Presentation on writing for the Internet

I gave a talk on teaching Internet writing at an online teaching conference at Cal State Los Angeles last week. The talk put Internet writing in the context of the concept of IT literacy, then covered three types of Internet writing:

• Conversational writing
• Writing short documents
• Collaborative writing

The presentation includes links to full presentations and teaching exercises on each of these types of writing.

(Click on the "writing" label for other writing posts on this blog)

Research on writing for the Internet

Stanford professor Andrea Lunsford headed a five-year longitudinal study of student writing. She and her colleagues followed the writing -- in and out of class -- of 189 students during their four years at Stanford and their first year after graduation (about 15,000 pieces of writing). Some of the findings were:

• Students are writing more than ever
• Some of their “life writing” is profound
• Their writing is done to achieve some purpose or goal

A recent account of student blog posts in the aftermath of the Fort Hood shootings supports the idea that life writing can be profound. We should not underestimate our students.

You will find two videos on this study and related work here:

• Interview of Lunsford on the study, 12 min. 18 sec. (left tab)
• Moderated discussion among four professors, including Lunsford, on digital literacy, 39 min. 30 sec. (right tab)

You may also be interested in following the research at the Center for Writing in Digital Environments at Michigan State University.

PowerPoint -- criticism and reflection

I just read a blog post by a third year college student on her frustration with PowerPoint lectures. (The comments are interesting too).

She finds that PowerPoint lectures are rushed and she does not have time to take notes. When her instructors use canned material that came with a textbook, she has the feeling they are ill prepared and seeing the material for the first time. Some of her instructors use PowerPoint exclusively, rather than switching to other media like a chalkboard lecture or video when that would be better. Others use the medium poorly, for example, by reading from text on a slide.

This is my first semester using PowerPoint, so I became a little defensive when I read her post, but she got me thinking. Here are some thoughts and questions that occurred to me:

• A good teacher will be good regardless of whether he or she uses PowerPoint.
• An active, engaged student will do well regardless of the presentation medium.
• Taking notes keeps students active and alert and improves retention. Even if they have printouts of the presentations, they should take notes.
• Students who thoughtfully review their notes after class will do well regardless of the presentation medium.
• A PowerPoint file does not stand on its own for self study -- it must be presented live or narrated and/or accompanied by a transcript.
• If a PowerPoint presentation is narrated, should the narration be scripted or recorded live during a classroom presentation?
• PowerPoint presentations may encourage a passive state in the students. It is important to keep the room lights on and engage the students while giving a PowerPoint presentation.

Here are some things I find myself doing:

• I only use PowerPoint slides that I have prepared myself. That allows me to present what I think is relevant, and I essentially rehearse the presentation while creating the slides.
• The first slide in each presentation lists the skills and concepts to be presented.
• The second slide in each presentation shows where the presentation fits in the overall course outline.
• I pause when a new slide is displayed to give the students a chance to look it over.
• I use images in many of my slides.
• I add fat, red arrows or other call-outs to highlight material when appropriate.
• A presentations may contain a link to a video or demonstration which I show at the appropriate place.
• I talk about the slide on the screen, but never read more than one or two sentences from it. The slides are intended to enhance and illustrate the presentation and serve as a mnemonics (for me and the students), not to be the presentation.

Here are some of the things I found online after reading Carolyn's post:

• The Writing Guidelines for Engineering and Science Students at Penn State contain a wealth of information that is applicable to any discipline. The page discussing PowerPoint stresses the use of images in presentations and has links to many relevant resources.
• A funny video How not to use PowerPoint (3 min. 55 sec.).
  
• Articles by Cliff Atkinson, author of a book on PowerPoint style
• There are several other books on PowerPoint style, see Amazon.
  

Will WolframAlpha impact the IT literacy curriculum?

I recently posted a few examples of symbolic math calculation using the WolframAlpha Internet service, and asked how it might affect math teaching. WolframAlpha, which presents a command-line interface to Wolfram's Mathematica symbolic math package, is capable of doing math homework and solving exam questions from junior high through graduate school.

The pros and cons of using WolframAlpha in teaching math are discussed in the article A Calculating Web Site Could Ignite a New Campus 'Math War', and there is a Wiki with many examples on teaching undergraduate math using WolframAlpha.

Math teacher Maria Andersen posted a discussion of the likely impact of WolframAlpha on math education, in which she predicts that students will flock to it and many, but not all, teachers will do the same. She uses innovation diffusion theory to analyze the likely rate of adoption of WolframAlpha relative to traditional symbolic math packages.

The conservative view of using tools like calculators or WolframAlpha is captured in Isaac Asimov's story The Feeling of Power, depicting a future in which a technician amazes people because he has memorized the multiplication tables and can do arithmetic without a calculator.

Are math skills and concepts part of IT literacy? Is there room for any math in an IT literacy course? Where can WolframAlpha be used in the IT literacy curriculum?

A textbook chapter with some IT literacy concepts

We talk about the skills and concepts making up an IT literacy course.

Some of the concepts I feel should be included in an IT literacy course are covered in a chapter I wrote for a textbook called Introduction to Information Technology a while ago.

The chapter, Technology trends, Internet Applications and Possible Roadblocks, does not cover all of the concepts I would include, and some are covered in too much depth. Here is an abstract of the chapter:

Information technology is improving at an accelerating rate. This opens the way for innovative applications, which make organizations and individuals more efficient and effective. This chapter outlines hardware progress, which has led to new forms of software and software development. Software evolution has brought us to the current era of Internet-based software. After describing some of the characteristics of Internet-based software, we ask whether the progress we have enjoyed will continue and conclude with a discussion of some of the non-technical issues, which tend to impede that progress.

• Hardware progress
• Software progress
• Internet based software
• Will the progress continue?
• Bumps in the information technology road

We should teach the skills necessary to build an e-portfolio

We've defined IT literacy as being comprised of the skills and concepts needed to succeed as a student and after graduation as a professional and a citizen.

But, which skills should be included? Today's student needs a mix of content creation and high-level application development skills.

One way to look at this is to say, they need the skills to create an valuable e-portfolio while in school and to continue it after graduation.

For more on e-portfolios, check this article, which discusses e-portfolios from both student and faculty perspectives .

Internet writing is important

A recent report on Writing, Teens and Technology found that 83% of parents of teens feel there is a greater need to write well today than there was 20 years ago. Eight six percent of teens ages 12-17 believe good writing is important to success in life -- some 56% describe it as essential and another 30% describe it as important.

Employers confirm the importance of writing on the job. Jason Fried, founder of 37 Signals, a leading software company lists five characteristics he looks for in a prospective employee:

• have a positive outlook
• be well rounded and flexible
• be a quick learner
• be trustworthy -- will find a solution to a problem
• be a good writer

Fried considers being a good writer most important, stating "Probably the most important thing and probably one of the surprises is you have to work with people who are good writers."

Joel Spolsky, well known programmer and author on the importance of writing to a software developer is also looking for good writers. He says "Being able to write clearly, to write English clearly is more important to developing useful software than almost anything else and that's something you're more likely to learn in the English department than in the computer science department."

The Fried and Spolsky quotes are from talks they gave. You will find links to the talks here.