A Triangulation Approach to Understand Multi-Cultural College Students' Technology Literacy in a Composition Classroom

Despite intense debates over the use of computer and networked technologies in composition classrooms, research has been limited by one dimensional support or criticism of integrating technologies into classrooms. The inability to consider students as a central role in the literacy acquisition process has led to many problems in the rhetoric of technology as well as in the implementation of computer and networked technologies in a composition classroom. This study employed a triangulation method to gather empirical data to better assess and critique the rhetoric of technology in composition pedagogy literature. The author collected both quantitative and qualitative data to uncover issues critical to students' technology literacy in a technologized composition classroom. A questionnaire survey was distributed to 62 bi-cultural undergraduate students conveniently recruited from a large southwestern university near the U.S.-Mexico border. Findings from the quantitative method discovered that English instructors' technology literacy had significant impacts on students' own technology literacy. Furthermore, narratives from the qualitative method identify the following themes about technology: effectiveness, practicality, instrumentality, and institutional enforcement. In conclusion, the author discusses the importance of technology literacy in composition classrooms to demonstrate its implications on global literacy theory and practices.

A Triangulation Approach to Understand Multi-Cultural College Students’ Technology Literacy in a Composition Classroom

Despite intense debates over the use of computer and networked technologies in composition classrooms, research has been limited by one dimensional support or criticism of integrating technologies into classrooms. The inability to consider students as a central role in the literacy acquisition process has led to many problems in the rhetoric of technology as well as in the implementation of computer and networked technologies in a composition classroom. This study employed a triangulation method to gather empirical data to better assess and critique the rhetoric of technology in composition pedagogy literature. The author collected both quantitative and qualitative data to uncover issues critical to students’ technology literacy in a technologized composition classroom. A questionnaire survey was distributed to 62 bi-cultural undergraduate students conveniently recruited from a large southwestern university near the U.S.-Mexico border. Findings from the quantitative method discovered that English instructors’ technology literacy had significant impacts on students’ own technology literacy. Furthermore, narratives from the qualitative method identify the following themes about technology: effectiveness, practicality, instrumentality, and institutional enforcement. In conclusion, the author discusses the importance of technology literacy in composition classrooms to demonstrate its implications on global literacy theory and practices.

How Librarians Are Using the Internet

This chapter examines the variety of ways librarians are using the Internet from its influence on the provision of new services to how librarians use the Internet to communicate with each other. A brief overview of Google and Google Scholar and their impact on library services alongside the Library 2.0 service ethic is explored with specific attention to its development and how it connects to previous understandings of library service provision. This is followed by an examination of how Web 2.0 technologies are used by librarians to offer services. There appears to be a disconnect between the rhetoric of technology use in libraries and the actual use of these technologies by librarians in their work lives. This disconnect highlights the previously identified relationship librarians have with technology – a combination of excitement and caution. Following this, a closer examination of three specific Internet technologies, blogs, Twitter, and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), is done. How librarians use these two technologies provides insight into the central place that technology has in the lives of modern librarians.

Mobile Knowledge, Karma Points and Digital Peers: The Tacit Epistemology and Linguistic Representation of MOOCs / Savoir mobile, points de karma et pairs numériques : l’épistémologie tacite et la représentation linguistique des MOOC

Media representations of massive open online courses (MOOCs) such as those offered by Coursera, edX and Udacity reflect tension and ambiguity in their bold promise of democratized education and global knowledge sharing. An approach to MOOCs that emphasizes the tacit epistemology of such representations suggests a richer account of the ambiguities of MOOCs, the unsettled linguistic and visual representations that reflect the strange lifeworld of global online courses and the pressing need for promising innovation that seeks to serve the restless global desire for knowledge. This perspective piece critically appraises the linguistic laboratory of thought such representation reveals and its destabilized rhetoric of technology and educational practice. The mobile knowledge of MOOCs, detached from context and educational purpose and indifferent to cultural boundary distortions, contains both the promise of democratized education and the shadow of post-colonial knowledge export. Les représentations médiatiques des cours en ligne ouverts et massifs (MOOC en anglais) comme ceux offerts par Coursera, edX et Udacity reflètent une tension et une ambiguïté occasionnées par leur audacieuse promesse de démocratisation de l’éducation et de partage global du savoir. Étudier les MOOC en accentuant l'épistémologie tacite de ces représentations mène à une explication plus riche des ambiguïtés inhérentes aux MOOC, de l’incertitude des représentations linguistiques et visuelles reflétant l’étrange monde vécu des cours en ligne à l’échelle globale et le besoin pressant d'innovation prometteuse visant à répondre au désir insatiable de connaissance à travers le monde. Le présent essai évalue de manière critique le laboratoire linguistique d’idées révélées par une telle représentation ainsi que son discours instable sur la technologie et sur les pratiques pédagogiques. Libéré de tout contexte et d’objectif pédagogique et indifférent aux distorsions des barrières culturelles, le savoir mobile des MOOC contient à la fois la promesse d'une éducation démocratisée et le spectre d’un savoir postcolonial.