OK, Computer.

In The Media Equation, by Reeves, Byron, and Nass, they propose the idea that humans’ interaction with media occurs in ways that mimic their responses to other people. For instance, people are likely to respond positively toward a computer which asks for opinions about itself from a user. Similarly, when a person asks another person for opinions about himself, more often than not he will receive a positive response (Reeves, Byron, and Nass, p.5).

The interesting thing to note about this theory, and the point with which I most disagree with the writers of this piece, is the idea that the cause of the attribution of human qualities to non-human things is that the brain is not advanced enough to view twentieth-century technology and the “relationships” it offers as not being a recipient of feelings (Reeves, Byron, and Nass, p. 12). The writers propose that our “primitive, automatic responses” (Reeves, Byron, and Nass, p. 13) are an impediment to our understanding that that with which we interact is not “real” and does not have real “feelings” in the truest sense of those words.

Reeves, Byron, and Nass use the idea of people who are able to overcome their “fright” during a scary movie by talking themselves out of it (p.13). What they seem to miss out on, however, is humans’ desire to have social interactions over which they have control. Most people do not seek to put themselves in actual danger, to subject themselves to situations that elicit actual fear. When we go to the movies, we are making a conscious decision to allow ourselves to be frightened because we fundamentally understand that that which we are witnessing poses no real threat to us. Though Reeves, Byron, and Nass would seem to conclude that our brains are not able to differentiate between various modes of interaction, people’s desire to put themselves in situations such as viewing a scary movie or riding “harrowing” adventure rides at theme parks like Islands of Adventure seems evidence to the contrary. We enjoy the rush of adrenaline we get from “fear” so long as we can control the environment, the situation, the setting. We can always choose to leave the theater, not get on the ride.

And what of the other scenarios? Why has research shown that people are apt to give more positive responses to a medium asking questions about itself than another medium asking questions about it? I don’t necessarily disagree with the assertions outlined in The Media Equation. There is, however, no detailed description of the manner in which the research was conducted. I don’t believe it is infeasible to propose that people generally, subconsciously, deeply desire to maintain interactions with non-human things in the same manner as with humans. This implies a far different cognitive process than that described by Reeves, Byron, and Nass.

Romeo, I <3 U

Ann sent me an excellently written paper about instant messaging as a new literacy. Throughout my research and discussions with my classmates, Laine, Ann, and Crystal, I have come to understand that instant messaging and text messages are not the end of the English language as we know it. It is simply a new way to communicate, one that our students have far more access to than they do more classical forms of the language.

David Craig, who wrote the paper, says “the United States is not teaching as much English as it used to.” According to statistics from the College Board Craig references in the paper, “enrollment in English composition and grammar classes has decreased in the last decade by 14%.” That number does not seem like much until one stops to consider the comparable exponential increase in cell phone and instant message use in that same time period. Between 2004 and 2005 alone, IM use was up 19 percent. That’s fairly staggering, considering how prevalent IM was prior to 2004. In terms of sheer volume, Shakespeare doesn’t stand a chance.

Unless we put as much emphasis on reading and writing as there naturally is on math, when students write formally they will, as Craig asserts, revert to the forms with which they are most familiar. In this case, that form is the shortened form common in IM and text-message writing. There are no differing literacies in the mathematical world. 2 x 2 is the same in any part of the world, and students learn this language beginning in kindergarten. The linear nature of math makes it inherently less challenging for most to learn than language and all of its intricacies and variety of forms. Couple this with the ubiquity of math versus that of classical forms of English language and writing, and it is very easy to understand why math scores on standardized exams have increased while language scores on standardized exams have gone down.

So what are teachers to do? For one thing, English teachers alone should not be forced to take on the task of working various forms and modes of language into their curriculum. Rather than maintaining the traditional teaching of social studies – that being asking students to read from a textbook and regurgitate the information come test-time – teachers in this field should consider incorporating primary source materials to teach their students. Most of the best orators and rhetoricians have had major impacts on the shaping of our world’s history. Why not allow students to read the works of Churchill, Lincoln, Kennedy, Marx and others? This would not only allow students to more concretely shape their perspectives on history, it would give them access to language being used in ways that most English teachers do not have time to cover.

Craig is correct in saying the English language is not “under attack” as many English teachers (like me a few short weeks ago) believe. However, as educators we must understand that we owe it to our students to engage them in ways that maintains the knowledge and thoughts of the past as a part of the conversation of the present.

Cool!

So I'm reviewing the software I downloaded (I'm really not a procrastinator..this is just when I have time to work), and I figured out something cool I could do. I can add pictures to blog entries using Picasa2.

Cool huh? Assuming this works, that is...

This is me and my wife out...somewhere. She could probably tell me, but she's asleep and I always try not to wake the sleeping wife.

Anyway, I just wanted to share this.

