Digital Rhetoric and Pedagogy

The idea of what composition or essays are, is changing.  Technology has enhanced so much that we use different tools and means to create and convey meaning.  To write an essay, even to compose one can be achieved through different means.  It is not just with pen and paper, or typing, but speech recognition, and blogs, visual essays among many other things that changed what it means to communicate an idea or series of ideas in an academic format.  Even what it means to be academic has changed.  Essays no longer have to be typed in standard MLA format, since MLA guidebook has changed its formatting style in order to become more accessible to the new and evolving technologies and people.

I believe that as a teacher, I need to teach my students in a way that is accessible to each and every one of them.  I have to keep in mind as an instructor that physical and learning disabilities can prevent students from composing an essay in the traditional method of typing or handwriting.  As a teacher, I feel, that it is my duty to supply them with the means to compose, so that they can do it themselves.  However, in order for new technologies to be successfully integrated in the classroom, instructors must be literate in the new technologies so that they can successfully teach their students how to compose with these new tools.  

With the use of different technologies comes an endless possibility of success in the classroom.  Multimodal technologies such as speech recognition software, blogs such as Tumblr or Wordpress, allow for various mediums to compose and create a story.  For students with learning disabilities, students can create blog entries and stories without the traditional word processing format, but instead use images, music, and videos to compose and create.  Students with physical disabilities, such as the inability to use their hands or are legally blind, can use speech recognition software such as Dragon or Google Speak to help them compose essays and blog entries.  Learning, composing, and creating must be made available to everyone, and technology is the most realistic means of accessibility for all students.

My final project is the Tumblr blog titled “Digital Rhetoric and Pedagogy” (digirhetcomp.tumblr.com).  It is a blog containing tools, articles, as well as some lighthearted entries regarding digital rhetoric, composition, teaching, and multimodal rhetoric as well.  My goal for this project was for it to be a source where teachers, graduate students such as myself can go to to find sources regarding implementing mulimodal tools into their classroom.  I also wanted it to be a place where teachers can go to find inspiration for their classroom as well.  

I think that this project was the easiest for me to work on and complete.  That being said, it wasn’t ‘easy’.  I started out this blog with a basic knowledge of Tumblr.  At the end of the semester, I’ve found out multiple ways to actually use it.  I’m now able to implement music, pictures, gifs, text, and so much more into one blog post than before.  Prior to starting this project, I was convinced that Tumblr only allowed users to post one type of blog piece with only one medium at a time.  Now, I can post videos, pictures, text, and sound all in one post.  However, I’m still learning so much about the multiple ways to use Tumblr as an educational and academic tool.

I don’t know if I can quite wrap my head around everything that we discussed and learned about in Theory and Pedagogy of Electronic Texts.  We discussed so much.  A great deal of it really blew my mind.  At the beginning of the semester, my mindset was still very much in the traditional composition teacher category, even though I really wanted (and still want) to make my classroom accessible to my students.  Multimodal Composition still seems relatively new despite the fact that it is probably over twenty years old.  

By having our class present different kinds of digital and technological tools, such as activities for our classrooms, and tools that we as instructors can actually use.  At first, I was incredibly intimidated by this. I kept asking myself, “What kind of tool can I show my class?  Do I know any tools?!  What’s an actual activity I can present that’s digital?”  I almost had to dumb it down for myself in a way.  So much of the tools that we had learned about in class, I had no prior knowledge about (Storify? What’s that?).  Prezi still intimidates me quite a bit, and I do get frustrated with Canva.  However, I felt confident with Tumblr.  I can navigate Tumblr.  The one thing I always liked about Tumblr is that I can do more than just word processor blog entries, but also video, pictures, audio files, and more!  Word Press restrained me to mostly just text; if I had wanted to use more than one medium, I would have to start paying for it. Presenting my tools and activities in front of everyone in class about Tumblr was a little unsettling.  Tumblr is not widely known for its academic and educational blogs, even though there are plenty of them out there. Most people think of Tumblr as a place where teenagers and young adults go to post pictures of their favorite television shows and actors.  However scholarly databases such as JSTOR, museums NPR, PBS, TedEx Talks, all have Tumblr blogs.  I wanted to prove in my presentations that Tumblr can also be a welcoming place for academia and a place where students can learn and compose using multimodal tools. 

I very glad to find out that everyone else in the classroom was just as lost as I was in regards to what and how we should present things.  But honestly, I really appreciated that vagueness.  It allowed me to go places in my presentation that I wouldn’t necessarily be able to if I had been given stringent or structured guidelines.

I can honestly say that I really enjoyed this class.  At first I was terrified because it dealt with technology, and I’m still not quite literate in that area.  However, what I learned from this class has helped me tremendously to understand how I can incorporate new technologies and multimodal means of composing in my classroom.  There are so many resources available to us as instructors that most of don’t even use.  For instance, before taking this class, I required my composition students to write a journal for the entire semester.  I provide them journal prompts to respond to, but they can also write beyond journal entries without without prompts as well. In the past, I’ve required them to either type these entries in a word processing software such as Google Docs or Microsoft Word, or a notebook in which they could hand write journal entries.  

However, there is a problem with having my students type or hand write their journals; they aren’t multimodal, and my kids aren’t focusing on the process of writing or creating.  I give them a prompt, and they respond to the prompt.  They may think about their answers to the prompt, but are they thinking about the process of writing said answers to prompt?  

At first I was frustrated with how I was going to solve this, and I was also at a loss about what my Assignment Assignment was going to be for this class.  I was still so very much stuck in the mindset of traditional Comp studies; writing, typing, pen, pencil, paper, five paragraphs, Times New Roman, size twelve font!  It didn’t really hit home for me until I saw Jody Shipka’s website, remediatethis.com.  Seriously, though!  It was one thing reading Toward a Composition Made Whole, but it was lightbulb moment for me when I started digging into her website.  We can talk and read all we want about multimodal composition, but until we actually implement it or see someone actually teaching and using it in their classroom, did it really happen?  Her website is considerably older (her latest blog entry is from 2013), but it holds up.  Pictures of drawings, crafted presentations (ballet shoes covered in the written word, paper dolls, an actual portfolio project comprised of half-eaten cake!  These student projects seemed to tell me that as a teacher I didn’t and shouldn’t have to teach my students only one way of composing.  My students can respond to prompts with more than just words.