Global Thinking, or the Utility of Trivia    

The constant emphasis on specialization produces university graduates who do not or cannot look at problems broadly. As a result, engineers, scientists and executives indeed graduates in all fields including the supposedly broad-based humanities often cannot solve problems that require knowledge outside of their specializations. Or their narrowness causes them to commit embarrassing blunders that could be avoided if they took a broader view. The case of the British Westland Lysander P12 Ground Strafer aircraft illustrates the problem of narrow thinking. Very little direct information is available on this ingenious but obscure prototype airplane, but by examining many peripheral matters we can determine not only why the P12 was built but also how it was built. Further, we can also determine why it failed. Had the initial designers approached the problem in a broad way, and using information that was then available, they would have seen in advance that the project would fail. The case is instructive as an industrial problem, but it also demonstrates the value of global thinking methodology.

Harris, John S. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2001). Articles>Education>International

Globalizing the Technical Communication Classroom  

In today’s global economy, knowing how to communicate in an international environment is more important than ever. The United States leads the world in the number of foreign students attending its educational institutions. The student body is becoming increasingly diverse. Instructors can no longer assume that all students have had the same experiences. Often, in an attempt to treat all students equally, instructors overlook or misunderstand the needs of international students. But if the teachers acknowledge and welcome cultural diversity in the classroom, students can become more aware of the varied audiences they will encounter in their future careers.

Sharpe, Victoria. Intercom (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>International

Going the Distance: Online Teachers' Perspectives on the Usability and Sustainability of Teaching Writing Online  

Distance education research tends to focus on students' experiences in the online classroom because students are the bread-and-butter of distance learning programs.

Kitalong, Karla Saari. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Online

Graduate Program Perspectives and Perceptions  

The panelists agree that the primary reason to pursue an advanced degree is professional improvement. There are many graduate programs in technical and/or professional communication with focuses ranging from practical application to theoretical development. Because of individual and program differences, graduate students have different perceptions even within their respective programs. This panel focuses on the perceptions of graduate programs from three panel members perspectives.

Jeansonne, Jerold, Lynn A. Perry and George J. Vivrett. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Education>Graduate

Graduate Research in Technical Communication: Preparing Students to Use the National Information Infrastructure  

Graduate researchers in technical communication help prepare other students for using the National Information Infrastructure, known as the super information highway. Here graduate students report recent research on the importance of logical screen sequences in hypertext, eight types of information to include to make proposals persuasive, and a profile of surveyed university computersupported writing facilities to point out needs such facilities have.

Battle, Mary V. STC Proceedings (1994). Articles>Education>Graduate>Online

Graduate-Level Technical Communication Instruction in the United Kingdon   

This paper describes the results of a study of graduate technical communication programs in the United Kingdom begun in the Fall of 1998. The study intended to 1) describe the general structure of graduate instruction in technical communication, and 2) to analyze the field according to 3 key topics in technical education in the UK: What is the international orientation of programs? What are the subject-matter components of technical communication programs? What delivery methods and other classroom practices do the programs embody The formation in these four areas can be useful to a number of readers. Those in the education can benefit by comparing practices in the U. S. A. to those in the UK, especially comparing delivery methods and subject matter. Practitioners of technical communication seeking employment in the UK or European Union markets can benefit by learning the requirements of work in these areas. Members of professional societies such as the Society for Technical Communication can benefit by learning about the state of the profession of technical writing in the UK as it is supported by and reflected in the education of advanced practitioners.

Barker, Thomas and Anna Sallee. STC Proceedings (1999). Articles>Education>Regional>United Kingdom

Grease on the Keyboard: Making Composition Work in a Technical College

Times have changed. The industrial age has become the information age, and technology and equipment evolve at such a rapid pace that it is wasteful to train a person for only specific psychomotor skills. Employers are calling for the hands-on training to be combined with more communication and critical thinking skills so that employees have a broader education that allows them to switch speeds or tasks.

