The question in our title (from the conference CFP) poses problems that deserve innovative solutions. We propose a roundtable session that will depend on active audience participation to explore ways we can more effectively use currently available but underused technology tools to address this problem.
At least until the beginning of this century, the answers to the question in our title assumed a conventional, seemingly "natural" process for producing, distributing, consuming, using, and storing "our learning." In part because of long-established traditions of research and scholarship, and in part because our field / discipline was (is) struggling to earn respect in the "academy" and to earn the associated benefits that come with that respect, we have done what was necessary to fit into the existing, accepted scholarly infrastructure: create scholarly journals, sponsor professional conferences, attempt to assemble a comprehensive bibliography, forge alliances with publishers. To support that infrastructure, we developed degree programs to prepare professionals to produce "our learning." These programs reinforced the dominant, traditional response to the question in our title: conduct "research" and publish the right things in the right places. And do more of it.
The approach seems to have worked, if the primary measure of success depends on how well we have managed to fulfill traditional expectations for an academic field/discipline. However, because of the kinds of work we do—as WPAs, as WAC coordinators, as Writing Center administrators, and as "regular" writing studies faculty—"our learning" is more often different from conventional expectations, and it is expanding in ways and at a rate that our infrastructure can not accommodate. We are not effectively documenting, preserving, protecting, or sharing "our learning."
As an emerging discipline/academic field of study, we have a unique opportunity for productive change without abandoning the core principles and values that make the question in our title worth asking. We have access to new tools, the means to develop innovative, expanded, infrastructures. Perhaps more important, we have the opportunity to learn more about and enact new perspectives and attitudes that promise to expand our understandings of knowledge production, circulation, and consumption (for example, consider ways some of our colleagues are describing various aspects of culture: "participatory," "remix/rewrite," "digital," etc.; or consider the exponential growth of the "open-source" movement).
Roundtable participants will introduce several available resources (including The Research Exchange , CompPile , CompFAQs , WAC Clearinghouse ), explore how and why these tools are currently underused, and invite the audience to explore ways to promote more effective uses of these tools to "better document, preserve, protect, and share our learning."
Prepared statements from roundtable participants will be limited to a total of 30 minutes, leaving us 60 minutes for discussion with audience members.
Our goal for this session is to begin to identify and make visible in a systematic way the various challenges preventing "change," and to explore possible solutions. We will publish our prepared statements online, before the conference, and we will have several recorders publishing the discussion online during the interactive portion of our session. In other words, we will attempt to model at least one of the ways that we can answer the central question of this session.
Name, Affiliation, and Email Address of All Presenters:
Glenn Blalock glennblalock.phd@gmail.com Baylor University
Janis Haswell janis.haswell@tamucc.edu Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
Rich Haswell rhaswell@grandecom.net Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, emeritas
Joan Mullin jmullin@mail.utexas.edu University of Texas
Mike Palmquist mike.palmquist@colostate.edu Colorado State University
Steve Wilhoit stephen.wilhoit@notes.udayton.edu University of Dayton
Posted by Glenn on July 7, 2008
Tags: Sharing
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