The Fifth C: Computers, Special Interest Group Session, CCCC 1998

Special Interest Group, SG1.8, CCCC, 49th Annual Conference,Chicago. Palmer House Hilton/Salon III, 3rd Floor. 2 April 1998.

Sponsored by the CCCC Committee on Computers in Composition andCommunication

• Eric Crump <eric@serv1.ncte.org>, National Council of Teachers of English, Urbana, Illinois
• Traci Gardner <traci@daedalus.com>, The Daedalus Group, Inc., Austin, Texas
• Cynthia Haynes <cynthiah@utdallas.edu>, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, Texas
• Judi Kirkpatrick <kirkpatr@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, Kapi'olani Community College, Honolulu, Hawai'i

[1995, Washington][1996, Milwaukee][1997, Phoenix] [1998,Chicago]

The 5th C SIG meeting focused on a response toCynthia Selfe's keynoteaddress at the opening session of the CCCC. Thesession handout outlined issuesraised in Cindy's paper and proposed three discussion areas. Thosepresent divided into groups, brainstormed, and then reported back tothe session as a whole. The responses below will informa sense-of-the-house motion to bepresented at the CCCC General Business meeting on Saturday, April 4,1998, and fuel the creation of a specific professional stance ontechnology initiatives. To discuss the issues raised in this report,please join the online discussion in theCCCC online forumassociated with the keynote address.

traci gardner
traci@daedalus.com

How should such literacy monies be spent in English compositionprograms? What kinds of literacy and technology projects should befunded? What guidelines can we suggest to ensure that money is spenton a wide range of literacy values and practices?

Because of the number of people, this group divided into twosmaller groups.

Group 1-A

How spend it? What money?

• Personnel
• support staff
• training
• compensation for technology work
• seed money for projects and for incentive
  • for faculty (like course releases)
  • for equipment
  • for software
  • for Internet access
• reworking financial aid to allow for buying computers

What projects?

• Build what we think of as a quality computer-enhanced project.
• Universities should partner up with community colleges and K-12 to do grant proposals and to reach ethnic, non-traditional, and marginalized student constituencies.
• At-risk students and basic writers

Guidelines?

• Build liaison relationships with IR departments so that we're invited to the table.
• Define literacy issues, use similar literacy models to define computer-enhanced literacy projects.
• Literacy should be defined as critical literacy, having the same social function we've worked for for years, as it functions in technologically rich environments. Make sure our values are heard.

 

Group 1-A

Jump to Group Transcript

Summary:

We recommend people sponsor projects that involve collaboration between education and community using technology to support cooperation (that in fact seems popoular among grantors), that we learn from the service learning movement and its literature. that we discover cost-effective means of outreach and community building, and find support for community building that will persist beyond specific project boundaries by lobbying locally for structural change, educate about cost effective outreach. know the budget cycles of whoever has the money we want.

Group 2

How should excellence be gauged in such literacy projects? What outcomes should these projects have as goals? How should outcomes be assessed and shared?

 

• Must assessment tool -- Must define literacy
• Excellence in literacy projects -- both formative and summative assessment
• Teacher objectives -- where are they? how are they doing? where are they headed?
• Problems encountered and stages that exist, process we ?
• Observation samples -- define own goals, how project is defined, can have project levels -- must allow for assessment to define itself
• Consider who is audience of evaluation? What is the purpose of evaluation?
• Ongoing process
• Charge each literacy project to provide model evaluation that addresses public accountability
• Excellence in literacy is more than discrete. Get skills relating to computers.

 

Group 3

How do we address the serious need for professional development and support for teachers within the context of the project? How can we ensure that teachers get the support which they need? What guidelines can we suggest to help project planners make sure teachers and students are able to benefit from these projects?

Because of the number of people, this group divided into two smaller groups.

Group 3-A

• There's seldom an actual training program?
• Is there a position which actually develops the training position, and who defines the issues that need to be addressed?
• What does teacher support need to look like?
  • Need to know why they're using a specific technology:
    • What are the pedagogical payoffs?
    • Why use, for example, a MOO vs. Netscape?
  • An institutional initiative behind instruction in technology
    • University needs to allow release time, for example, for instructors to learn
    • Need to have an overall plan about how technology will be implemented over a period of time (5 or 10 years)
  • Assess: what do you do without technology and what would you like to do in the classroom -- teach technology toward those goals
  • Accessibility: technology needs to be around after the initial instruction to allow for continuing experimentation
  • Needs to be made a priority at the department level and have those with institutional clout to make the programs go forward
  • Need to re-educate administrators that training and tech support needs to accompany the purchase of hardware and be kept available
  • Locate programs that have programs in place and model on those or adapt their premises for specific needs
• It's got to stop being a grassroots, informal program and be made institutional
• Identify different needs for different types or levels -- what are the needs of pre-service K-12 vs. those of others
• Follow-up and coherent sustained support from those of us interested in technology. People need to stay in touch

Group 3-B

We believe

1. That as educators we need to get up to speed so that we can teach others;
2. That we need professional development -- hardware and software trainings, critical consciousness of technology -- what it does to, and for, people;
3. That we need professional development in the integration of technology into our teaching;
4. That our institutions' budgets should spend twice what they spend on equipment and depreciation on training and support staff;
5. That funding for technology must come from new sources -- not at the expense of teaching staff, school lunch programs, or any social support services.