C & W 2007 Revisited
So here’s some [further and more elaborate and specific] things I’ve gleaned from the C & W experience.
This conf seems to fall into a more practical area of the broader field of C&W, in that many of the presentations were oriented toward reporting on new software packages, new websites, classroom practices, online social trends, etc. In addition to this, I observed a strong interest in literacy and literacy practices and how they’re changed by an engagement with computers and writing and associated pedagogical practice. While all of this is of interest, I found it limiting in that I’m developing a keener interest in theory. This suggests neither that the C&W presenters aren’t grounded in theory nor that I’m dissociating theory from practice. Rather, I found myself longing for some presentations that were more invested in theory–part., of course, those theorists I’m interested in right now–and that used individual teaching practice or software models or whatever as examples of theory put into practice or as reflecting certain theoretical tropes or something.
Why?
Well I think part of it is that I’m still catching up to a lot of the folks at the conf, so there might very well be references to theory embedded in their talks that I didn’t recognize–what my class and I discussed as passive intertext (as opposed to active intertext–a great discussion, but I’m not sure, on second thought, if itext can be passive after all. More later.). So there’s that. Also, however, other than outright stealing someone else’s assignment, I’m not really sure yet how to turn what I learn at a conf into my own pedagogy and practice. This will come in time, I am sure, but for now (curiously) I’m more inclined to approach theory and make that work into pedagogy/practice.
The other lesson here, of course, is that one needs to learn the details/goals/strengths/weaknesses of confs just as one must learn the same of journals . . . if C&W is more praxis and empiricist, I might need to choose on occasion which I attend, esp since as Rice mentions, there will on occasion be scheduling conflicts.
What follows is some feedback and commentary on the panels I was able to attend.
(more…)
