My students

Academic, Cultural and Digital immigrants

Majority of students visiting the writing center are ESL clients. As expected many of them are from diverse cultural, academic and socio-techno-economic backgrounds. As an ESL student myself, I know some of their struggles are not always about language, but also technological as well. The question of lack of access to digital technology rings true for some of these students. Imagine for example having to use a computer for the first time in your life after completing your bachelor’s degree. While this might sound almost unimaginable to many, particularly in developed world, this was my very own experience. So, I was not a shocked when last summer I had a client, a graduate student joining MSU, who needed help composing an email with an attachment. In fact he had no struggles with language issues. He was just frustrated and overwhelmed by the culture of composing digitally and doing almost everything online. While the pedagogy I would adopt to help such a client is informed by empathy, there is also a temptation to negatively judge and evaluate the student or client’s computer literacy skills and abilities(Based on the assumption that these literaces are very basic). However, given my background and experience, encountering such a client reminds me to keep check of my assumptions. One, I have recognize that their use of technology brings a lot of apprehension and thus the student requires enough time to play around with the technology in order to learn and be comfortable using it. My technology teaching position will be not to be overly directive or do everything for them because it can lead to some kind of dependency.

But this also raises another concern/question for me which I want to throw out to everybody out there,-is there a scientific explanation behind slowness in learning a digital technology? For example, my personal experience is that I always take an extra, extended time to learn a new digital technology no matter how easy it may be. This makes me wonder if learning or using digital technology requires some sort of spatial “intelligence” or skills”.(Some people are not endowed with spatial skills). I think am just trying to compare technology with a subject like Math for example— just saying!

Working with Digital natives

Ok, based on what I just wrote above, I have to admit that I am a digital immigrant (although the meaning of the term has become controversial). But if we go by the definition in BDWM that digital immigrants tend to adopt and teach digital technology in ways that seem to invite “old school” ways of doing things, to some extent this is true about me. This is a disadvantage when I am dealing with tech savvy clients who seem to know what the next technological invention will be. Recently I had a client who wanted to create a PowerPoint using Prezi. When I told her I wasn’t familiar with that technology, she seemed shocked because as a consultant, she expected me to know how to work with every technology available out there. Thankfully, writing center pedagogy and practice does not promote the pedagogy of an expert. In such a situation, this becomes a great opportunity for me to learn a technology from the student or the client. In return, I can help the client learn something about how to use the technology rhetorically.