Blog Response #8: Why Are We Having This Argument?

Well, perhaps that title isn’t fair, because we’re obviously having this argument because somebody out there is against their students using technology. Personally, I’ve never had a problem with new technologies in the classroom. Back in high school, I was the kid who was always trying to figure out how to make a video to fulfill an assignment. (Well, not always, but enough to where it got a little old, all the editing and filming and costuming and wondering if Eric Yeh, who had the editing equipment, would get the freaking thing done on time.) Technology—that is, producing new multimodal texts—really enhanced my learning experience. I want my students to have the same opportunities.

That isn’t to say, of course, that I have been very accepting of text messaging—and here is why. By and large, the technologies mentioned in the introduction help students convey their thoughts to their audience(s). However, text messaging is, I feel, still a nascent technology. There have been many, many instances where miscommunication has resulted from a bad text message. Even if a text message gets its point across, the message usually has to be so abbreviated that the intrinsic pathos is lost. For example, I once had a friend announce via a mass-mailed text message that he and his wife had lost a child—it was stillborn. I didn’t have his phone number programmed into my cell phone, so, when the message arrived, I had a random phone number telling me a heartbreakingly tragic story. (It wasn’t until months later that I found out who it was, since I didn’t see the friend for a while.)

And I don’t think that this is a case of “old man Tucker doesn’t get texting lingo.” I’ve heard similar things from other people. However, if the time arrives when texting can actually help people get their point across, I’m all for it. In the meantime, I think even students are struggling with it, as evidenced by their use of funky abbreviations that even they don’t understand sometimes.

Okay, time for a quote:

The more channels students (and writers generally) have to select from when composing and exchanging meaning, the more resources they have at their disposal for being successful communicators. Aural and video compositions sometimes reveal and articulate meanings students struggle to articulate with words; audio and visual compositions carry different kinds of meanings that words are not good at capturing. It is the thinking, decision making, and creative problem solving involved in creating meaning through any modality that provide the long-lasting and useful lessons students can carry into multiple communicative situations. (3-4)

Amen to that, I say. Let’s use the freaking (that’s two freakings in the same paper!) computer already. And video. And cell-phone video. And text-messaging, as soon as that catches up with what we want it to do.