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]
Trackback URL: http://blogs.lib.ncsu.edu/HereTakeMyAdvice/entry/crd_704_reading_5
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As I was reading, I began to wonder how a computer scientist would react to Selber, so I think your perspective is valuable. I wonder how IBM would respond to student-centered functional, critical, and rhetorical literacies. What technological literacies do scientists value?
Posted by Jon B on September 17, 2008 at 11:06 AM EDT #
I think that what might be most useful from the Selber for engineers and programmers is that critical perspective - keeping in mind that technologies are political, and being aware of that as they create and manage online communities, offline public spaces like buildings, and create products for everyday use. Who will something affect, and how? That critical perspective can save us PR folks some trouble down the line... :)
Speaking of which, I had a hard time fitting the critical literacy into the PR field - maybe while all of these work with writing, only some cross-apply. I wonder if we could work toward a more interdisciplinary approach with literacies by finding out (across the curriculum) what three areas various departments want students literate in RE: technology...
There is a dissertation topic for ya! :)
Posted by Kathy O on September 17, 2008 at 11:33 AM EDT #
Heh.
Well, having done a few years in the comp sci industry myself, I'd found that part of me saying all this stuff was theoretically wonderful, but practically useless. I mean, the idea is that you're out to make money, bless your heart. Functional literacy is about as high as it can go, nearly by definition. But the utility of critical thinking is only as large as its effect on the bottom line, you know? Sometimes you can convince someone that the long-term bottom line will look better due to some initiative you articulate, but that usually involves putting in time outside of "normal work hours" to make it happen -- by yourself. If it fails, the cost was that you had your laptop open, and you've still put in hours getting more familiar with company procedure, goals, and coding. If it works, great! Freebie!
So academic introspection (you could substitute "critical" for "academic", but come on...) is not encouraged nor particularly wanted in my limited experience. It's great to be bright, but the considerations (ethics, equality, identity politics) have already had their influence maximized in the current culture of your corporation. It's already been decided -- perhaps passively, and given that the business is successful -- to what degree those should be factored into the business. Pushing for more is to face off one against the corp.
And before anyone gets too excited about how teaching students now will affect corporations later once they're employed, well, it's nice to think that way. I think much of what you've done is to move what sells -- much like "green" sells now. Not necessarily bad, and it's often useful to see how one can appropriate profit mentalities for social improvements, but believe me (and I believe a quick check of how far "green" has gone), the prevailing influence will still be profit.
That's by design.
Posted by Ruffin on September 17, 2008 at 07:26 PM EDT #