Why again?

I'm at a bit of a loss for what to blog about with this particular set of readings. It doesn't help that I'm still stuck on why I should include multimodal assignments. The various authors of the chapters in Multimodal Composition give us great advice for creating assignments that work and considering all the problems and affordances, but I am simply still unconvinced that doing such assignments is the best use of class time. The CC online Wiki page argues

"To keep pace with advancing technology, writing courses at NMSU must move beyond traditional alphabetic texts. Even though such texts, with solitary and individual writers are still the most common choice at the university level, the rest of the world is rapidly changing. Multimodal tools, such as wikiboards, facebook,blogs, twitter, and more, are communicative media, both in and out of classrooms and employment settings. Multimodal composition assignments provide students the skills necessary for creating and interpreting the many different contexts of reading and writing taking place within our technology-based world beyond the university."


Notice, however, that the specific examples they give (wikis, facebook, blogs, twitter) are all, largely, alphabetic dominated technologies. Instead of typing in a wordprocessor, I'm typing in a blogger publishing window. Yes, I could include images, videos, etc., but they aren't essential. There is a big difference between incorporating technologies like blogs and wikis as a pedagogical tool and asking students to design websites/web videos/ etc. Students could easily, if encouraged, incorporate images into their printed essays. None of the texts we've looked at so far seem overly concerned with whether or not students design GOOD multimodal compositions so we wouldn't really have to worry about whether their use of images is particularly aesthetically successful.


For these reasons, Dickie Selfe's article seemed the most interesting and useful since its focus was on using technologies in the classroom rather than necessarily assigning multimodal compositions. On the other hand, I would suggest that technology only be incorporated once it has been around long enough to reach a certain level of user accessibility/stability.


I've been around long enough to see certain patterns in technology development. I first used computers in the mid 1980s when my elementary school class learned some very basic computer literacy using DOS based computers (mostly we got to play early computer games like Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego back when the games were big green pixel graphics if they had any graphics at all). Back then there was the idea that everyone would need to learn DOS commands because computers were becoming a part of life. Then, of course, Steve Jobs developed Machintosh/Apple computers with user friendly interfaces and the need to learn DOS commands went out the window—or Windows after Bill Gates stole the Machintosh interface and wrote the DOS programming to reproduce it on PCs. This patter seems to repeat itself: by the time new technology reaches the point where it is NECESSARY for people to use it, user-friendly interfaces have developed to make it fairly simple to use it—I don't think we'd be blogging if we had to learn to code first, but now we have these nifty publishing windows.


So, why then develop assignments that force us and students to use technologies that are, as yet, the realm of specialists? Sure people are composing videos with text and sound and posting them on YouTube, or even producing them for work, but those who do have developed knowledge of the technologies needed as either a hobby or part of their job and had no need of composition course assignments to teach them how to do it. Everyone else still seems to get along just fine without in-depth knowledge of the finer points of IMovie.


Photoshop has created a world where anyone can produce professional quality photography, but most people still just point, click, download, and upload/print without even basic literacy with Photoshop or similar programs, can these Photoshop illiterate people really be compared to those who can't write a decent report, letter, proposal because of inadequate alphabetic literacy?


The more we read about multimodal assignments and the challenges/affordances, the more convinced I am that there are better ways to use class time in composition courses (unless it is a writing for digital media class, which I would expect to tackle such composing).


All of the advice from these readings, however, applies equally to alphabetic assignments. Also, all my talk of user accessible interfaces for blogs and wikis reminds me of Wysocki's assertion that we pay attention to the interfaces of all texts, which is something I do think I can and should incorporate into my classes, even freshman composition. I don't think students should be required to write in ugly MLA double-spaced formats when no discourse ecology outside academia would produce texts with such a terrible interface. I tend to encourage students to think about design, incorporate visuals, etc.