Online publishing in secondary education

As a former high school English teacher who’s married to a high school teacher, online publishing appeals to my interest in secondary education. I consider that state of our public education appalling, especially when it comes to the curricula taught in school—not just the content taught, but the manner in which they are taught. High schools now includes computers instruction among their core requirements, but what does that class include—training in the Microsoft Office Suite and basic web skills? Why are we not basing an electronic literacy curriculum on the current state of technology? Simple, our teachers are still living in Web 1.0 and school budgets restrict proper instruction in technology. Furthermore, why are we not using the web to teach our students when they are so captivated with it and use it so comprehensively? Why is PowerPoint still considered an innovative teaching tool when it is so static and limited in its ability? Again, our teachers are still living in Web 1.0 and school budgets restrict the acquisition of technology.

Tackling outdated curricula
School districts, and teachers, rely to a fault on computer class and students’ own computing habits for their electronic education. However, not only are those means insufficient for properly learning about computers and the web, but the latter prejudices students without access to important technology and relies on unmediated instruction, which compounds current instructional problems.

As an English teacher, I value Kathryn Welch’s argument that electronic rhetoric should be taught in writing courses. I agree with Welch about the need for electronic rhetoric to be taught in school (at every level), but I think very few schools want to diverge from the canon currently taught.

The addition of electronic rhetoric instruction would do many of the things that Welch highlights in her ”Electric Rhetoric: Classical Rhetoric, Oralism, and a New Literacy.” Students will have a greater ability to parse electronic texts and comprehend content just as students do when they are taught the “tricks” to reading period literature. With so much text available on the web, Welch’s notion of “decoding” would teach students to discern a texts true intentions rather than simply rely on the validity of every web document. It’ll also give students a better understanding of the visual nature of texts and teach them to create better visual texts. Another point I agree with Welch on is the role an electronic rhetoric course would have in improving literacy. Currently, individuals are creating their own understanding of electronic rhetoric. Are we going to let MySpace and other popular but non-educational sites dictate their understanding of electronic communication? Formal instruction would change their perception of electronic discourse and electronic culture to a more realistic representation. The cheapening of communication – caused by the haste and shorthand prolific in email, texts, blogs, etc.—is a growing problem among tech users. When teaching, I was shocked to learn that text shorthand was accepted for the essay portion of the state’s standardized test so long as it didn’t interfere with the understanding of the document. It’s appalling. We need to change the way young adults communicate properly, but that can only be done in a classroom setting—we can’t expect them to self-correct such bad habits.

The web, as a medium, is a fundamental part of our society and it has forever changed our world. As it becomes increasingly more ubiquitous in students’ daily lives, its inclusion in curricula becomes a question of social responsibility. Students should be instructed on the web’s past, present, and future states and the rhetorical implications of web discourse in order to foster an understanding of its capacity and the wide-ranging implications of its use. It’s preferable that online publishing would be a core requirement for students, just as math, English, science, and history courses are, but since I don’t anticipate schools making any such pedagogical changes soon, the least teachers can do is include its instruction in a cross-curriculum format.

Identifying the shortcomings
With the digitization of media, there should be countless educational opportunities available to students of all demographics, but there aren’t. For most schools, it’s a matter of money, where will schools find the funds for hard- and software? There is hope on the horizon with the recent introduction of more affordable subnotebook/netbook computers but they alone aren’t a solution to school budgetary concerns and the lack of technology in the classroom. Open source software also offers such a great solution to school district budget limitations, but it has too got its downfalls. Experimenting with Adobe Captivate revealed so much potential for its use in the secondary teaching environment, but as mentioned in class, how can school districts get around the expense of the proprietary software, not to mention the expense of training teachers to use the software effectively? As it stands, teachers are still stuck largely in Web 1.0. How then, can we incorporate web-based education when our teachers aren’t tech savvy? At some point in the next 30 years, I think technology will be more commonplace in the classroom as teachers who are raised on technology take to the classroom with their own technological expectations. It’s a matter of waiting for the technology to become more affordable and the teachers more technologically autodidactic.

Creating challenging learning environments
I worked in an inner-city school, teaching English to high school juniors and seniors who were on average reading on a third grade level. The students were just passed, from grade to grade, without many learning expectations so that when they arrived in my classroom, there were working with an insurmountable deficit. Failing students did nothing to improve their education but instead increased the dropout rate. The school I worked for attempted to improve student comprehension with computer-based teaching called Plato. I think there’s a lot of potential in computer-based teaching, but Plato had none of it. Plato was largely a top-down approach to teaching different subjects on a variety of levels. It was not engaging and interacted very little with the student—only requiring they read questions and answer the multiple choice questions. That was my first exposure to computer-based education and despite seeing the potential, it was a huge disappointment. When I apply Bloom’s taxonomy to such teaching, I can’t find the higher-level learning questions: where are the analysis, the synthesis, and the evaluation learning domains? Such computer-based training uses only the less engaging cognitive domains like knowledge and complication and possibly some application.

