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Teaching in a computer classroom

Developing Local, Contextual, First-Year Writing Digital Pedagogies at DePaul

Focus on production: one affordance to working in a computer classroom — for instructors who perceive this as a value and as a benefit — is that students can spend time writing. The instructor’s role changes in this environment, and it is advisable to design activities based on your pedagogical goals:

“I want students to be able to …”
“I want students to learn how to …”
“I want students  to explore X and produce Y …”

… and then find the technology that helps you achieve that. (You have a pedagogy/technology support guy who can help!) This way, your pedagogy drives the technology, rather than the other way around. For example, some activities that align with our FYW Learning Outcomes:

  • Brainstorming & Invention: mind-mapping software — bubbl.us
    — Selber: functional
    — Learning Outcomes: generating, process, drafts
  • Peer Review & Feedback scrible.com and MSWord 1 & MSWord 2
    — Selber: functional and rhetorical
    — Learning Outcomes: collaborative and social aspects
  • Collaboration
    — Selber: functional, critical, and rhetorical
    — Learning Outcomes: integrate ideas with others
  • Database Research & Summary
    — Selber: functional, critical, and rhetorical
    — Learning Outcomes: finding, analyzing, and synthesizing
  • Multimodal Composing & Analysis Szoter.com
    — Selber: functional, critical, and rhetorical
    — Learning Outcomes: compose in multiple modes; contextualize meaning-making capabilities