September 18, 2007
The “Information Age”, the “Technological Revolution”, and the “Internet Revolution” are just three of the numerous names writers and experts have created to categorize the dominance the Internet has on everyday life. Within the last ten years the Internet has changed how people interact with one another and how they communicate. Instant messenger services and email allow communication to be just that…instant. A person can post to a blog in Italy and within seconds her parents in the United States can read it at the same time her friend in London reads it.
Academia has been slower to accept the Internet than the general public. It’s not much of a surprise. Tradition is rooted deep in the core of academics. People go to school to learn about the past, previous law decrees, previous medical advances, the history of the world, or how something was done “back then”. When was “back then”? When the professors were taught? When their professors were taught? Academia thrives on repeating the past and hoping that will be enough for the future. What professors are now realizing is that they forgot about the present. They need to be teaching the newest computer programs, using new Internet tools, and changing their curriculum to reflect the change in the world.
Students find writing papers frustrating. The topics they write about challenge them to push their intellect to a higher level. Even more frustrating than the topic is limitations professors put on papers. “No electronic sources,” they say, “Only book sources.” Why? E-books, government websites, and electronic databases have more current information than the book copyrighted in 1992, sitting on the dusty library shelf. Instead of teaching students how to intelligently use the Internet, professors have pushed it aside, believing they can just ignore it. But the truth is, the “Internet Revolution” cannot be ignored in academia anymore and thus, academia is beginning to change.
Computer Information Systems has been the dominant discipline to learn about the Internet and programming languages. Internet tools such as blogs, wikis, and MySpace are forcing basic programming languages to be taught in composition classrooms. In their article, Reading between the Code: The Teaching of HTML and the Displacement of Writing Instruction, Nicholas Mauriello, Gain S. Pagnucci, and Tammy Winner said
The introduction of HTML into the composition classroom often complicates traditional text-bound assignments. The process of incorporating HTML codes into writing can be frustrating because HTML is difficult to learn. More time spent learning coding skills often means less time spent learning other writing skills. In many ways, learning HTML is like learning a second language…It turns the traditional composition course into a hybrid language/writing/computer course. It is this reshaping that we are struggling with, especially the displacement of writing activities by technology-based instruction (p. 410).
Introduction of computer languages have already infiltrated undergraduate programs. At Grand Valley State University, the Professional Writing Emphasis of the Writing major includes a class, Writing for the World Wide Web that teaches students the basics of HTML. Eastern Michigan University has the exact same class for their Professional Writing major in their English department. Even Michigan State University has a Professional Writing major. These programs have only recently been formed and emphasized by faculty. The success and interest these programs have generated are leading to a new development, integrating computer programming (CIS) into writing classes at the graduate level.
In the Eastern United States there are only a few schools with “Professional Writing” graduate programs, Kennesaw State University, for instance. There are a few schools that do have programs a long the same lines, but they have different names “Composition and Writing” (Ball State University), “Technical Science Communication” (Drexel University), and “Technical and Professional Communication” (Florida Institute of Technology). The programs at BSU, Drexel, and FIT are similar to professional writing because they teach communication, rhetoric, and document design, but they still focus more on traditional writing and creative writing, rather than the newer professional writing.
As a senior this year, I have been considering graduate school and looking at different programs. I have yet to find a graduate program that introduces students to JavaScript, HTML, XML, and other web languages and use that knowledge to help professional writers be the best web writers. Currently, there is a separation in building websites instruction and it lies between coding websites (CIS) and content writing (those who write and design the text and images of a site). Society is advancing its interactivity and dependence on the Internet and there is no indication this is a passing fad. Academics must give students more experience and less book memorizing to give new web writers the tools they need now to work tomorrow.
Robert E. Cummings, author of Coding with power: Toward a rhetoric of computer coding and composition, understands exactly why professors are still hesitant to integrate CIS and professional writing.
Many writing instructors feel overwhelmed with the technology demands already placed upon them by the necessity of integrating the Web into writing environments. Learning a second programming language seems akin to learning French in order to make a short point or two about English grammar: The investment of research time and energy to master a programming language does not, at the time of writing, seem central enough to the mission of teaching writing to warrant the extra time. And no one needs to be reminded that technology changes rapidly (p. 441).
Every discipline changes throughout the years and right now, writing is changing. It's time to accept it, embrace it, and teach it. It may seem like extra work to a professor who knows how to teach students how to write papers, but the reality is, unless a person plans on being a perpetual student, there is no need to learn every semester how to research and write a 12 page paper.
If nothing else, you can learn how to write a killer MySpace design instead of using someone else's templates.
Kat Davis is a senior professional writing major who dreams of conquering the World Wide Web and revising its design and content to make it idiot-proof to the people of the world. The Internet, Technology, Adobe Creative Suite 3 and her iPod are her best friends. She currently resides in Michigan, but is looking to move to a warmer, dryer climate, say Albuquerque, New Mexico.