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This presentation will focus on the inclusion of computer technology in writing centers, the effects that such inclusion have on the role and mission of writing centers, and ways in which classroom-based research methods can be designed into writing centers. The presenter will assert that technology-rich writing centers (including those which offer online services) while full of potential can become overburdened by the responsibility to use the technology effectively and efficiently; however, it is often difficult to assess the effects of technology because assessment design was not a part of the initial concept of the center. The presenter will argue that it is necessary to plan (using classroom-based assessment models) as technology becomes part of a center's responsibility and focus.
The presentation will include a discussion of the ways in which popular conceptions of writing centers and of computers in education lead to a conflation of negatives which must be protected against from the beginning if the center is to survive and to serve its multiple constituencies. This presentation is based on over a decade of experience with computer-enhanced classrooms and writing centers, hermeneutics and architectural design theory, and an analysis of popular conceptions of computer-assisted learning. The presenter will discuss ways in which both architectural-design theory and concepts of ethnomethodology should guide our creating these learning environments.
Writing centers are places where clients must openly confront their naked texts in a public space--a text that has been heretofore viewed only in private, either the privacy of the client's thoughts into words or the tutor's independent reading. Designing such places requires more than a simple understanding of space and traffic flow. It requires a hermeneutic-based investigation of the ways in which readers and writers confront texts and the text-making (poetic) situation. When we add to this space the requirement that it support technology, we further complicate the design. Computer technology can invite interactivity between tutor and client; however, it can also act as a barrier between them.
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