Welcome to the Instructor Resources for Robert Yagelski’s Literacies and Technologies. As you may already know, it is an exciting time to be an instructor of composition, thanks in no small part to the virtual explosion of information technologies over the last ten years. It can also be a difficult time for those of us who wish to stay current with those technologies. In addition to the exercises and web destinations in the Student Section of this website, we have tried to provide you with some help in this regard. Ideally, the exercises and suggestions in this section will provide with a place to start in designing your courses and your syllabi. In particular, this section includes two features for instructors:

Technology-specific exercises. We feel that, in a class devoted to new information technologies, there is something counter-intuitive about restricting course assignments to formal essays. Email, chatrooms, and the WWW all provide the writing course with new venues and genres for writing, new rhetorical situations that will only increase in importance as technologies continue to develop. Therefore, we have included a wide range of possible assignments that can be tailored to your individual classroom (depending on resources). These assignments are organized in two ways: by type and by chapter. First, the section for each chapter contains suggestions for assignments specific to the content of that chapter. Second, there is a page listing the assignment types, with brief suggestions for both assigning and evaluating each exercise, and a selection of relevant web destinations.

Topic Modules. The publication cycle makes it difficult for any book to keep abreast of all of the issues related to technology. Something on the cutting edge may appear obsolete six months later. So that we can keep this website as flexible and up-to-date as possible, we have included clusters of web destinations organized around topics of current interest. These modules could be used as supplements to particular chapters, suggestions for student research, or as units in their own right. For the initial launching of the site, we have included modules on Napster, copyright and intellectual property, natural language processing, and online privacy. If there are other topics that you would like to see this site cover, please contact us.

Finally, we would like to offer a couple of pieces of advice, lessons learned the hard way by those of us who already have experience with technology in the classroom. First, don’t be intimidated. You may have students who know more about technology than you do—for too many, this is a reason to avoid discussing or using technology in the classroom. But just as some of your students will be better writers than others, some of them will also have more experience with email or the web. Encourage those students to take an active role as “consultants,” helping their less experienced classmates. Second, take the time to learn what (and who) is available in terms of resources. Technology is contested terrain at many institutions. This may mean that there are several organizations vying for attention, and they may be willing to help you with guest lectures, advice, lab time, etc. At Old Dominion, for example, the library hosts workshops on search strategies and electronic resources. And finally, be careful not to rely too heavily on the available technology. This is a matter of common sense, perhaps, but worth bearing in mind whether you are familiar with these technologies or not. Power outages, schedule conflicts, and equipment malfunctions all happen to the best-intentioned and most experienced of instructors. Always have a backup plan.

Enjoy this site, and if you have any suggestions for it, please contact us by clicking on the Feedback link in the left-hand frame. We welcome all comments.