7. Computers Classrooms and Diversity: Mutually Exclusive Terms?

This week’s readings have me thinking about the relevancy of writing about technology. Of course, these articles that define and collect definitions and speculations about how screens alter how we read—how, in fact, the very idea of text is completely reformulated by the computer—were extremely useful in their day, but do they carry much weight now? How can current technical communication researchers feel invested in digital text research when technology so frequently advances that in a couple of years their research will seem “limited” and “only scratching the surface” as Selfe and Selfe describe in their reflection (428)?

Questions presented in “The Politics of Interface” and in “Race, Rhetoric, and Technology” about the marginalization of minorities through computer use were ones I haven’t considered in depth. Early on in our teaching assistant careers, we are given a generally positive view of technology in the classrooms—that if computers are there, we should absolutely make use of them. And maybe until this week, I’ve agreed with that but am beginning to question the role of technology in the classroom and how it might limit us. A few things in the latter article stopped me in my tracks: “our work is saturated in white male culture” (284); whiteness is “the absence of culture. It is empty and therefore terrifying to attempt to build an identity based on what one isn’t and whom one can hold back” (Roediger qtd. in Haas 285).

In an undergraduate race and ethnicity class, I learned a bit about whiteness, and it is indeed strange and seemingly dangerous to me that each characteristic of being white is based on some sort of power. For instance, in a study by Karyn McKinney-Marvasti (who taught the course) in which she collected reflections from several students, it became apparent that white students are often jealous of the ethnic traditions that other races practice, and we often solve this problem by celebrating Irishness on St. Patrick’s day. Kind of sad, but the difference is that we can choose when we are Irish and when we aren’t. Asian Americans can’t choose when to “perform” their Asianness because they can’t escape their appearance and “blend in.” White people have the power to be different when they want and blend in when they want.
These ideas relate the use of computers and digital texts through Selfe’s and Selfe’s assertion that computer classrooms are not democratic (429). Of course, those minority populations that did not receive the best technology training because their schools couldn’t afford it are at a loss when teachers assign online discussions and even electronic versions of papers. I had one nontraditional student, for instance, whose papers seemed to be composed in notepad with no awareness of spellcheck, of margin alignment, etc. I don’t think he ever participated in computer activities, either. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to sit in a class pecking the keyboard while other students and a teacher who are all 20 years younger than you have all seemed to master typing skills?

But further, I wonder about online discussions, how when even I read an article I do tend to picture a white male as author, unless the name tells me otherwise. It never fails in class that when I assign Anne Lamott or Annie Dillard, some student refers to the author as “he.” Bigots may be speaking in an online forum with “others” without ever knowing it—and the trouble is that they don’t have to know it. The identity-lessness of the internet allows us to believe about others whatever we want, and that’s not helpful for the progress of acceptance.

The best way to get over discrimination is immersion, and the internet prevents us from knowing who we’re being immersed with. Nothing can replace the face-to-face interaction of group work and presentations, and it’s best to see technology as a tool to enhance the organization of our own thinking, not something that can think for us.

 

Selfe, Cynthia L. and Richard J. Selfe. “The Politics of Interface.” Central Works in Technical Communication. Eds. Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Suart A. Selber. New York: Oxford, 2004. 428-445. Print.