I think that in teaching rhetoric we need to be very hands-on and have our students practice these "shifts" by demonstrations. If how we communicate is mostly electronic then we need to incorporate these electronic methods into our teaching. Students should be given various options on how to complete an assignment, so they can better express themselves and practice using today's technology. By doing this, most likely students would have more passion or interest in their assignments because we are "keeping up to date" with the times. PowerPoint presentations, multi-modal pages, social media, blogs, and webcasts are things that could be incorporated into the classroom. Things used in the business world and modes used in personal communication are all important for young people to learn and use correctly. Just because we are using different modes to communicate, doesn't mean we stop teaching traditional elements of communication. When students have these basic fundamentals they can use these new communication modes even better. Because technology is evolving so quickly, most likely people will use these new modes regardless if they actually know how to or not. It is more effective if we incorporate these things into the classroom so people can use these things to their full potential and in the best possible manner.
I like your ideas about hands-on teaching through demonstration. I believe we need to shift education to be problem-based rather than concept-based. So our rhetoric needs to be situational in order to solve problems, with specific types of rhetorical delivery, modality, location-aware, etc. It's kairos on steroids, ultimately. Full potential must include ability to facilitate and move rhetoric to make positive change.
ReplyDeleteMira - great ideas! I have wanted to do some of this in my classrooms over the years, but I always struggle with student's tech skills. I suppose if you allowed students the option of doing these things, those with the skills will do them and those who are less tech savvy won't. It seems like we are moving into the realm of being compositions + computer teachers! Unfortunately, I now run into issues with proprietary content since I work for a for profit university. They won't let us do anything that will show up on the Internet without password protection. Bummer!
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