AELS Materials Development Exam Equivalent

Dorian Love
7934102

Webwriting
http://www.writeweb.cjb.net

-Part 1The Webwriting materials aim at establishing an online classroom environment in which students learn about hypertexts, how to read, and how to create them. Although in the form of an online text, the materials are conceived as being a hybrid form, to be used by teachers and students in face-to-face and computer mediated communicative classroom settings, online, or over intranets (with modification). In setting out the theoretical underpinnings of the Webwriting materials, I am not concerned with justifying the worth of using computers in the teaching of writing. The use of computer technology in the teaching and learning of writing is often viewed along a spectrum which ranges from technophobia to technophilia, with very little real evaluation of teaching programs with which to assess the contribution computer technology has, or can make towards the teaching of writing (Charles, 2002, online). I rather take the view that computers have already become part of our literacy landscape 1, and how they are used in education rather than whether they should be used, is the question which should be asked. Douglas Kellner describes a critical theory of technology which seeks to use and redesign technologies for education to enhance democracy and social reconstruction in the interests of social justice (Kellner in Snyder (ed), 2002, 157). Computers are thus a site of struggle in education, exemplifying the point that literacy practices are not just cultural expressions, but essentially reflect power relations (Street, 2001, 9). One aspect of power is that of
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Online education, for example, has risen from nothing to a $2.2 billion dollar industry in just ten years (Burnett in Snyder (ed), 2002, 152). In Gauteng, the Gauteng Online project aims to connect all schools in the province to the Internet by 2005, and to equip each school with a 25 computer networked laboratory and each student with an email address (http://www.gautengonline.com). The project is currently piloting in 25 schools. As a cluster leader I have been involved in this project to some extent. In part these materials offer a grass-roots response to the project and the question of how we might use this deployment of resources in ways which deepen our understanding of peoples education and critical literacy.

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access and the digital divide. The expense of computer systems certainly excludes many if not most2, and yet the Internet gives voice to diverse voices. Warschauers research on the ways in which Hawaiian language students have used web-publishing to revitalize the Hawaiian language, shows us how marginalized voices can use the Internet as a means of expressing local identities by accessing dominant discourses of power (Warschauer in Snyder, 2002, 65-6). It is in this context of local voices and global discourses that the Webwriting materials seek to express ways in which local communities may use education and computer technology as a site of struggle. It has been argued that the new technologies need to be seen in terms of the changing relationships between people and between people and organizations derived from new modalities of communication, and that schools need to act as knowledge providers within the community, articulating with the needs of the community in finding ways for schools to do work which is valued by the community (Bigum in Snyder (ed), 2002). The themes of the Webwriting materials aim at providing teachers and students with opportunities for building these relationships within the wider community, and in which students can explore and celebrate local voices within a context of acquiring technological literacies. One can see in many of the online uses in the drill-and-kill (practice) tradition of computer assisted learning that there is nothing inherently progressive in Internet usage, despite the claims by many that hypertext is a more democratic in and of itself3. Drill and practice routines fit a model of education in line with the dominant technocratic paradigm of literacy, in which literacy is seen as consisting of a series of functional skills which can be learned in isolation. Ironically, this usage of the Internet is often seen as being promising because it promises interactivity through the use of Java applets or multimedia scripting delivered via Flash or Director presentations. The hard-coding that these interactive routines represent, however, tend to support teacher-centred, top-down models of education. The choices any reader has to make are limited to what has been scripted by the programmer. Even in the most impressive interactive experiences offered on Internet or CD-ROM such as games, incorporate within their hard-coding assumptions and preferred readings4 which belie meaningful interaction. I have tried to shun this approach in developing these materials. I wish to use the concept of multiliteracies and design, as used by the New London Group, as an organizing principle for viewing the shape and intent of these materials.

