Week One: Introductions, Overview, Getting Started

Welcome to writing in electronic environments. It is my hope that we have a productive learning experience this semester. I also hope that this course helps introduce you to the rhetorical dimensions of composing in digital, networked, electronic environments, including thinking about the critical aspects of using technologies. Last week we discussed the course syllabus, the schedule, assignments, as well as my expectations for each of you as individuals of a larger learning community. We also began reading and writing assignments. 

Essentially, we hit the ground running and I realize that this class might seem a little daunting at first. Indeed, some assignments this semester will be concurrent. Indeed, you are independently responsible for learning how to make the technologies function. Indeed, there will be times when an assignment is frustrating or a technology is functioning in a way we do not understand. 

Learning should be challenging. In fact, it must be. These are realistic complications representative of the challenges workers and citizens face in a digital world. Allow me to briefly expand on that last point. A digital world impacts the shape of 21st Century literacies which relatedly impacts daily work flows and structures for citizenship. 

Higher education, at it's best, is not only for preparing you for a future career. It is consequential work--not just to you, but to society at a larger level.  Indeed, the aim of a university is to prepare citizens for the future challenges that face societies. There are a myriad of reasons and explanations for this, but I assure you that if you trust those who are trying to teach you with good faith--if you truly listen to what they say--you will grow and you will be a better person because of it. As former U.S. Senator and Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy argued, education is an opportunity to enrich the civic quality of life for others:

In the world and at home, you have the opportunity and the responsibility to help make the choices which will determine the greatness of this nation. You live in the most privileged nation on earth. You are the most privileged citizen of that privileged nation; for you have been given the opportunity to study and learn. You can use you enormous privilege  and opportunity to seek purely private pleasure and gain. But history will judge you, and as the years pass, you will ultimately judge yourself, on the extent to which you have used your gifts to lighten and enrich the lives of your fellow man. In your hands, not with presidents of leaders, is the future of your world and the fulfillment of the best qualities of your own.

We must acknowledge that historically speaking, computers have shaken the very fabric of how we do education and how educational content is delivered, including changes to the spaces where learning is occurs.  Learning with computers is a new way of learning, and together we are students on this adventure exploring what it means to do our jobs. More importantly, though, computers have changed what it means to participate in life, to be a citizen, and to be a member of a community. 

It is my aim that each of you succeed, but more importantly I hope that we, as a class, cultivate the type of trust that is necessary for a learning community to succeed. It is each of our responsibility to bring the attributes of creativity, dedication, respect, and patience to the classroom each day. We must come to class motivated to learn, and to be willing to learn from one another, listen to different perspectives, and to hold one another accountable as participants a members of a larger group.  

My argument is that these challenges are what make learning fun: they enable us opportunities to develop confidence and build effective strategies for responding to realistic problems. This blog will be a place where I write reflections of the learning opportunities that I see emerging. It will be a place where I share reflections on the pieces of information that I have learned from working in a classroom with each of you. Learning, as I understand it, is a collaborative activity that is co-extensive. Indeed, I am responsible for facilitating and evaluating learning, but I learn from the work you do and the conversations we have. You, as a student, will not only learn from the activities that are presented to you, but will also be  responsible for helping facilitate learning and evaluating your own work as well as that of your peers.  I look forward to working and learning with and from each of you this semester. Happy writing, designing, and learning.