One thing that surprised me about these readings is how unsurprised I was by some of the content. In the Moore piece, for example, he noted his surprised that most of the students had some typing education and that they had so few problems using the computers. We see so many of these same assumptions about students these days, but in reverse: we assume students know basics and we can skip them. These continual assumptions, I’ve found, can be damaging, and I wondered if Moore’s attitude was apparent to the students, and if so, how that impacted their performance. After all, as we say in Dinana et al, that fear of failure (which I read as judgment) impacts students, something I continue to see in my own classes as I teach programs and methods that are unfamiliar to some. While the Moore piece was short, that question and others plagued me as I read the other two items. I want to go back and ask him, well, what about it? What did you really learn? What did your students learn? We see some of this: they learned technical skills they didn’t have before, maybe (we didn’t get a full breakdown of more than which students knew how to type), but as he pointed out, there was little impact on the writing… despite the use of techniques that remain useful in writing (particularly creative writing, as I well know!), such as hand-writing early drafts and editing in different modes until a final draft is created using a computer. I wonder if, in piloting this instruction, maybe other items got missed.

But, briefly, back to assumption. We assume, today, that our students are “digital natives,” but I’ve run into students of all ages who were unfamiliar with many aspects of computing beyond simply searching the web and using some rudimentary social media. We shuffle these students into labs and require e-mail and content management systems and more, and while I’ve wondered before how to better support those students besides through in-class instruction, tutorials, and peer aid, I find myself wondering now if that is impacting instruction.

I have much to say on this reading alone; I’ve eaten all my words, but I’ll have more for class. Lots to think about.