringing technology into the classroom can have for their students’ learning experiences, similar to the ways that Messner, Alvermann, Miyazoe, and Anderson have pointed out. Blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites have become so ingrained in our every day lives that is hard to ignore now, even if we wanted to. While generally these sites are seen as recreational, I personally get most of my information through these sites. Current events around the world are constantly posted to the web in the form of tweets, youtube videos, facebook statuses, and more. So many events are tweeted about first before any other writing because it is effective at doing what online writing should do: reach as many interested readers as possible. Additionally, sometimes the best writing can be on an informal website. I’ve found that personal writing is most genuine and thoughtful when I am composing a blog post or tweet because anyone with internet can access my writing. With this in mind, I write true to myself instead of trying to address just one person or type of audience. In a class for a project or paper, it is easy to cater your argument to fit the audience in mind that will be reading and critiquing it, whereas online, anyone can access it and comment or offer opinions that can add to the conversation. This ability for the outside world to reach you is an extraordinary tool for ensuring the best information and quality available in your writing. As a student studying the environment, the web is of particular value to me because the environment and world around us is changing every day, and I need to be able to access articles, videos, and images that show these changes. An idea I have for my blog is to incorporate different types of media and writing to engage a large range of people on these changes. Getting people to care about the environment can be difficult, depending on the audience. Because of this, good web-writing, interesting media, and encouraging interaction with the readers is essential for this informative environmental blog to be successful. Below is an example of a blog that is inspiration for this idea:
Sources (Sited in MLA):
Alvermann, Donna E. “Why Bother Theorizing Adolescents’ Online Literacies for Classroom Practice and Research?” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52.1 (2008). Web. 10 Oct. 2013
Messner, Kate. “Pleased to tweet you: making a case for Twitter in the classroom (using Twitter for classroom instruction).” School Library Journal 12.44 (2009). Web. 10 Oct. 2013.
Miyazoe, Terumi and Terry Anderson. “Anonymity in Blended Learning: Who Would You Like to Be?” Journal of Educational Technology & Society 14.2 (2011). Web. 10 Oct. 2013.