Reflections on Teaching, Learning, and Writing with/in Digital Environments

Abstract

Four years ago I was invited to develop and teach a course addressing some aspect of literacy and technology within the context of a Master of Educational Technology program. I came to the project with experience in web development and an established research program in digital literacy, but with little first-hand experience of e-learning from an instructor’s perspective. In developing my materials for online delivery, I teamed with an exceptional instructional designer, Jeff Miller, and the course was launched in the fall of 2002. Teaching it since in two online offerings and one face-toface offering has afforded me an interesting perspective on curriculum and pedagogy for digital literacy, as well as on the nature of writing in new media environments. I offer this paper, then, primarily as an instructor’s reflection on the value of this journey. The paper consists of three parts: 1) a discussion of the premise of the course, 2) an overview of the context and curriculum, and 3) remarks upon a collaborative community-building assignment that revealed for both the students and myself some interesting features of hypermedia in terms of the ways in which it both promotes and confounds certain notions of writing in online environments. Toward a broader understanding of technology The premise of the course in question, entitled “Text technologies: The changing nature of reading and writing, ” has to do with broadening perceptions 123