Lourey, Jessica. NCTE TETYC (2000). Articles>Education>Writing

The Great Instauration: Restoring Professional and Technical Writing to the Humanities    

If you wish to start an undergraduate professional and technical writing program at a small liberal arts college, you will find good arguments for your project in the educational writings of Sir Francis Bacon. Unlike other Renaissance Humanists, Bacon located the New Learning (what we now call the humanities) within the related contexts of scientific discovery and invention and professional training and development. His treatise, The Advancement of Learning, proposes to draw knowledge from and apply knowledge to the natural and social world. Bacon's curricular ideas can benefit emerging PTW programs in the humanities in three ways: They make a convincing apologia for most English departments and writing programs, wed humanistic education to public service, and provide a rich but practical theoretical framework for program development and administration.

Di Renzo, Anthony. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2002). Articles>Education>Professionalism>Technical Writing

Greater than the Sum of Parts: A Poetry/Science Collaboration    

Collaborations between disciplines in middle school usually occur between language arts and social studies, or between math and science; however, we found a collaboration between language arts and science to be a fruitful experience for our students in their learning both disciplines and in improving our own teaching.

Abrams, Nancy and Nadine Feiler. LLAD (2002). Articles>Education>Writing

Guided Surfing: A Multimethod Assessment of a Layered Hypermap WWW Interface  

A multi-level hypermap interface was created for the display of world wide web pages relevant to an undergraduate class in Sensation and Perception. Assessment of the interface consisted of two experiments. Results indicated that the guides encourage students to broaden the focus of their search. Further, the guides do not appear to be particularly effective for enhancing the acquisition of detailed-factual knowledge. Over all, students subjective reactions to the guides were positive. In particular, they perceived the guides as making the search project more efficient, and providing the learner with 'big picture', conceptual knowledge.

Hall, Richard H. and Eric L. Stocks. University of Missouri-Rolla (1998). Articles>Web Design>Education

Guided Surfing: Development and Assessment of a World Wide Web Interface for an Undergraduate Psychology Class  

Although the World Wide Web has great potential as an educational tool, and many educational practitioners have begun utilizing the Web in many ways (e.g., Dodge, 1995; Logan, 1996; Mounts, 1996; Weiler, 1996), as yet, there has not been much systematic, theory based, research aimed at examining these methods. The principal purpose of this experiment was to begin to address the issue of how best to structure an interface between learners and the vast jumble of resources at their disposal on the Web. The need for the development and investigation of such an interface is indicated by research, which has found that some degree of learner guidance is particularly important in effective web learning (Anderson & Joerg, 1996).

Hall, Richard H. University of Missouri-Rolla (1997). Articles>Web Design>Education>Usability

Handling Software Failures: Need For Effective Training

The cost of software failure in terms of schedule overruns and poor quality are well known.

Kumail, S.M. Nafay and Gaurav Chadha. Indus (2003). Articles>Education>Software

The Harder They Fall: Pitfalls of Online Team Writing Assignments  

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has opened up new territories for teaching technical communication. But web-based courses can present steepchallenges for students working on team assignments as well as for teachers designing them. What conditions make it likelier that e-teams will fail? Whatconditions might better prepare instructors and student teams to deal not only with the technical, but also the interpersonal, challenges of learning from eachother in a CMC environment? First providing theoretical frameworks suggested by research into collaborative writing and the effects of CMC on learning andteamwork, I outline some difficulties facing students struggling to complete a technical writing team assignment. I then suggest strategies for instructors andstudents to help ensure that online teamwork is a productive and positive experience.

Goldrick-Jones, Amanda. STC Region 7 Proceedings (2002). Articles>Education>Online

HCI Education and CHI 97

Education always plays an important role in the annual CHI conference. The tutorial program provides a valuable opportunity for both HCI practitioners and researchers to explore new topics. Other venues, including workshops, panels, special interest group sessions, and papers are also used to explore educational issues. This year HCI Education was represented by a panel, a Special Interest Group, and several short papers discussing issues important to HCI education.

Sears, Andrew and Marian Williams. SIGCHI Bulletin (1997). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

HCI Education and CHI 98

This year, the CHI conference placed special emphasis on three application domains: education, entertainment, and health care. The education domain included everything from pre-school for children through continuing education for working professionals. HCI education was well-represented, and was the focus of a paper and a panel.

Williams, Marian G. and Andrew Sears. SIGCHI Bulletin (1998). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

HCI Education: Past, Present and Future?

