Wednesday September 17, 2008 CRD 704 - Reading 5
Class assignment:=====================================================================
Selber, Multiliteracies for a Digital Age
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Most of the readings in the class are from the perspective of the humanities. I think that even the reference to "students as producers of technology" is less related to software developers than communication majors. (The metaphor Selber used is "computers as hypertextual media" and not -- "computers as tools").
I'm not sure what to make of multiliteracies. I "grew up" in Computer Science, the company I work for "makes" software technology. I find myself asking critical questions of the form and function of technology I use or produce in order to make virtual communities at IBM and I wish more people would think critically about what they are using, and why, and producing, and why. So I see merit in this approach.
I just wonder how it translates to engineering. Rhetoric is not just in an interface, although that is certainly an easy-to-understand, superficial place to find it in software. What about how the software functions, and what people can and cannot do with it? (At work, our site has the ability to add members to communities but no ability to un-join. HAHA. It's like the Roach Motel! Truth is, we haven't had time to program it.)
How would engineers apply this multi-literacy program and in what ways would it be different from Selber's vision?
What if a multi-literacy program looked like this:
Institutional
Pedagogical
Departmental
Curricular
Technical
Posted by hkvonlud ( Sep 17 2008, 09:46:29 AM EDT ) Permalink Comments [3]