OWLs and the Critical Theory of Technology

Thomas, Sharon, Danielle DeVoss and Mark Hara. “Toward a Critical Theory of Technology and Writing.” The Writing Center Journal. 19.1 (1998): 73-86.

These writers outline the way in which their writing center, after first using both an instrumental and then a substantive theory of technology, finally opted for an approach that embraced a critical theory of technology. They first established an OWL that acted primarily as a resource site, then they began to engage in asynchronous online consulting via email, and eventually synchronous online tutoring in the form of chat rooms. Both types of tutoring disrupted pedagogical practices. The dialogue that is crucial to tutoring was absent in the first type of tutorial and prevented tutors from assessing student response while the dialogue in synchronous tutorials tended to be one-sided. This undermined the writer-centered/directed conference that informed this center’s pedagogy. Consequently, they stopped online tutoring. When a new technology initiative, that sought to facilitate the passing of information, was implemented on their campus these writers sought to adapt this technology and make it a part of their student-directed pedagogy by encouraging dialogue and inviting students into the work of the academic community. The writing center conducted sessions on how to use the technology such as email, MOOs, MUDs and chat rooms, to extend class discussion and support student writing. They also taught students to use the Internet to conduct research and publish on the web.
The writing center’s success in this endeavor led to the creation of an Internet Writing Consultant program that was designed to offer support to students and staff interested in web publishing. IWCs had difficulty integrating writing center goals with their online practices as sessions became overly directive. The computer also intruded as a medium with some consultants feeling as though they needed to teach computer skills before they could address issues related to content. To combat this, they met f2f with students, established the goals of the session then moved to the computer. This provided an alternative to a simple outright rejection or acceptance of the technology. Using technology to invite students into academic dialogue worked so well, it altered teaching practice which became more interactive, less teacher-centered and focused more on teacher and students sharing knowledge. Technology supported the writing center pedagogy that is student focused. It was not used simply to ascertain student knowledge but was also used to provide an avenue for them to enter into academic discourse and highlight their abilities and potential. These writers conclude that while writing centers may not be able to shape the technology they can “shape the design of the instruction that accompanies that technology so that the instruction is congruent with [their] particular pedagogy” (84). This experiment indicates that OWLs may need to adopt a hybrid approach to tutoring in which f2f and online tutoring are combined in the same session. It also indicates that the critical theory of technology can be extremely useful in integrating technology into writing center pedagogy.