Learner Access in the Virtual Classroom: The Ethics of Assessing Online Learning  

Web-based instruction is often valued because of the way hypertext and dynamic visual media may enhance course content. The advantages of virtual space are framed in terms of 'access' - access to broader dimensions of ideas, access to academic and non-academic databases and information, access to diverse learning communities.

LaFond, Larry. Kairos (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

Learner Attitudes Towards a Tutor-Run Weblog in the EFL University Classroom

The purpose of this personal mini-research project is to investigate learner attitudes towards a weblog that I recently set-up and have been running for my classroom-based university EFL learners here in Japan. What follows will be my attempt to relate my experience as a first-time researcher: from formulating the research questions to selecting research methods and describing their deployment. I will then report on the outcomes, give a short analysis, and discuss what the entire process meant to me.

Campbell, Aaron Patric. OCN (2002). Articles>Education>Content Management>Blogging

Learning the Intricacies of Effective Communication Through Game Design    

As many teachers of communication come to realize, students often operate under the misconception that the effective use of language consists primarily of memorizing and applying the rules and regulations of grammar. Even worse, some students believe that they must inherit a talent for language and that without a genetic predisposition, they can never learn to use language well. Demonstrating otherwise isn't easy, but because good communication skills are crucial to success in a professional environment, teachers must attempt to do so. In Introduction to Technical and Scientific Communication, a course I teach at James Madison University, I have students complete a fairly traditional assignment in a somewhat nontraditional way, one that highlights the intricacies of effective communication in a context that students find accessible. A typical assignment for an introductory-level technical communication class requires students to write a set of instructions for a procedure they know well. This straightforward assignment is useful but rather uninspiring, not only because students have difficulty realistically defining the audience they're addressing but also because it's much too easy to tap into the already existing sea of instructions available on the Internet. I remembered an assignment from my days as a graduate student teaching freshman composition. The assignment, based on the rhetorical mode of process analysis, required students to create and explain a game generically called 'Student.'

Bednar, Lucy. Business Communication Quarterly (2008). Articles>Education>Business Communication

Learning to Be Professional: Technical Classroom Discourse, Practice, and Professional Identity Construction    

Instruction in the technical and scientific disciplines gives students the technical skills necessary to succeed in industry. However, these disciplines also focus on socializing students into professional identities. This study examines one exemplar discipline, mechanical engineering, to see how classroom discourse and practice constructs professional identities for students (as future engineers) and their customers. Results suggest that although students' conceptions of the customer provided glimpses of professional identity, design processes in these classrooms were ultimately driven and shaped by academic communicative practices, audiences, and goals. Given this, instructional interventions are provided to integrate professionalization processes within classrooms where situated learning is apparent.

Dannels, Deanna P. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (1999). Articles>Education>Professionalism

Learning to Write: Learning about Sustainability  

I had been involved with a program at Clemson to integrate laptop computers into the engineering curriculum. In this pilot project, I had taught first-year writing since 1998 to engineering and science majors using their own laptops in classrooms equipped with ethernet connections and a video projector. This proved to be a rich environment for sharing work and collaborating among ourselves. I wanted to see whether we could extend our collaborations to other Clemson classrooms. Mary Haque (a professor in Clemson University’s Horticulture Department) and I decided that my first-year composition classes could collaborate with her horticulture classes.

Longo, Bernadette. Kairos (2001). Articles>Education>Engineering>Writing

Lessons Learned From Instructional Design Theory: an Application in Management Education    

Given that many doctoral programs do not provide extensive training on how to present course information in the classroom, the current paper looks to educational psychology theory and research for guidance. Richard Mayer and others' copious empirical work on effective and ineffective instructional design, along with relevant research findings in cognitive science, are summarized and adapted to the management education context. The goal of this article is to enhance instructors' ability to effectively relay course material and to offer specific advice for how instructors can implement prior research findings.

Burke, Lisa A. Business Communication Quarterly (2007). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Multimedia

Lessons to be Learned

Ivy-covered halls are filling up again with eager students of the user experience fields ready to change the world (or at least to study out the recession). But are these programs really teaching them what they need to know?

Olsen, George. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Articles>Education>Information Design

Let the User Write the Documentation  

Teaching non-writers how to write can be challenging, especially when they are adults using new software to do their jobs. But who knows best how to write about their jobs than the end users. Through field experiences and case studies, this paper describes methods and approaches for eflectively including the end user in the documentation process, as well as educating experienced writers who are new to the system.

