Using Computers in Technical Communication Courses
http://english.ttu.edu/ACE/journal/broadhead.html

Broadhead, Glenn J.
Texas Tech University

Abstract:

The technical writing program at Oklahoma State University, like many others throughout the United States, serves two groups: - students in technical and scientific disciplines whose preparation for the workplace requires the development communication skills (in keeping with the guidelines of professional accrediting organizations) - students who intend to seek employment as technical communicators. For both groups, our curriculum must provide instruction about writing and document design in a workplace that increasingly performs its tasks on computers. For undergraduate students in science and technology, our main upper-division course (English 3323, 'Technical Writing') focuses on workplace genres such as proposals, progress reports, and recommendation reports. Our approach also addresses the goals of most professional accrediting bodies, which consistently urge that students be prepared for their professional roles, and not simply for academic reports that are evaluated simply for their solution of a technical problem, to the neglect of the larger contexts of such technical problems in real-world writing. In our primary technical writing course for undergraduates, therefore, we enhance the traditional and emerging concerns of technical writing courses with assignments that require use of computers. Finally, when not in class, students have access to a Writing Center (located next door to the Electronic Classroom) and to many computer labs across the campus.