Skydiving

In an online article written in 2004, Steven Krause talks about a failed experiment in blogging. At one point, he references our own Dr. Ferdig’s collaboration with Kaye Trammell titled "Content Delivery in the Blogosphere". I mention this because it exemplifies the power the internet has to connect people. In Jeff Utecht’s blog, for instance, I e-bumped into my former assistant principal. He now lives in Colorado. I never expected to have contact with him again.

Nevertheless, I digress. Krause’s failed experiment, and the circumstances surrounding the incident with the female student and them e-mailing list, led him to conclude the following:

No question, blogs are an exciting writing tool, one of the most interesting and potentially most useful to come to the writing classroom since email. Blogs work well for writing projects like the two I just described, where individual students publishing texts they own. But it's become clear to me that blogs are not as useful as the relatively old-fashioned technology of electronic mailing lists for writing that is interactive and dynamic. How does the saying go? If it ain't broke...

I think our discussions the past few weeks have proven Krause wrong. I do, however, agree that students, even Master’s degree students, need some structure when assigned, well, anything. I know I work better if I have examples to look at, some guiding questions or things to think about, something against which to base my work. I think such structures actually open up creative avenues rather than closing them off, if the structures are implemented properly. I like the idea of grouping students based on similarities, as Dr. Ferdig did in grouping his students together for EME 5404. Even though I’m pretty sure most of the class does “the minimum” three postings and two comments a week, as Crystal has noted a few times, I feel I am getting more out of these authentic discussions than I have in most face-to-face classes I have taken at any level of schooling.

I plan on doing blogs with my students next year, 11th grade AP English Language and Composition students. And I know that, even if I have the top ten students in school in one class together, they will need structure, they will need to know where they are going and what – generally – their work should look like. This is hardly a criticism of Krause as a teacher, because I have made the same mistake he made and admitted to: jumping without a parachute. In some cases I was lucky and landed in a pillow factory with an open window. In most cases, the ground met me, and my students, very hard.

Technology 1, Humans 0?

Editorial Note:
Wow, I'm an idiot! At first I wrote "I searched all my previous posts and comments because I think someone sent me this link to an article about computers grading essays. I couldn't find the comment, if there is one, so if you sent this to me, thanks. If I found it on my own, well, I'll do my best not to break my arm patting myself on the back." I guess I should have been a better reader and actually looked at the author's name! It's my own group-mate, Laine Harling-Obando. Maybe not having the hyphenated last name threw me off...okay I'm just making excuses now. Thanks Laine! Great article!

Did you ever see The Shawshank Redemption? It's a movie about prison, but more generally it's a movie about what keeps each of us in our own personal prison. At one point about two-thirds of the way through the movie, one of the characters, Brooks, gets released from prison after a fifty year sentence. He is shocked to see so much change around him -- motorized cars buzzing past him, people in suits fast-walking to presumably important jobs -- and remarks in a letter back to his prison-buddies that "The world went and got itself in a damn hurry."

My obsession with the movie to the point that I can call up random lines aside, I worry that what is being described in the article is exactly what Brooks was talking about: everyone getting themselves in a damn hurry.

We can do in a matter of seconds now what once took months. Think about that for a moment. Really. In previous generations, if one wanted to communicate in written form with someone else thousands of miles away, she would have to: write a letter, fold it up, place it in an envelope, buy postage, attach the postage, walk to a post office, place the letter in a slot, then wait several weeks for a response. Now, all she would have to do is sign on to an ISP, type an email, click to send, and wait a few hours (or minutes) for a response. This system is far better, more convenient, and more efficient.

But it seems to me that the overriding principle at work here, the "I can have it now and if I can't I want someone to figure out a way I can" mentality, has become detrimentally pervasive. I don't particularly think we're at some pinnacle of human history: These are not the "end-times"; we don't face more or less moral or ethical dilemmas than at any other point in our past. However, what is different is that we can have more things faster and more conveniently and I think we are becoming spoiled.

Want a master's degree? Send away for one. Want that dress you see on the television? Order it online. Want to see a sporting event? Pay-per-view it or watch minute-by-minute updates scroll across your cellphone or laptop.

I'm not decrying these things, by and large. I am in a distance program for my master's, and I love that I can get a quality education from a reputable institution with progressive educators. I am typing in a blog which millions of people could read instantly if they deemed it worthy. I would be a hypocrite if I railed against the increasing expeditiousness of processes while using the expedited processes, and I'm not into hypocrisy.

But when I see things like computers grading essays, I can't help but wonder, are we in too much of a damn hurry?

Several postings ago I mentioned an article about Les Perelman, the man who found a "formula" for scoring high on the SAT essay portion. If he can find a formula in a system which uses humans to evaluate writing, how soon will it be before someone figures out a formula for the system that uses a computer to evaluate writing? And as soon as someone does, teachers will begin teaching it, or the conscientious teachers who don't will have students who figure out they need to know the "formula" in order to do well.

We don't seem to be very selective as humans. We tend to overgeneralize (see, I'm doing so right now!). If we can have one thing now, we have a misguided belief that we should be able to have anything now. This was the impetus for implementing a technology that evaluates writing.