So, I wonder how computer or web-based training can be effective, according to traditional teaching theories like Bloom’s Taxonomies and Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. Is there a way to engage different learning types with one teaching module? Even if different learning types are successfully integrated into a module, there are bound to be accompanying accessibility issues.

This subject is definitely not an easy one to tackle. Even though its implementation and success depends on so many variables, it deserves attention considering the potential computer or web-based training has to public education. I’m not certain I’ll ever return to teaching, but if I do, I plan to incorporate more engaging technology in my instruction.

The Final Countdown

Tomorrow's my last day of graduate class, and I have three projects due. Needless to say, I'm in major freakout mode. I'd like to say that I've nearly completed all my projects, but that wouldn't be true. Despite working on bits and pieces of these projects for weeks, I still can't call one "finished." So, I'm hard at work trying to tie up the loose ends on one so that I can set it aside and feel a sense of accomplishment, even if only for a bit.

A little pomp and circumstance

Well, it's official! In May I'll be graduating with my MA in Technical Communication. Woot! I received word today that my portfolio passed through the committee and I'm officially graduating! I've been so anxious about the news and so I'm relieved to know the 80 hours I spent creating and assembling my portfolio over spring break while my husband watched our two boys was worth it. I've really enjoyed my time in graduate school and as always, have a list of should've/could'ves but I think that's normal.

Woot. Woot. Woot.

Sympathy scratching

Having children has made me a hypochondriac. It's not always in my head though: I do have a history of also catching whatever bug ails my children.

This week though. I'm certifiable.

My two-year-old has the chicken pox and even though I'm immune (verified through a blood test just a year ago) to the illness, I can't help but feel itchy all over. Maybe it's just my subconscious hearkening back to my childhood bout with the illness, but I have the compulsive need to scratch every inch of my skin. For once, I should be able to relax and not fear impending sickness, right? Nope. Not me. With my luck, I'll think myself into a case of Shingles.

I need to find my happy, itch-free place.

Easy Tactics for Improving Your Document's Visual Appeal and Efficiency

(Please click the post's title in order to access the podcast.)

Hi, and welcome to “Easy Tactics for Improving Your Document’s Visual Appeal and Efficiency.” This podcast will introduce you to some easy tactics to help you create a better looking document that invites readers rather than discourages them, no matter the content.

Each day, numerous documents compete for our attention. So, how can you make your document get the attention it deserves? You need to improve its visual appeal. But how, you ask? It’s easy. With just a few simple tweaks, you’ll see an improvement in your document design.

Part 1 –The Constants
Before I delve into the tactics, there are three important aspects of document design that I want to talk about first – your document’s structure, your audience, and subject. The structure, audience, and your subject are constants—you can’t change them. So, it’s important that you are familiar with them and think about them while you design your document.

Your Structure
When designing a document for any purpose, it’s important to look at its structure. Its structure is the skeleton of your work that gives readers visual clues that indicate different elements. Do you have a title, headings, subheadings, image headings, etc.? How are they laid out? Do you have images, charts, or graphs within your document? How is data shown? Do you use other graphics throughout? Is your document largely text, data, graphics, or a mixture of everything?
These skeletal elements are instruments for great document design so it’s important to know the structure well since it can help you make important design decisions.

Your Audience
Who is the document for? The design of your document is impacted greatly by the audience it is written for: a company executive or client expects a different document than your colleagues, and it is important to remember such distinctions when selecting aspects of your design and taking design liberties in appealing to your audience.

Your Subject
Does your subject limit your document design? A technical report is wholly different from a lengthy interoffice memo. Specific subjects automatically connote a certain design or seriousness. This is another factor important to remember before you tackle your document design.
Since you can’t change the structure, audience, and subject of your document, it’s important to consider those factors when changing the aesthetics of your document. Your document design should complement your document, not detract from it.

Part 2 – The Variables
Now that we’ve talked about your document’s constants, let’s look at the variables. The variables are the elements we can change: margins, alignment, text, and graphics. My tactics for improving your document’s visual appeal revolve around those variables and the mountain of design possibilities available with each one.

The first variable we’re looking at are the margins of your document. The default margin settings for Microsoft Word and similar software programs create lackluster, one-inch margins all around the page. Those settings don’t entertain the eye but bore it! Spice up your document with less symmetrical margins. In Microsoft Word, you can change these settings under Page Layout: consider choosing some off-center margins like a 1.5 inch left margin, a 1-inch right margin, a 2-inch top margin, and a 1-inch bottom margin. Eyes will gravitate to the any settings that break from the norm. So, have fun!

