This site is an effort to collect, to document, and to reflect on the courses I have taught in the Technical Communication Program at Arizona State University, from 2002-2012.
Technical Communication: Background
Teaching technical communication online has always struck me as a particularly good fit, as it combines all of the elements that help to define technical communication: technology, people, problem solving, interfaces, writing, collaboration, and communication–all in the service of understanding and action. The courses that I teach online bring all of these rhetorical concepts to the forefront in rich, challenging, and productive ways.
For example, when I first began teaching in what was then known as the Multimedia Writing and Technical Communication Program (MWTC), the concept of teaching online was as new to me as it was to the students with whom I was working. This was good, as it required us to figure some things out together, and we had to use available technologies and our very best communication practices to do that successfully. In retrospect, I was very lucky: students in the MWTC Program at the time were admirably open-minded and good sports about being willing to explore problems and opportunities afforded by new and emerging (at the time) web-based technologies.
[example and screen capture of our work]
During the subsequent decade, Arizona State has invested in and provided support for learning management systems such as Blackboard and eCollege. Advances in digital audio, video, and social media have disrupted in productive ways some of my pedagogical assumptions about reading, writing, and students’ literacy practices as they continually negotiate the transition from academic to community and professional life.
But along the way,
- In 2002, for my first online class, I cobbled together my own site
- In 2004, I began using WordPress blogs, hosted on WordPress.com, where students could post drafts, projects, media files, and comment on each other’s work
- In 2005, ASU offered iTunesU and open-source platforms such as Sakai for class use
- In 2006, ASU offered WordPress blogs and wikispaces for class and personal use
- In 2010, ASU discontinued WordPress blogs for students and courses
- In 2011, ASU began offering courses via eCollege