C&W 2007: The Forest vs. the Trees
While at the 2007 Computers and Writing Conference in Detroit—yes, I’m playing catch-up blogging—I attended a panel with Michelle Sidler discussing the co-editing of Bedford St. Martin’s professional development book Computers in the Composition Classroom: A Critical Sourcebook. Although I may have disagreed with some of her perspective on science fiction as it relates to the understanding of bio-ethics (our discussion at lunch), I was happy with her “forest before the trees” approach to the edited collection. I also enjoyed her discussing the difficulty of doing an edited collection that is trying to capture historically significant texts, some of which where originally published to the web. As I am about to wrap up my own co-edited collection, I empathize with the struggles of getting copyright release for previous published articles…but to also have to struggle with switching media, ugh!
Since she did focus on the “big issue” articles, I was excited that although this text is discipline specific, that it would be something useful for the people participating in our New Technology Faculty and Professional Learning Communities. And since it is one of the “free” professional development resources published by Bedford St. Martin’s (yes…teaching in the field with the only universally required course has it’s perks, as ethically problematic as they sometimes can be--but a big THANKS to BstM’s), I was able to order a copy for each FPLC member. For those of you are in the Jetsons FPLC, you’ll get a copy. For those of you who are interested in the issues, theories, and pedagogies related to incorporating new technologies into teaching and learning, I suggest you grab a copy! I promise, just because it is for the field of composition, the articles transfer!
Commentary