However it is also possible that Internet solutions might well prove cheaper for developing nations than bricks and mortar solutions for developing nations, and the cost of not joining the information age might prove terminal to developing economies. 3 The de-centred author, the readers complicity in the construction of the text and the possibilities of access to publication offered by the Inetrnet (Snyder, 1998, 134-6) 4 For example, Bill Bigelow has shown how the Oregon Trail CD-ROM encodes assumptions about native Americans, blacks, women and the environment (Bill Bigelow in Comber & Simpson (eds), 2001)

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In contrast to the more traditional approach, which sees computer literacy, as much as any literacy as a distinct skill which students need to acquire, and which can be broken down into sub-components, the New London Group approach is to see electronic literacies as one of a range of literacies embedded in our social practice. Literacy is conceived as being wider than language alone. A different kind of pedagogy is involved, one in which language and other modes of meaning are dynamic representational resources, constantly being remade by their users as they work to achieve their various cultural purposes (Cope & Kalantszis, 2000, 5) in a changing and increasingly globalized world. Underlying this model is the notion of design. Students become familiar with available design, the grammars of various semiotic systems, engage in design, in their own meaning making activities drawing upon available design, and critically analyze the redesigned, the resources transformed by the meaning making process. The key features of the pedagogical practice promoted by this model are firstly that of situated practice, that is that the learner is immersed within meaningful practices within a community of learners. Secondly there is overt instruction, the scaffolding of learner activities by the teacher, including a metalanguage to encompass the what of design and the how of pedagogical practice. Thirdly, critical framing allows the student to understand, denaturalize, and critique the socio-historical relations of power inherent in social practice, leading to transformed practice within new situated practice (Cope & Kalantszis, 2000, 3335). This model offers, I believe, the best way of understanding how new electronic technologies can be integrated within a curriculum in ways which will not reduce webwriting to mere chat, or hypertext to shallow channel-hopping, but which recognizes that webwriting is multimodal, appropriate to the new work order, and can be conducted within a framework of critical pedagogy. Since the aims of the materials are for students to learn how to produce these kinds of multi-modal, multi-semiotic texts we need to examine what steps have been taken to realize these aims. Much of the literature on writing and electronic literacies involves the use of interactive networked software systems such as Daedalus Interchange (available for evaluation download at http://www.daedalus.com), however, the growth of the Internet has led to an increased use of Internet-based synchronous and asynchronous computer mediated communication, whether via student-teacher journal dialogues, writing conferencing, and student-student exchanges (Knobel et al, in Snyder (ed), 1998, 24). I wish to start by setting out some of the reasons why synchronous and asynchronous communication are viewed as so important in a writing course5. Text-based interaction which is synchronous (eg. chat-rooms, real-time, many to many), or if asynchronous (eg.
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In the Webwriting materials, I have tried to situate the heart of the learning experience in the forums. By linking to the forums, students are able, via the Internet to access chat and email listserve services. I have used yahoogroups (http://www.yahoogroups.com) for this purpose because the service is free and because it combines both chat and email listserve options in a single site. The email messages are archived, can be printed out, and retrieved at any stage. Chat messages are not archived, but can be printed or cut and paste employed to keep a record. The chat, and email exchanges can also be monitored by the teacher, who can observe or contribute at any stage.

