Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Contextualizing the Class Computer (Selber)

Until fifth grade, the bulk of my computer use in school consisted of playing Oregon Trail on some truly ancient Macs.  As informative as I’m sure repeatedly dying of dysentery was, it didn’t feel like an experience that grounded me in the realities of how computers would be used later in my life.  My fifth grade teacher was a little savvier.  He tried an experiment where we passed around a piece of paper, writing contributions to a conversation one student at a time.  The goal was to explain the concepts of internet chat rooms and forums.  The experiment’s success was mixed, but it forced me to think about the internet in a way I hadn’t; as a social medium that was both like and unlike the non-digital world.  The experiment contextualized the technology for me.

Stuart Selber thinks that understanding the social context of technology is vital to students’ use of it, and ultimately, how well they navigate the digital world.  He highlights how easy it is for technology to be decontextualized for students, however.  He quotes David Orr saying that conventional teaching of technology risks students having “no confrontation with the facts of life in the twenty-first century” (9).  Confrontation is the key word.  Students are at no risk of under-exposure to technology, but how well can they situate their use of technology? 

UNO has an agreement with Microsoft that gives all students access to its Office 365 suite, even on their personal devices.  It’s quite a deal, giving students free access to tools that are considered industry standards.  How the UNO announcement of the deal justifies it is telling: “As educators, everyone at UNO is united behind a single goal – help prepare our students to become the best they can be…According to IDC students with Office skills are better prepared for work in the professional world.”  The last sentence includes a link to a Microsoft article detailing the study in question.  Selber would likely see these statements as decontextualizing the technology.  It juxtaposes students “being the best they can be” with simply being good workers.  Is that the best they can be?

Selber thinks that teaching the social context of technology is too often an afterthought, and should instead be the core of instruction (21).  But economic realities seem to work against this notion.  If a company offers a university a killer deal for access to its software, university administrators aren’t likely to complain when that company wants to advertise the deal as training a new workforce.  Selber thinks that purely functional digital literacy need not be disempowering, but can serve to explore more critical analysis through humanities education.  This class is a good example of his notion.  It shows that teaching how to use a software and use it well doesn’t have to have purely vocational goals.  It’s just as possible to ask students to actively question technology (“Ja,” says Herr Heidegger) as they learn it.

Selber, Stuart A. Multiliteracies for a Digital Age. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2004.

3 comments:

  1. You ask, "but how well can they situate their use of technology." A good question. I have used the novel Terrarium in previous Digital Literacies classes as a way to contextualize both the use of technology and the discussions about the technology. Most of the students like that method of contextualizing because, they said, it was easier to visualize the technological problems. In Terrarium, the earth has been so polluted that no one could live on it anymore. As a response, they designed huge dome-like structures and moved humanity inside. Everything in the novel is a discussion about technology both its embrace and its rejection. I tend to use narrative a lot because people can relate to the narrative as a means for examination. I didn't use the novel this time because I found the book we are using and it seemed like a lot of reading. Plus it's good to try to new things when you're preparing for classes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great observations connecting it to UNO. I am really glad that UNO is taking technology and the need to learn it so seriously. Many schools don't see it as important or foremost knowledge for future jobs. Today, technology knowledge is one of the first things companies will check to make sure you have. Then so on with specific knowledge in the field and etc.
    Selber and you mention how learning technology and many programs is and maybe should be a social thing. Kids today are learning programs for homework and work work but how do they learn before that. Many text or video chat or make documents for alot of different reasons but over all, it is used for communication with people or sharing ideas.
    I Know that what you mention about companies not thinking of it as a social activity first is exactly what happens but still, the technology is set up for it and people find ways to make it work for their purposes or they create their own.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Adobe changed the game for the access to industry-standard software when the adobe creative cloud was released. I have been subscribed to the suite for over a year, and it is great that UNO is now implementing the adobe programs. Hopefully software like Office adopt this model of affordability, as I see it as the new way of the future for software. In the past, programs like photoshop on its own was a $300+ investment, and I believe the previous model ultimately led to a massive amount of piracy. I knew several people who wanted to experiment with different softwares, and simply torrented them to find out if they had any interest in using. If they aren't, they simply remove it rather than regret a $500 licenced program they no longer want. A continuing payment deal, allowing a curious user to experiment for an affordable rate, has cut down on the piracy of adobe programs, not to mention pirated users must go through much more grief to update as the cloud system regularly does. I believe that allowing students the opportunity to experiment with different creative or workplace related software is important to identify those who catch on quickly, and those who hadn't had adequate experience or access.

    ReplyDelete