Since I bought my first Apple computer back in the mid 1980s, when the very first Apples were marketed, I have been a believer. This amazing tool was going to change everything for my teaching, for my own writing, for my students. What is most astounding to me now in 2011 is that this revolution has taken so long. Here I am about 25 years later, and I'm starting my first blog. Not for one moment since those 80s days have I been without a computer. It has taken such a long time, however, for the classroom to change along with the tech. Long or short...I've been a staunch believer in the digital world of writing.
The battle to snag the first computers in schools and at home has been constant. First, it was just word processing with some pretty ancient software and those godawful dot-matrix printers. Quickly that developed into more sophisticated software and saving discs/flash-drives that made it easy for me to write. (What will I do with all those floppy discs and zip-discs in my basement?) Putting student words into computer print was amazing. Kids who swore they couldn't write began to produce, most probably because for the first time their own words looked snazzy on the page.
From those early days to now, the transformations have been astounding. With the onslaught of the internet, everything morphed into possibilities for my students' as well as my own writing. My process began to change dramatically. The whole notion of cut and paste and public audiences put me in the writing driver's seat like nothing before. It would surely do the same for my students.
That process, however, came so much more slowly than I expected. Not getting access to technology was driving me nuts through the entire last half of my career as a teacher of writing. If I was becoming a better writer through the technology available to me, it was urgent that my students get that same edge.
What often worked, rather ironically, to my advantage was the slow pace of many of my own colleagues. Because I was constantly learning new tech tools on my own time, I was a bit ahead of the game. I snatched every available chance to get at computers for my students. While many educators were still pretty much in the dark about computers, internet research, search engines, new software, and the endless path of digital change, I was signing on for online coursework, professional development, and computer access anywhere I could get it. Whenever new materials hit the building, whenever new money was made available, I finagled my way to this techno stuff, and I loved it. My students loved it.
More and more I created writing opportunities with my students that demanded they dig deeply into the trenches of tech. We researched via new indices put online for educators/students. We learned side-by-side about the world, and the new technology was letting us do that. We created documentaries instead of traditional research papers; we filmed and wrote real news stories. We were seemingly on the cutting edge of writing in the digital era.
Never did we, as language literacy educators, stop teaching and supporting the writing process. We studied carefully the pedagogy of writing. We understood it.
But now we have an ongoing parade of digital tools to help with that process and the rhetorical context for making writing meaningful. Students might still need to write summaries, but now they can collaboratively create documents that stand the scrutiny of real audiences in the wide world of the web. Exciting times for teachers of writing. Exciting times for writers.
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