strange and less innovative uses of technology

The debate of how much of a role technology should play in educating students seems to be the argument that will never be laid to rest. Should students use calculators to do their arithmetic or graphing? How reliable are most internet sources? Well, the argument continues on into the use of technology in writing. One of the first articles that came up in my EBSCO feed was by Kathleen Blake Yancey. The article “Using Multiple Technologies to Teach Writing” discusses the number of different ways teachers have been working to incorporate the ever advancing technology into their writing curriculum.

One of the technologies that some educators have been experimenting with is a digital portfolio. In this, students take a unit or semester’s worth of writing and place it in a singular document. The newer use of technology involved is hyper linking. Some educators argue that placing all the student’s writing pieces in a document and hyper linking the table of contents to the specific writing pieces is one way to teach new technology to students.

As I read about this particular use of technology, I thought that it was a bit odd. Further, I felt as though it was a stretch to say that teaching students to hyperlink would help to teach the students writing. Let me elaborate on my thoughts… I am not convinced that hyperlinks are the key to teaching students anything unless the lesson explicitly is calling for a student to link documents together. But unless you are creating a website or maybe publishing a book, I don’t even see a good reason to teach a student how to link documents together. I really do not feel that this is a relevant skill to teach my future students.

This article also discusses the use of imagery in a word processing. I think that this is a much more effective tool in using technology to help enhance a student’s writing. During the writing process of exchanging drafts with the instructor, I like the idea that a student would highlight the areas in their writing that have been revised. As the article states,

When teachers can literally see what goes on in students’ revision processes, they can better guide each student’s particular journey as a writer.

When I choose the topic of new writing technologies I did not expect articles like this. Maybe it is because I am such a technology enthusiast, or I just have high expectations, but I felt as though including technology within a curriculum should be a little bit more natural. My goal in this blog is to discover ways to incorporate new technology, whether it be specific to writing or not, in a way that is natural and enhancing. I understand that this article is not particularly new as it was published in 2004, which was also why I am unsure as to why it was put in my feed as new this week, but I do think that hyper linking in digital portfolios seems like a waste of time.

Unfortunately I cannot link you to the article unless you have a subscription to the EBSCO Database… the link is below otherwise the article is “Using Multiple Technologies to Teach Writing” by Kathleen Blake Yancey.  It was published 10/01/2004 in Educational Leadership.

Yancey, Kathleen Blake. “Using Multiple Technologies to Teach Writing.” Educational Leadership 62 (2004): 38-40.

Link to article