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email) at least immediate, is that it combines into a single medium the two main functions of language, communicative interaction (mainly speech) and interpretation and reflection (mainly writing). This confluence of the immediacy of speech, and the reflective power of writing in Internet technologies has led many to view the Internet as a cognitive revolution on a par with the revolutions of language, writing and print (Harnad, 1991 in Warschauer, 1999, 6). Warschauer argues that this intersection between interaction and reflection is of critical importance in cognition. He uses Heaths ethnographic research exemplifying how parent and child speech operates in the same way to enhance cognition, to make his point (Warschauer, 1999, 5). It is unlikely that simply using Internet communicative technologies transfers cognitive benefits. However, it does indicate how the technology might be used to provide enhanced opportunities for students. For example, Warschauer shows how in the classroom interactions he researched, the use of synchronous computer mediated communications (CMCs) contributed to a break-down in the amount of teachercentred input and to the attitudes of the students. The increased interaction was also very democratic, extending to even the shyest students (Warschauer, 1999, 93). The increased opportunities for student-to-student interchanges might be seen as important in a number of ways within a second-language context. Group-work alone often cannot provide beneficial results unless students are exposed to standard speakers of the target language. In terms of production accuracy then, research tends to suggest that groupwork results in fluent, but non-target like production (Pica, 1994). Cononelos & Oliva (1993) argue that email and other asynchronous forms may be used to provide authentic and real-life applications for communication, allowing for content-based and learnercentred pedagogical approaches to language learning ( Cononelos & Oliva, 1993, quoted in Knobel et al, in Snyder (ed), 1998). Students who are traditionally marginalized, for example the shy, female students, and so on are said to participate more, perhaps because non-verbal cues which normally dictate who takes turns are removed. These discussions are said to be more democratic, authentic and to produce collaborative learning (Warchauer, et al, 1994 quoted in Knobel et al, in Snyder (ed), 1998). Claims are also made that asynchronous CMCs provide situations for Krashens input hypothesis to work beneficially (Barson, 1991, quoted in Knobel et al in Snyder (ed), 1998) and for learning to be promoted by Vygotskys proximal zones of development being activated more effectively through peer mentorship. These claims remain to be proven in classroom-based research. I have employed the CMC model at the heart of these materials, nevertheless, partly because such claims need to be tested, and tested within classroom situations. Since the aim of the materials is the production of a web portfolio, this is the next area of the materials which needs discussion. I have framed the writing experience as the production of a web portfolio rather than simply a website for several reasons. I believe, in common with certain versions of genre theory, that writing can be taught, that students should be explicitly taught the elements of genre. The materials seek to foreground aspects of hypertext as a genre, and explicity scaffold these elements for student writers (navigation, breaking content into separate pages, layout, graphics, colour, and so on.). However, hypertext is often presented as a form

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which uniquely privileges the reader over the writer, and, unlike process theory, denies the existence of any final, complete version of the text. Meaning in hypertext shifts as each reader comes at it from a different angle, subverting any ideal reading path. By presenting the project as a web portfolio, then, I hope to foreground for students the tactics they have employed to position their writing in successive revisions. Students are required to present at least two drafts of their page over time, and a journal reflecting on why they have chosen the revision path they did. They also need to produce evidence of messages via the forum in which they collaborated with other students (probably in their group) or the teacher. These requirements are designed to encourage students to pay attention to the why and how they revise. In short, it teaches students how to read and assess their own writing as well as giving their instructors/peers insight into their strategies. It shifts the burden of responsibility for steady improvement over time to the student herself and hopefully gives her the tools to continue to value writing as a creative thinking process beyond the first year writing experience (McIntire-Strasburg, Janice, 2001, online). By establishing times at which first or second drafts are required to be placed in the portfolio, effective teacher-student conferencing and feedback opportunities can be established if these have not occurred previously. The teacher needs to actively pursue this communication via the forums. Of course more traditional forms of feedback, such as faceto-face conferencing should not be ignored. A great deal of the interaction in face-to-face interchanges, however, are likely to focus on technical aspects of page design and computer literacy in the traditional sense of that word, the how do I do this? For this reason the teacher should attempt to establish short CMC exchanges focusing on content and revision issues as a way of ensuring that this form of scaffolding is also given. I have tried to employ assessment strategies which will support this. Self-assessment and peer-assessment using a checklist approach has been used to foster motivation and metacognition (Puhl, 1997, 6-7). The bulk of the materials focus on scaffolding of particular concerns such as deciding on content, choosing a metaphor for the site, limiting the content so that it becomes manageable, and thinking about questions of audience. Print-based materials are excellent for use with integrated reading, task-based exercises such as role-plays, games or writing tasks. Computers, however, despite the allure of interactivity, which attracted so much early attention in the drill and practice mode, are very bad at bringing about such human interactivity. Computers are hefty pieces of machinery and are often arranged in grids or hexagonal formations within computer labs, all of which inhibits face-to-face communication. HTML is also a clumsy layout tool. Because viewers can adjust text size, screen resolution, even display fonts and colours, and because different browsers interpret HTML differently, layout on the screen is inexact. Screens cannot be read and used in the same way paper texts are used. They cannot be placed between participants, poured over, written on.

