#10704
Role of Technical Writers in Developing eLearning
Many companies are starting to use eLearning to train their workers, managers, customers and suppliers. Some of those companies want to use their internal technical writers or communicators to not only write the content, but also to develop the CBT or WBT.
Kurtus, Ron. School for Champions. Articles>Education>Online>Technical Writing
#24893
Teaching Writing at a Distance: Avoiding Lecture, Fostering Interaction 
This panel segment focuses on lessons learned from teaching technical writing via Interactive Compressed Video ([C V). Although ICV has limitations, its two-way audio and video have distinct advantages, especially when combined with document cameras at each site. With some ingenuity, the discussions, hands-on exercises, workshops, and individualized coaching that are the mainstay of writing instruction can be adapted for teaching at a distance.
Farrell, Kathleen L. STC Proceedings (1995). Articles>Education>Online>Writing
#13695
Technical Writing in a Technological Age: Changes in the Classroom and the Workplace 
Over the past decade, new media and computer technologies have permeated both the technical writing classroom and the technical writing workplace. Documents written for, and used in, these two contexts no longer include just verbal text messages and simple line art printed on standard, 20 pound white paper, as they often did in the 1970s and early 1980s. Technical writing documents today appear not just in print but in electronic form, and in electronic form these documents include multiple media such as high-resolution graphics, audio and video clips, animation sequences, and visual effects. Couple this expanded electronic form of technical writing with Internet protocols that allow for the global exchange of information, and it becomes clear that distinct challenges and opportunities exist for the field of technical writing in a technological age. What is the nature of these challenges and opportunities in the classroom and the workplace? And, what is the relationship between new media, computer technologies, and the changes currently evident in these two contexts?
Selber, Stuart A. Addison Wesley Longman (1997). Articles>Education>Online>Technical Writing
#18846
The TechOWL: A Resource for Technical Communication Students
The Online Writing Lab (OWL) has been a popular pedagogical complement to writing labs in university academic environments since the mid-1980s. There is, however, a great deal of similarity among the generic functions of these OWLs. This paper presents a brief summary of the historical background of OWLs, and it offers a description of several different perspectives on a new subspecies of OWL – the TechOWL, which can be designed and implemented specifically for students and practitioners of technical communication. This blueprint for a TechOWL offers several suggestions and guidelines for identifying user communities for TechOWLs, for conducting a thorough needs assessment, for designing specific technical communication features, and for building, maintaining, and evaluating TechOWLs.
Shirk, Henrietta Nickels. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Education>Writing>Online
#18564
WAC Meets TAC: WebCT Bulletin Boards as a Writing to Learn Technique
Fall of 2000 seemed like the right time to introduce more technology into my undergraduate course Applied Child Development. Several forces came together to lead me to this decision. NCATE had encouraged teacher preparation courses to make more use of technology. The friendly folks at Information Technology Services were offering summer workshops on introducing WebCT into classes. The Computer Advisory Board (CAB) or the Technology Across the Curriculum (TAC) group—I’ve forgotten which, and I’m not sure I know the difference—was offering bribes, I mean honoraria, to people to make such innovations. And I was recovering from the experience of trying to teach the quietest group of students I’d ever encountered in one classroom, a group I had come to affectionately refer to as 'mime school.'
Miller, Robert S. WAC Journal, The (2002). Articles>Education>Writing Across the Curriculum>Online
#26707
This webtext 'talks' in all the ways we are asked to talk about teaching digital writing: in the hallways to colleagues, in policy documents to administrators, in classroom exercises to graduate and undergraduate students, and to colleagues at conferences, in journal articles, and other scholarly genres.
#26322
Computers are not 'just tools' for writing. Networked computers create a new kind of writing space that changes the writing process and the basic rhetorical dynamic between writers and readers. Computer technologies have changed the processes, products, and contexts for writing in dramatic ways—and writing instruction needs to change to suit how writing is produced in digital spaces.
Cushman, Ellen, Danielle DeVoss, Jeffrey T. Grabill, Bill Hart-Davidson and Jim Porter. WIDE Research Center (2005). Articles>Education>Writing>Online
