As methods we might consider aligned with digital scholarship or digital humanities make their way into courses, too often they are framed as pushing out valuable content. We might consider flipping the script and encouraging more classes to hold (and give credit) for lab sessions

I think getting agreement across campus to require certain tech skills attached to general education courses would be … interesting. Most of our faculty don’t have these skills and presumably get by without them.

And arguing for a new grammar makes me wonder about the inefficacy of teaching old grammar. Covering grammar in a course doesn’t typically make people better writers. In the same way, I wonder if learning how to use technology would actually transfer into using it well. I wouldn’t count on it, but I would agree that a lab attached to a course would be far better than a standalone course.

I love what you are saying here, BBoessen. This is a conversation that needs to happen. Are we really teaching writing to our students if we aren’t including how to do digital texts in a digital world?

I know that I spend an inordinate amount of time teaching my students how to use the technology–from simple “how to use a MSWord ruler” to “How to build a 3D object in Second Life.” A lot of the time I think I should be teaching a five credit course–three credits of English and two credits of technology.

I have discussed this issue with my college, and suggested that, instead of teaching a technology class that is supposed to cover all the bases (and never actually touches deeply upon ANY of them), that we, instead, teach a one credit “lab” course with each GE class.

For example, each math course would be paired with a 1 credit lab in Microsoft Excel/Graphing Calculators; each English course would be paired with a 1 credit lab in MS Word/blogging; and each Speech class would be paired with a 1 credit course in Powerpoint/Prezi/Youtube. I think it would be a lot more productive for the students to learn these programs as they need them in their “real” classes, and, as my students build skills, I can add requirements to my assignments (i.e. this week, you are required to include two hyperlinked sources and one embedded photo with caption into your writing assignment, etc.)

At some level, it seems you’re asking, “To what extent are simple digital networked media literacy techniques/practices, like turning dead text into a live link to somewhere, becoming part of the basic “grammar” of contemporary communication?” Is knowing how to post an update to your blog at the same level of literacy as knowing when to make a new paragraph? Or is it more like knowing how to format a bibliography? Or something else? And then, identifying that, how do we encourage our students to both understand the value of such tools and to practice them so they improve doing them?

I’m interested in talking more about this with some of you as well. (Although I do think at some level this may be a very personal question to answer, i.e., what is the amount of technique/procedure I want my students to be responsible for in this or that class?)