I don't know about anyone else, but I can't ever imagine wanting a series of 1's and 0's telling me how well I write.

Processed Words Part 2

I finished reading through the meta-analysis study I referenced in my last blog entry. I’d like to focus on the quality analysis section on page 16. As I said in my last post, quantity is one thing: Anybody can be taught to write more. What’s most important and perpetually most challenging for students is to improve the quality of their writing. The study found that there was a positive correlation between writing quality and the use of word processing software. Eleven out of the fifteen studies analyzed showed an overall higher quality of writing from those students who used word processors versus those students who used a writing instrument and paper.

I’ve come to learn that making sense of the data is more important than collecting the data, so I found this part particularly interesting:

These analyses indicated that student supports (i.e., keyboard training, technical assistance, teacher feedback, and peer editing) were not significant factors affecting the quality of student writing. Similarly, the study characteristics (i.e., type of publication, employment of random assignment, employment of pre-post design, single vs. multiple classroom sampling, length of study, etc.) were not related to the effect of word processing on the quality of student writing. However, when examining student characteristics (i.e., keyboard experience prior to the study, student achievement level, school setting, and grade level), a statistically significant relationship was detected between grade level and quality of writing: as school level increased, the magnitude of the effect size increased.

The study offered no explanation for why the quality of writing improved – generally speaking – for students who used word processors. Based on the final point made above, however, I began to think of some possibilities.

Students spend a significant amount of their elementary years learning to read. They don’t, on average, read to learn until the third grade. Conversely, students begin writing the simplest of sentences in kindergarten. A common saying amongst English teachers is “students who write well, read well.” Well, if a student spends most of his time in elementary school learning the basics of reading, it would stand to reason that, regardless of the tool, her writing will probably be very basic and very formulaic. Also, there will probably be many errors in grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.

As students grow and learn, reading more and writing more, the chances are great that they will have learned a fair amount of grammar and punctuation rules. While students know these rules, it does not necessarily mean they will take the time to apply them, especially when using pencil or pen and paper to compose their writing. It is immeasurably more difficult and time consuming to edit words when they are written in ink or even pencil than it is to do so when they are typed on a computer. Within this paragraph alone, I must have moved words, re-worded sentences, and changed marks of punctuation at least ten times. I made most of these changes with a few clicks of a variety of buttons. Making the same changes with pencil or pen and paper would take far longer and likely leave the paper looking like an indecipherable mess.

I made the assertion last time that students, in general, want their work to be visually appealing, especially when it is easy for them to make it so. Thinking back on the two items we read about the mind, especially the Norman piece, it seems to me that word processing offers what pencil and paper were never able to: functionality and appealing design.

Of course, I could be entirely wrong.

Processed Words

I did some thinking this morning about the effects of using word processors in class rather than the traditional pen (or pencil) and paper. I was able to use my e-machete (google) to traverse the forest of available literature on this topic, and I discovered this meta-analytical study.

I’ll probably use this article for a few of my upcoming blog entries because it has a wealth of information. The first topic I want to focus on is the study’s finding that, on average, students write more words on any given assignment when using a word processor than when forced to use a writing utensil and paper. There was little discussion of possible reasons for the difference in writing, other than the same trite assertion that’s been made countless times in literature about educational technology: increased student motivation.

I’d like to propose another idea that I haven’t heard discussed yet. Studies have explored the idea that the current generation of students is more visually literate than previous generations. Primary-school aged children interact with more visuals than ever before, in the form of electronic games, websites, and portable devices such as cell-phones and PDAs. We all judge things based on their visual appearance anyway, but perhaps the current generation does so even more, especially in electronic environments such as the internet.

Word processors generally standardize what a text “looks like.” Most word processors are set to the same font size – twelve – and students would have to go out of their way to change the size or style. Students’ penmanship styles, however, vary greatly. Many of my female students employ what I call “oooooo” writing because every letter looks like a circle on the page. This type of writing tends to be larger than “average” student writing. Many of my male students, conversely, write in a way that necessitates the use of a magnifying glass. The visual difference between 150 words (a decently-sized paragraph) in one style versus the other is dramatic.

Generally speaking, my students who tend to write larger feel as if they are writing “enough” in part because there appears to be more writing on the page. What’s interesting is that many of my students who tend to write smaller have expressed that there appears to be “less” on the page than their classmates because they write smaller. Now, these observations aren’t true across the board (is much of anything?), but I feel that the justifications on the part of my students are enough to make a statistical difference in a study of the kind described in the article. When students type in word processors, there can be no justification, one way or the other, for the length of students’ writing. What they see is what they get, and I think students are aware of that. Furthermore, even for students who write average-sized letters, standard 12 point font takes up less space on the page.

I think it is possible that students feel compelled to write more in part because word processors make it appear to them that they are not writing “enough,” and it is easier when typing documents in word processors to add words, phrases, clauses, and sentences in than it is when handwriting documents. I’m sure the visual aspect of word processing does not completely account for the statistical differences found by the study, but it certainly is possible that it plays a role.