Software Practices
Perhaps it's surprising to note all of the articles suggesting that we need to be better in deciding what software we use in our classrooms, but do many of us have to make too many of these decisions these days? At least for word processing, our decisions are already made for us. I suppose we can choose to use a Druple site, a Blackboard site, or a related blog post, and we have the option of choosing between Openmind and Freemind, if the mood strikes us, but IT people make a lot of these choices. Or, perhaps more to the point, IT people make decisions which restrict us from making too many of these choices. The pedagogical questions that result come fast and heavy:
1) In what ways are we designing our classrooms to work in spite of the software we have been saddled with?
2) To what degree does some of the software we use use us?
3) Is it our responsibility to introduce students to different versions of software with similar objectives, but different interfaces?
4) How to we manage conflicts that arise between students and software?
5) Are there situations where instructors are coerced/forced to use software they object to for either pedagogical or ethical/ideological reasons?
6) How many of us are willing to make our own software, as William Condon suggests? Is this a idea whose time has certainly passed us by as interfaces become more complex and ask more from us as designers?
7) Several of the scholars of this week's readings appear to suggest that they have control over the software that is loaded and used in their writing labs--will we expect to have a similar control and what new questions do we face with an entirely new crop of software?
Well, those are just some of the most direct questions that spring to mind. The datedness of these readings really shows through when we consider the choices instructors had then and the administrative choices we have to work within now.
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Too many questions to hit
Too many questions to hit them all, but I'll shoot for a broad and encompassing reply. I'm not sure instructors are ever forced into software they have pedagogical or ethical issues with. Meaning, our GMOs are fairly broad enough that an instructor can use as much or as little technology as they want. Assuredly, there are some instructors who use their weekly computer lab day solely for peer workshopping of drafts in a word processor. As for those of us who use more software, your questions are all important and spot-on. Do we need to introduce students to multiple software with "similar objectives?" Oh, if there were only time! The only solution I can think of is to ensure that whatever program is used, make sure to have a conversation with the students that there are other programs to be used; and more importantly, discuss how the interface does matter. In other words, make sure the interface of the program becomes a topic of rhetorical discussion and consideration itself (my students write an interface, rhetorical analysis response paper for every new program we use).
As for how the software we use "uses us," it's certainly an issue to consider but depends on what you mean exactly and what your specific fears are. I consider the software to be using us if we're simply using it to use it and spending more time with its bells and whistles then addressing the rhetorical situation of whatever we're composing. For example, recently someone came to me asking for some help with Flash. I was more than willing to help, but upon hearing what this person was trying to accomplish with the program it became apparent that there wasn't a particularly good reason to use Flash. If the purpose doesn't match the medium there's a problem and the software threatens to override the composition.