Conclusions
Many students may seem resistant to the co-option of “their” digital writing spaces. Some moves instructors might engage in, such as conducting classes in Facebook, might seem hollow to students, especially if enough of the network of the object moves or if the associations between work, titles, and types of writing are the same. It doesn’t matter if the writing takes place on Facebook or in the institutional learning management system or if it is still “school” writing and the class and rhetorical expectations transmorph it to another “classroom.”
We think Doug’s class shows how both nonsanctioned and sanctioned spaces can exist at the same time. We think the infrastucture of composing is something that consists of humans, tools, and policies that work together to sanction certain types of writing, something that is deeply embedded and needs to be unpacked (DeVoss, Cushman, and Grabill 2005). In Doug’s course, a browser plug-in allowed students to share content with the course while sitting at their Euclidian tables; this was a small but important part to sanctioning activity. We think that the button itself, small and omnipresent in the browser, allowed students to quickly create the networked space of their class by its use while also allowing for that space to quickly dissipate. Then Doug using those posted links as tools for discussion in the classroom brought the experiences and types of reading and writing behavior around the kitchen table back into the classroom, sanctioning it. We think this is a direct result of the mingling of objects like the web browser, Twitter, and plug-ins, which allow networked writing spaces to occur in a variety of Euclidian spaces as well as altering our perception of those spaces.
Leslie’s experiences further support this. A loosely guided use of publicly available writing and mapping tools extended both the Euclidian and networked space of the class and extended student engagement in considering the best use of the space(s) available to them in their assigned classroom, on their campus, and even as they reach beyond campus onto buses, sidewalks, and their own homes.
Positioning the mapping tool in Leslie's class as a central object around which the entire mapping activity was generated allowed a restructuring of the authority system that traditional classrooms may force or seem to force on a class. Placing the mapping tool-object in that way not only redistributes authority, but repositions physical bodies in the assigned classroom, as when various students took leadership, and when different students took on the teacher role when skills in the technical operation of Google Maps were needed. Positioning writing tools like this also encourages students to take work beyond the walls to better fitted writing spaces that they can control.
We have also been witness to numerous conversations about whether student writing should occur in public places or in limited-access places like learning-management systems. Our answer to this is to suggest that student writing activities should happen in both places, simultaneously. There is value to public, non-sanctioned, easily accessible writing technologies, and there is a need also for writing with an audience limited to fellow classmates or instructors. But in all cases, as teachers we should be analyzing and critiquing the spaces in which we write with our students. We should talk about the ways that the particular students in the class combine with digital tools and even the network spaces of the university to create objects that function in particular ways within our classes and consider how those objects and the spaces around them are different in each class. Productive discussions of classroom and classroom objects and their usefulness can lead to shifting and adding of more productive writing spaces by students, which can alter participation and contributions by students in positive ways.
We think Doug’s class shows how both nonsanctioned and sanctioned spaces can exist at the same time. We think the infrastucture of composing is something that consists of humans, tools, and policies that work together to sanction certain types of writing, something that is deeply embedded and needs to be unpacked (DeVoss, Cushman, and Grabill 2005). In Doug’s course, a browser plug-in allowed students to share content with the course while sitting at their Euclidian tables; this was a small but important part to sanctioning activity. We think that the button itself, small and omnipresent in the browser, allowed students to quickly create the networked space of their class by its use while also allowing for that space to quickly dissipate. Then Doug using those posted links as tools for discussion in the classroom brought the experiences and types of reading and writing behavior around the kitchen table back into the classroom, sanctioning it. We think this is a direct result of the mingling of objects like the web browser, Twitter, and plug-ins, which allow networked writing spaces to occur in a variety of Euclidian spaces as well as altering our perception of those spaces.
Leslie’s experiences further support this. A loosely guided use of publicly available writing and mapping tools extended both the Euclidian and networked space of the class and extended student engagement in considering the best use of the space(s) available to them in their assigned classroom, on their campus, and even as they reach beyond campus onto buses, sidewalks, and their own homes.
Positioning the mapping tool in Leslie's class as a central object around which the entire mapping activity was generated allowed a restructuring of the authority system that traditional classrooms may force or seem to force on a class. Placing the mapping tool-object in that way not only redistributes authority, but repositions physical bodies in the assigned classroom, as when various students took leadership, and when different students took on the teacher role when skills in the technical operation of Google Maps were needed. Positioning writing tools like this also encourages students to take work beyond the walls to better fitted writing spaces that they can control.
We have also been witness to numerous conversations about whether student writing should occur in public places or in limited-access places like learning-management systems. Our answer to this is to suggest that student writing activities should happen in both places, simultaneously. There is value to public, non-sanctioned, easily accessible writing technologies, and there is a need also for writing with an audience limited to fellow classmates or instructors. But in all cases, as teachers we should be analyzing and critiquing the spaces in which we write with our students. We should talk about the ways that the particular students in the class combine with digital tools and even the network spaces of the university to create objects that function in particular ways within our classes and consider how those objects and the spaces around them are different in each class. Productive discussions of classroom and classroom objects and their usefulness can lead to shifting and adding of more productive writing spaces by students, which can alter participation and contributions by students in positive ways.