description
During this academic year, the writing program computer labs were undergoing life-safety renovations, so Associate Chair Jim Kalmbach and I took the opportunity to redesign the gutted classrooms to be more pedagogically and technologically sound. (The rooms had not been redesigned since they were installed as computer labs in 1985.) This Task Force was a temporary creation during the 2008-09 academic year so that I could be re-assigned from my previous service responsibilities to focus on this time-intensive and time-sensitive project.

Because these nine rooms are not “owned” by the English department, Jim and I worked closely with university constituents including the University Labs administrators, Facilities leads, the university architects, and the vice-provost, among others. I was responsible for redesigning the rooms with a new layout to accommodate new desks, one additional computer and desk in each room, a mounted projector and new screen, and handicap accessible space, all given the current spatial and electrical constraints of the rooms. One of our main accomplishments as part of this Task Force was to convince the university architect to tear down two walls between classrooms to make them more pedagogically useful spaces and to get him to agree to purchase standardized computer desks to replace the built-in desks that had to be removed in the asbestos abatement. 

accompanying materials

• Jim Kalmbach’s presentation of the redesign at the Computers & Writing 2009 conference (includes final blueprints, the prototype of which I had designed, and pictures of the new furniture) [mov; recommended download first]

abstract
This grant proposal was intended to fund a series of surveys and workshops to assess how teachers across the curriculum at Illinois State University implemented student-based projects using multiple media.

accompanying materials

• proposal (pdf)

abstract
In May 2007, the Department of English at Utah State University (USU) redesigned its computer lab to increase mobility and collaboration during writing projects. Our study shows that despite the Professional and Technical Communication (PTC) field’s efforts to promote writing as a socially active, collaborative practice, many students view computer labs as spaces for conducting isolated, single-authored work. In this article, we discuss how a combination of movable furniture and mobile technology, including wireless access and laptops, can enhance student collaboration in group-based writing assignments. The lab included both desktop and laptop seating areas, so the authors created a modified worksite analysis designed to evaluate team collaboration in this new layout. These material changes in the lab allow students to configure the space according to their needs, offering them some measure of control over three crucial elements of successful collaboration: formality, presence, and confidentiality.

accompanying materials

• article (pdf)

see also

• The Learning Suite grant

abstract
This webtext demonstrates the possibilities of using new media to teach students critical literacy skills applicable to the 21st century. It is a manifesto for what we think writing scholars should be teaching in general-education “writing” classes like first-year composition. In order to answer the question of what we should teach, we have to ask what kinds of academic literacy, if any, we value. We argue here that rhetorical theory is a productive way to theorize how meaning is made among new media texts, their designers, and their readers. We use the Ancient Greek concepts of topoi and commonplace to explain how designers and readers enter into a space of negotiated meaning-making when converging upon new media texts. That negotiated space offers a new-media space for learning critical literacies by means other than research papers. As examples, we discuss two student texts and the literacies they demonstrate.

accompanying materials

• webtext
• journal issue homepage (editor describes our webtext)

abstract
Digital technology has dramatically changed the cultural and social landscape in the last 10 years. Nationwide, writing-studies scholars—those who instruct classes like English 1010 and 2010 [e.g., the first- and second-year composition sequence]—have been attuned to this change, paying attention to how digital technology and sustainable lab environments affect students’ writing processes. This Innovation Fund proposal seeks to create a sustainable learning community, called the Learning Suite, built on how people actually write in the workplace and at home. The goal is to enhance students’ experiences with English 1010/2010 curricula—classes that all USU students take—by increasing students’ access to 21st-century, digital writing practices and environments. The Learning Suite will help students bridge the gap between the writing they do in their classes at USU and the writing they will do in the workplace and beyond.  This change, combined with increased contact with other students and instructors in the lab suite setting, will primarily serve to retain students beyond their first two years by helping them see writing as an engaging, social activity rather than a requirement.

accompanying materials

• the background/big plan (long description) (doc; our internal justification document)
• the Apple price quote (pdf; for our budget)
• the submitted proposal (doc; what the provost saw)
  

see also

• “Designing Collaborative Learning Spaces” (under Peer-Reviewed Articles)