twittering about
Post on 27-Jan-2015
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Twittering About:The professional and pedagogical
Implications of Social Computing and Networking in Technical Writing
Christie DanielsUniversity of Texas at El Paso
OverviewThe traditional workplaceModernization
HardwareSoftware and networking
Pedagogical implications for technical writing
Traditional WorkplaceFaber, discussing the banking industry,
describes a traditional workplace which “was a lasting, usually lifelong, employment, and it provided a comfortable, secure standard of living through salaried wages and regularized increases based on longevity with the company (45).
Task-centered
ModernizationBegins with the rise of the personal computerLaptops and mobilityPDAs and Smartphones
Always connected/interconnectedIncreasingly multimedia-drivenExtends the boundaries of the workplace
The Changing WorkplaceDependent on information - specifically the
ability to obtain and use information Drucker, argues that “the typical business
will be knowledge-based, an organization composed largely of specialists who direct and discipline their own performance through organized feedback from colleagues, customers, and headquarters. For this reason, it will be what I call an information-based organization” (45).
Spinuzzi, in his white paper on knowledge work writes, “These connections lead to more flexibility and collaboration within networked organizations, but also more communication problems: workers from historically separated activities suddenly must interact, collaborate, and learn enough of each others' social languages and genres to work together.”
In describing the distributed nature of the workplace in the information age, Spinuzzi explains, “Distributed work is the coordinative work that enables sociotechnical networks to hold together and form dense interconnections among and across work activities that have traditionally been separated by temporal, spatial, or disciplinary boundaries” (268).
Social TurnEmergence of sites like Myspace for personal
social networking is well-knownBenefitsProblems
Blurring of division between professional and personal life
FacebookTwitterLinkedIn
Pedagogical ImplicationsTeaching students mundane, standardized
tasks cannot be the focusStudents must know how to communicate in
rhetorical situations which we may not even be able to envision in the classroom
How do we do this?
Current examplesPersonal tools – professional applications
Facebook Academic and professional presence
Twitter Presidential campaign Pundits News channels Within RWS program at UTEP
Graduate students share resources Professors in the program also have twitter
accounts
These examples demonstrate the molding or utilization of tools to the purposes/goals of the user.
Our students need to be able to do this with new and emerging technologies
How does this play out in the technical or workplace writing classroom?
The answer: uncomfortably
Personal experienceStudents like answers; do not like uncertaintyParticipation is a challengeStudents are used to the teacher telling them
what they need to knowIn order to foster, the skills these students will
need in the actual workplace, students need practice doing.
They need practice in inquiry and problem-solving skills
In short, rather than always providing a stringently structured writing environment, they need one conducive to inquiry
Ultimately, students need a pedagogical experience which approximates the workplace where communication is not simply relegated to plugging information into the memo format but may take one of a myriad of forms designed to satisfy a given goal or purpose.
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