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Nevertheless, I have tried in these scaffolding sections of the text to include stimulus for face-to-face interactive tasks such as the game used to help students choose a group (group2.htm) or the people not allowed on the website task exercise (content3.htm) which involves pen and paper. In other places I have used forms in which students write things in the forms and print for discussion (audience.htm or topic3.htm). This is an example of the hybrid nature of the materials. In part this stems from my personal belief that there is no best method or approach to teaching, and that teachers need to provide for as much variation as possible. With Prabhu I believe that the most crucial aspect of teaching methodology is the teachers sense of plausibility (Prabhu, 1990). This hybridity, I hope, represents a principled eclecticism (Larsen-Freeman, 2000), rather than an unprincipled one. I believe the materials are coherent in that they share the common framework of design. The materials do lack a focus on reading the web and on a critical reading of the web-texts. These necessary perspectives are areas which call out for revision, and in present form, would require attention by the teacher. -Part 2In the early 1990s I worked at Phambili, a pilot Peoples Education Project in Durban, a school at which even the photocopy machine was a technology eked out for special occasions. During these years I learned a valuable lesson about the limitations of technology and the importance of learner-centred approaches. As a history teacher I was unable to reproduce maps for students, necessary for understanding Hitlers foreign policy. Instead I encouraged students to draw the maps on the blackboard. Students were soon able to take turns drawing the map, while other students narrated the changes to the map, producing an excellent understanding of the time-line of events. This lesson has stuck with me. I am now Head of Department Computer Studies at a relatively well-resourced, although inner-city school in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, and am trying to develop a policy called Computers Across the Curriculum. These materials are a response on my part to the questions of what sort of learning materials should be used once the Gauteng Online project has established a web presence in every school in the province. Some R55 million has been set aside for this project, but I believe unless teachers take ownership of the project the money will be largely wasted. It seems to me that web-based educational models offer enormous promise, not least because of the possibilities offered by CMCs between students within networks and across networks, nationally and internationally in terms of resolving the access paradox, and fostering learner-centred models. Web publishing offers opportunities for authentic writing tasks. The technocrats will no doubt flood the market with flashy interactive flash-veneered drilland-kill programs dedicated to fostering deficit models, remedial and back-to-basics

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conceptions of education. I left Phambili nearly a decade ago, but I still cherish the thought that peoples education can inform pedagogical practice. As I set about working on these materials I found the medium increasingly a hinderance rather than a help. I had decided to avoid JavaScripted quiz type pages such as I had scripted before, eg. On my English teacher website (http://www.etonsa.cjb.net link to resources/literature/Julius Caesar quizzes), but found it hard to reconcile the task-based activities, role-plays and games which were my staple as an English teacher with screenbased materials, which hindered student interaction. As I started reading more about CMCs I became convinced that here was a way to conceive of web-based materials and make them do the work I wanted them to do. CMC enthusiasts in fact suggested that CMCs were uniquely positioned to do this work. A literature review indicates that not nearly enough research has been conducted to support this view, or to counter it, and it seemed to me that materials such as I was working on might be well-positioned to contribute to this necessary research work. On the other hand, I must admit to increasing frustration with the medium, something which surprised me as a card-carrying technophile. Compared with developing materials using a print medium, I felt an extreme loss of control. Scripting drill-and-kill retains the control of the developer, but at a horrible cost. Surrendering control left me, as a developer, with virtually nothing to do except for monologued scaffolding pages, which I was aware students might not even visit! My attempts at interactive exercises seemed stilted and unreal, aware as I was that the student reader would be sitting in front of a screen, and would need to move chairs and re-locate to complete the exercise. The web tutorial monologue is something of a noble tradition. As a student, of computer language tutorials, for example, I have found the form highly efficacious. Much depends on a familiarity of style and a sense of humour as the tutor leads the student through a monologue designed to cover basic skills, using examples to demonstrate the point. For high school students, however, I was worried that monologued presentation styles might prove too alienating, that the web tutorial genre might prove too sophisticated. I have found, when employing this style before in presenting extra-mural programming tutorials in C++ and Turbo-Pascal, where I did not have the time for personal tuition, but relied on students to work through examples at their own pace while I circulated to answer queries, that students often misconstrued the text, found my humour too dry, but that they were able to follow, and work through the instructions profitably. I know as a student myself, and by seeing it in the eyes of my students that there is a certain satisfaction and motivation in working through a monologued tutorial, through each example, and feeling ones reach and powers grow. I think, therefore that the first revision I would do, would be to more consciously recall this web tutorial genre and work through the creation of a single website from the students point of view.