The roots of HCI came from a number of separate disciplines, including computer graphics, human factors, ergonomics etc. (Hewett et al., 1992). In higher education, HCI was also represented as separate disciplines and sub-disciplines with separate courses or modules within the various disciplines. In contrast, the 1980's began to recognize the multi-disciplinary nature of the field. Conferences such as SIGCHI and books on HCI (e.g. Baecker & Buxton, 1987; Card, Moran & Newell, 1983; Norman, 1988; Shneiderman, 1987) appeared that brought the various disciplines together in new ways.

Gasen, Jean B. SIGCHI Bulletin (1996). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

HCI Education: Where is it Headed?

As HCI continues to mature as a discipline, we must continue to question the bounds of the field. We must define what is within the realm of HCI and what is not. To begin, we can explore some of the proposed definitions for the discipline.

Sears, Andrew. SIGCHI Bulletin (1997). Articles>Education>Human Computer Interaction>Usability

Heuristics for Sustainable Distance Education  

Discusses eight conditions for technological change that can support innovation in educational settings. These conditions, which were first directed toward library contexts and then studied in a variety of education-related contexts, encapsulate the majority of sustainability issues associated with distance education. These eight conditions are not exhaustive, but programs that achieve many of them will probably experience a high degree of sustained success.

Selber, Stuart A. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

Hither, Thither, and Yon: Process in Putting Courses on the Web      

Educational institutions are employing a variety of processes to support Web-based courses.  In our efforts to help faculty mount such courses, we found it helpful to divide course material into knowledge-based versus skill-based elements, and to develop activities that capitalize on the unique environment of the Web.  In this article, we discuss our successes and failures, and cover some legal issues we discovered that affect how we use both preexisting and student-produced materials.

Thrush, Emily A. and Necie Elizabeth Young. Technical Communication Quarterly (1999). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

Homegrown Technical Communicators: Developing a Technical Communication Program for Community Colleges  

How can business address a local shortage of competent technical communicators? Identifying and educating resources available within the community provides one solution. The intent of this paper is to give a brief account of a project that was undertaken jointly by participating businesses and the Dallas Community College System to address a shortage of technical communicators in the immediate area.

Schoemaker, Carlos P. STC Proceedings (1993). Articles>Education>TC

How Do Students and Practitioners (Actually) Analyze Users?  

This paper reports on some disconnects between best practice teaching principles about user analysis and actual student practice. This research documents the facts of these disconnects and indicates some of their causes. Recommendations for academia and industry are offered. stereotypes to derive a model of audience. To what extent, however, does principle inform practice?

Levine, Barbara J. STC Proceedings (2005). Articles>Education>Audience Analysis

How Document Design Helps English Learners Master Science

Explores how basic, scaffolded technical-writing exercises can help ESL students gain cognitive maturity, practice science literacy, improve their note taking, and use text signals and science idioms more effectively.

Girill, T.R. ACM SIGDOC (2005). Articles>Education>Document Design>Language

How Much is Enough? The Assessment of Student Work in Technical Communication Courses    

The information that follows is the text of the web-based survey described in 'How Much is Enough? The Assessment of Student Work in Technical Communication Courses,' TCQ Winter 2003.

Cargile Cook, Kelli. Technical Communication Quarterly (2001). Articles>Education>Assessment

How the Web Is Changing the Role of the Service Course    

The service course is undergoing another change in its role in the Technical Communication program. Over the years, the service course has evolved from a way of providing students with mastery of genre and style to a way of introducing students to their role as communicators in the rhetorical situation. The Web drives the new role evolving out of this solid past. The service course now provides students with a basis for independent creation. Programs must fill four key needs for students entering the job market. Students must: learn to learn; master the processes involved in creating information; learn applications quickly and graduate having mastered several; and understand information design.

Riordan, Dan. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

How to Develop and Implement a Usable Training Database  

The results of a Motorola human resources survey revealed an inadequate procedure for selecting training programs pertinent to specific job functions and individual career aspirations. A cross-functional team was formed to remedy the situation within one division. The team selected skill and knowledge criteria for career paths (early, middle, and late) in specific technical disciplines, such as applications engineering, technical communications, applications support, etc. The new training database also includes training, book, and article evaluations that other employees can review. In addition, the database provides access to the Motorola University training catalog and the Motorola technical libraries.

LeVie, Donald S., Jr. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Databases