Doyle, Diane J. and Janet M. Samuelson. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Documentation>Education>Writing

Life-Long Computer Skills

Schools should teach deep, strategic computer insights that can't be learned from reading a manual.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Education>Technology

A Lifetime of Learning and Teaching

After more than 30 years of making money as a translator, I wonder why no one ever thought of guiding me in that direction. Instead I was left to find it for myself, as the result of fortunate circumstances and opportunities I somehow created for myself.

Howell, Betty. Accurapid (2005). Articles>Education>Translation

Linking Industry Best Practices and EC3(g) Assessment in Engineering Communication

Enthusiastic comments about 3(g)--one of the most widely appreciated ABET 2000 criteria--have masked disagreements about what 'effectiveness' is and how it should be defined in relation to schools' missions. Most of the methods that have been recommended for assessing engineering communication imitate procedures used for large-scale testing in English composition. The main purpose of this paper is to show that these methods have nothing to do with effectiveness or audience, and that they provide meager feedback to guide curriculum improvement. This uncertainty provides an opportunity for cooperation between engineering and communication faculty in individual institutions as well as between ASEE and professional organizations in engineering communication. Continuous monitoring and evaluation of industry best practices seem well suited to provide engineering schools with assessment strategies that can be updated as communication practices in industry change. Research projects should focus on exemplars' adaptations to new technologies and audiences. Collaboration between organizations for technical communication and the ASEE and between faculty from engineering and faculty from technical communication on individual campuses can ensure that engineering programs are realistically preparing students to meet future challenges.

Driskill, Linda. Rice University (2000). Articles>Education>Engineering>Assessment

Literacy and Expertise in the Academy  

The ability to read and write are usually regarded as a birthright in this country. The transmission of reading skills to the general public has been part of the agenda for American education since the initiation of the public school movement (Cook-Gumperz; Graff; Soltow and Stevens). As a result, we regularly espouse the ideal if not the practice of teaching everyone to read, and recent educational reforms have attempted to add writing to this agenda.

Geisler, Cheryl. LLAD (1994). Articles>Education>Literacy

The Lone Ranger as Technical Writing Program Administrator    

The popularity of technical writing and communication has caused many colleges and universities to scramble to hire qualified tenure-track faculty members. So-called lone ranger candidates are often lured to workplaces in which they are the sole technical writing faculty members by promises of autonomy and the ability to develop programs in ways, and at a pace, that would not necessarily be possible at other institutions. This article explores challenges faced by several such lone ranger faculty members and outlines survival strategies that may help lone rangers sustain and build their technical writing programs.

Sapp, David Alan. Journal of Business and Technical Communication (2006). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing

Looking Beyond the Interface: Activity Theory and Distributed Learning  

Activity theory (AT) has for many years been used in studies of human computer interaction, such as computer interface design and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) (Nardi, 1996). In the last five years it has begun to be used to understand distributed learning, as technological innovations in education have often "seemed to be designed to exploit the capabilities of the technology rather than to meet an instructional need," to be technology-driven rather than theory-driven.

Russell, David R. Iowa State University (2001). Articles>Education>Theory>Activity Theory

Looking Toward the Electronic Future in the Classroom  

The electronic tools available in the technical communication classroom have increased in number and sophistication over the last decade. Our three panelists examine the implications to the classroom of virtual reality, E-mail, and 'the information superhighway.'

Glover, Kyle S. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Education>TC>Online

Looking Toward the Electronic Future in the Classroom: Using Electronic Mail  

In the last decade, electronic mail (email) has continued to gain popularity and use, especially in the business community. Growing email use has transformed business communication, making it necessary for business executives, scientists, and engineers to acquire knowledge and competence in electronic communication. Such changes make it necessary to teach skills for effective email communication in technical and business writing classes. Preparing students to meet unique communication challenges that they will face in today’s business world is valuable.

Kim, H. Young. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Education>Correspondence>Email

Lumiere Ghosting and the New Media Classroom  

Refocusing courses around the structure of narrative and how they use theatrical forms of interaction in the presentation of complex online help and instructional systems

Gilette, David, John Elsdon and Enrica Lovaglio. Kairos (2005). Articles>Education>Multimedia

Maintaining a Curriculum

In 1991 the University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule) in Hanover was the first German academic institution to teach technical writing. Since then our curriculum has been subject to changes and it still is: Developing a curriculum is an ongoing process.