Also, as an added benefit to readers, wider margin settings also allow for ample note-writing space! Your readers just might thank you!

Our next variable, alignment, is another powerful tool in document design. A document’s alignment draws the reader’s eye from page-to-page, and if used properly, can connote strength and professionalism. For your document, try using left-align for all text and images. And, whatever you do, avoid any center-alignment if you want to be taken seriously.

Paragraphs are variable elements of a page that are often ignored in document design, but they can do so much for your document if you just make a few adjustments! For body text, consider changing your tab settings to begin your paragraphs one-and-a-half inches in from the left margins. You retain the strong line you created with left-alignment while also creating variety on the page and distinguishing body text from the title, headings, and subheadings.

Another useful tactic is to indent only the first paragraph in each section of your document. It is a simple visual clue that alerts readers to the beginning and end of a new section and complements any section headings already in use.

Text is a simple variable to manipulate and one of the easiest ways to captivate the eyes. A useful tactic is to employ different typefaces and sizes to distinguish the title, headings, and subheadings from the body text. The rule of thumb is to make noticeable changes in the type and size used. So, if your body text is in 12-point Arial, use something bigger and bolder, like 18-point Perpetua Titling Bold, for the title, 16-point for the headers, and 14-point Italic for the subtitles. If you make changes but still can’t discern different typefaces or sizes from one another, you need to make more dramatic choices.

You have lots of options available with text, but you should limit your document to only 2-3 different text choices for simplicity’s sake. It turns out you really can have too much of a good thing!

The last variable involves the layout of your graphics. If your document contains images, tables, or other such graphics, make sure to place them consistently on your page. A good tactic to remember is to align any graphics with your body text and keep them in proximity to any related data or text. It’s difficult for readers to understand important graphics if their eyes have to jump around the page to find correlated information. Keeping related text and graphics together will pull your document together and provide readers with a better visual experience.

Whatever design decisions you choose to make, be consistent! The purpose of document design is to invite readers with captivating design choices, but some amount of predictability is important if you want your document’s content to be center stage. The page layout and other variable choices you made on one page should be identical on following pages. Inconsistent design is irritating to the eye and detracts from the content. So, be consistent!
When you are considering all these elements in your document design, it is an iterative process. As you tweak your margins, fonts, graphic positions, you’ll have to return to your previous choices to double-check how the elements work together. There is no single answer for document design, and there are several ways to combine these elements into effective document design. Have fun with the process; consider creating your own “style” that will distinguish your documents from your peers.

In this podcast, we looked at several tactics that can improve your document’s visual appearance. We discussed how constants—the structure, audience and subject of your paper— can impact your document design, and how a document’s variables—margins, alignment, paragraphs, text, and graphics—can be manipulated to improve your document’s visual appeal and efficiency.

Now, go improve your document design.

Thank you very much for listening and I hope this podcast serves you well.

It'(s not).

Like Stephanie, I'm sick. Not can't-get-out-of-bed sick but congested sick. I feel perfectly fine except that my nose is a faucet and my throat the poster child for post-nasal drip. I've pleaded with my congestion and asked it to go away, but it's not (or snot, rather).

In the past week, my voice has vacillated between a trying-to-hard sexiness and an uncanny imitation of Fran Drescher, neither of which is great for recording a podcast. I put the actual recording part of the podcasting process off until today in hopes that my voice would be better. While it does sound better, I couldn't speak loud enough and had to rely on Audacity's amplify and normalize features to get a decent finished product. Now, after recording and rerecording all day, my throat hurts so I'm enjoying some chamomile tea and hoping for a peaceful night's sleep--except that I can't breath through my nose and wake several times during the with my dry tongue stuck to my teeth.

Sigh.

It's a date.

It was brought to my attention in one of my classes that Sarah Vowell is visiting the Tech Campus on March 3 to speak as part of the Presidential Lecture and Performance series. I recently read her book, Assassination Vacation, and thoroughly enjoyed it (a good portion of the book is available on Google Books). It regales her "travels around the country researching the assasinations of US presidents Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, and James Garfield (Wikipedia)." While it doesn't necessarily sound like your usual page-turner, her humorous delivery of historical facts and anecdotes makes the book both educational and pleasureful to read. I'm not typically a laugh-out-loud person, but several guffaws escaped my lips while reading the book. She also wrote Take the Cannoli, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, and The Wordy Shipmates along with I really look forward her reading and commentary and encourage any who enjoys history, humor and social observation to attend.

You can call 806-742-0706 ext 401 for tickets.