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References
Bigelow, B, On the Road to Cultural Bias: A Critique of The Oregon Trail CD-ROM in Comber, B & Simpson, A (eds), Negotiating Critical Literacies in Classrooms, Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah NJ, 2001. Bigum, Chris, Design Sensibilities, Schools and the New Computing and Communication Technologies in Snyder, Ilana (ed), Silicon Literacies: Communication, Innovation and Education in the Electronic Age, Routledge, London and New York, 2002 Burnett, Ron, Technology, learning and visual culture in Snyder, Ilana (ed), Silicon Literacies: Communication, Innovation and Education in the Electronic Age, Routledge, London and New York, 2002 Charles, Cristie Cowles, Why we need more assessment of online composition courses: a brief history in Kairos, vol 7 issue 3, Fall 2002, online at http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/7.3/binder2.html?coverweb/charles/index.html [accessed 2 November 2003] Cope, B & Kalantszis, M, Multiliteracies: Literacy, Learning and the Design of Social Futures, Routledge, London & New York, 2000. Kellner, Douglas, Technological Revolution,multiple literacies, and the restructuring of education in Snyder, Ilana (ed), Silicon Literacies: Communication, Innovation and Education in the Electronic Age, Routledge, London and New York, 2002 Knobel, Michelle, Lankshear, Colin, Honan, Eileen & Crawford, Jane, The wired world of second-language education in Snyder, I (ed), Page to Screen. Taking literacy into the electronic era, Routledge, London and New York, 1998. Kress, G, Writing the Future. English and the making of a culture of innovation, NATE, Sheffield, 1995. Kress, G, Visual and verbal modes of representation in electronically mediated communication: the potentials of new forms of text in Snyder, I (ed), Page to Screen. Taking literacy into the electronic era, Routledge, London and New York, 1998. Larsen-Freeman, Diane, Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000. McIntire-Strasburg, Janice, The Flash or the Trash: Web Portfolios and Writing Assessment in Kairos, volume 6, issue 2, Fall 2001, online at http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/6.2/binder2.html?coverweb/assessment/strasburg/index.htm [accessed 2 November 2003] Pica, Teresa, Questions from the language classroom: research perspectives in TESOL Quarterly, vol 28, No 1, Spring 1994. Prabhu, N.S, There is no best method Why? In TESOL Quarterly, vol 24, No 2, Summer 1990. Puhl, Carol, Develop,Not Judge. Continuous Assessment in the ESL classroom in English Teaching Forum, April 1997. Snyder, Ilana, Beyond the hype: reassessing hypertext in Snyder, Ilana (ed), Page to Screen. Taking literacy into the electronicera, Routledge, London & New York, 1998

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Snyder, Ilana (ed), Silicon Literacies: Communication, Innovation and Education in the Electronic Age, Routledge, London and New York, 2002 Street, Brian, Literacy and Development. Ethnographic perspectives, Routledge, London and New York, 2001. Warschauer, Mark, Language.com The Internet and linguistic pluralism in Snyder, Ilana (ed), Silicon Literacies: Communication, Innovation and Education in the Electronic Age, Routledge, London and New York, 2002 Warschauer, Mark, Electronic Literacies Language, Culture and Power in Online Education, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey, 1999

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