Baumert, Andreas. TC-FORUM (1999). Articles>Education>Management>Germany

Making Connections: Teaching Writing to Engineers and Technical Writers in a Multicultural Environment    

Teaching writing to engineering students representing Indian, Middle Eastern, Asian, and American cultures can be daunting as their cultural perceptions of time, gender, source of authority, individualism and risk taking, affect learning styles. However, despite cultural differences, many International students have no difficulty with much of American instruction and, in some cases, perform better than American students. Their ability to adapt to American instruction appears to depend primarily on the educational goals of their cultures.

Boiarsky, Carolyn. IEEE PCS (2008). Articles>Education>Technical Writing>Engineering

Making Decisions about Distance Education: Organizational and Individual Perspectives  

Decisions about distance education, whether from the perspectives of academic or corporate organizations, are often made on the basis of economical, pedagogical, and psychological perspectives. Decisions are also made by potential distance learning students. Distance learning delivery organizations often include student self-surveys in their initial online promotional materials. This metaanalysis of several student distance learning 'readiness' surveys identifies their major common elements, and it offers a checklist of topics to include in distance learning student 'readiness' surveys. Finally, recommendations are offered concerning the ethical and research dimensions of the decision-making required for effective distance education delivery.

Shirk, Henrietta Nickels. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Online>Assessment

Making Disability Visible: How Disability Studies Might Transform the Medical and Science Writing Classroom      

This article describes how disability studies can be used in a medical and science writing class to critically examine the assumptions of scientific discourse.  An emerging, interdisciplinary field, disability studies draws on feminist, postmodern, and post-colonial theory and extends their critiques to the medicalization of disability.  Deconstructing the medical model of disability helps students understand how science is socially constructed.  After conceptualizing disability studies, this essay discusses sample disability-related classroom activities, readings, and writing assignments.

Wilson, James C. Technical Communication Quarterly (2000). Articles>Education>Scientific Communication>Biomedical

Making Educational Software and Web Sites Accessible: Design Guidelines Including Math and Science Solutions

Students with disabilities are increasingly placed in inclusive classrooms where they learn alongside their peers. This poses a challenge to teachers and students because instructional materials may not be available in a form that is accessible to the disabled student. Inaccessible materials stigmatize students with disabilities by preventing them from using the same materials as their peers and can limit their educational opportunities. As technology becomes more prevalent in classrooms, students with disabilities face even more challenges in keeping pace with their classmates.

Freed, Geoff, Madeleine Rothberg and Tom Wlodkowski. WGBH (2003). Articles>Education>Instructional Design>Online

Making it Fit: Teaching Online Information Design in Two Programs with One Course  

To serve students in an interdisciplinary minor in Interactive Media as well as our own concentrators in business and technical writing within the department, we developed a course in designing online information.

Worley, Rebecca B. and Deborah C. Andrews. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Information Design

Making Sense of the Visual in Technical Communication: A Visual Literacy Approach to Pedagogy    

We employ an array of terms to denote the visual; however, we have not yet agreed on a clear framework for understanding the function and relationship between visual concepts. I propose a literacy approach to the visual so that as educators, researchers, students, and practitioners, we acquire more than skills that rely on changing definitions and technologies but an intellectual faculty that provides the knowledge, understanding, and abilities that the visual affords. Through an analysis of arguments for visual instruction, I present the wayS in which scholars justify their claims about the visual. These arguments uncover the breadth and depth of the visual and contribute to a taxonomy of visual terminology.

Portewig, Tiffany Craft. Journal of Technical Writing and Communication (2004). Articles>TC>Education>Visual Rhetoric

Making the Connection: Desktop Publishing, Professional Writing, and Pro Bono Publico      

Designing desktop publishing courses around a model of service familiar in the U.S.--the pro bono publico tradition of professional gratis service--would broaden students’ professional horizons in addition to meeting growing demands for service learning. Such courses would mate volunteerism with the democratic spirit of desktop publishing, a technological platform that provides a means for unrepresented voices to be heard and read. One community project is outlined.

Hafer, Gary R. Technical Communication Quarterly (1999). Articles>Education>Service Learning>Volunteering