Chris Anson - Distant Voices

In 1999, I was blissfully learning the joys of computer games while Anson was busy writing this article. It's interesting to me that for so much of my first few years having a computer, the internet played no part in my life, and yet if I go a day without internet in 2011, I miss crucial emails or fail to complete assignments.

All in all, I thought his article was introspective and that he was genuinely concerned for the future of teaching writing, but oftentimes he seemed to get too excited with predictions of the near but strikingly technological future (ooooooh). I think it is very valid to discuss such technological advances though, especially since we are now twelve years past this and so many of his craaaaazy ideas have already been implemented, and we are sure to see just as much in the next decade, I'm sure. He argues that it is so important that writing is never taught online because the benefits of it all occur in the classroom through face-to-face interaction and collaborative workshopping. He says that we must be careful and thoughtful about the decisions we make to move key educational communities online because we sacrifice the "teacher-learner, learner-teacher" relationship and the online teacher as moderator/expert changes that dynamic. He wonders, like I do, if decisions for institutions to move some courses online comes from a financial standpoint, rather than a concern for good education, and fears that teachers will face lower wages with less benefits employed, or "outsourced" on a non-tenure track. He also reiterates the importance of physical spaces for education, such as writing centers and offices, yet does give kudos to email for being a 24/7 ease of access way of communication. Basically, he believes there are good things that can come from technological advances in relation to writing education, but he is primarily skeptical of the intentions for doing so when so much is sacrificed. I enjoyed his discussion of multimedia, particularly because we do not generally use several sources of media anymore in the classroom as he says we did in 1999; most resources are DVD and/or computer-based these days and, in fact, a professor told me IC is trying to phase out of VHS media and projectors. Overall, I think he just wants us to engage in our communities and weigh the positives of negatives, if only to be aware of what we are missing with each choice we make in either direction. Cultivating this awareness will guide us to make better decisions and theoretically receive a more in-depth and cutting-edge education.