***Call for Papers for an Edited Collection***
TECHNOLOGICAL ECOLOGIES and SUSTAINABILITY: METHODS, MODES, and ASSESSMENT
Together, computerized writing environments (e.g., physical spaces,
hardware, software, and networks) and the humans who use and support such
technologies comprise complex ecologies of interaction. As with any
ecology, a human–computer technoecological system needs to be planned,
fostered, designed, sustained, and assessed to create a vibrant culture of
support at the individual, programmatic, institutional, and even national
and international level. Local and larger infrastructures of composing are
critical to digital writing practices and processes. In academia,
specifically, all writing is increasingly computer-mediated; all writing
is digital. Writers increasingly work and interact within computerized
networks: word-processing texts, IMing and emailing, creating multimedia
compositions, communicating via the Web, and disseminating files across
file-sharing spaces on the Internet.
Unfortunately, at far too many institutions, it is difficult to sustain
ecologies of digital writing. How then to best plan, foster, design,
sustain, and assess the complex ecologies framing the study and practice
of digital writing that we do (or hope to do) as teachers, scholars,
learners, and writers? Technological Ecologies and Sustainability:
Methods, Modes, and Assessment will provide contextual and situated but
flexible modes and methods for theorizing and enacting the hard work that
building and sustaining digital writing ecologies requires. The audience
for this collection is teachers, scholars, administrators, and graduate
students working in fields of composition studies, computers and writing,
technical/professional communication, literature, education, and English
education. We all face the same dilemma: More and more of our work and
instruction takes place in electronic environments, but budget constraints
and assessment mandates loom, and often our positions within our
institutions prohibit us from active participation in central computing
endeavors. This necessarily multivocal collection is meant to refine our
discussions of the many components of sustainability, and the methods,
modes, and assessment practices that frame the work of fostering a healthy
technological ecology.
The editors of this collection solicit abstracts for chapters that address
a range of pedagogical and institutional contexts and that approach
human–computer techno-ecological systems from different vantage points. As
ecology is a contested metaphor for technology studies, we invite
submissions that offer alternative lenses for digital writing work.
Specifically, the editors of the collection solicit abstracts proposing
chapters that address digital writing ecologies from the vantage point of:
* writing-across-the-curriculum programs
* writing-in-the-disciplines programs
* writing program administration
* first-year composition programs
* vertical / BA-granting writing programs
* graduate programs
* writing centers
* interdisciplinary / learning communities
* hybrid/blended course and curricula models
* fully online courses and curricula
* instructional / information technology units
* national / international organizations
Abstracts should address a critical issue (or a set of critical issues) in
fostering, designing, sustaining, and assessing technological ecologies
from one of the contexts listed above. The proposed chapters can be
theoretical explorations, research reports, narrative reflections,
institutional analyses, pedagogical reflections or analyses, or something
else entirely. Questions that the editors encourage authors to address
include:
--How have techno-ecologies been identified, researched, created,
assessed, etc., in the past—within Rhetoric and Composition Studies,
computers and writing, and outside of our discipline?
--How do good writing and composing practices migrate? What philosophies,
pedagogies, and values remain stable as we move from print or
traditionally anchored spaces to teaching within technological ecologies?
--What infrastructural and/or ecological variables must be addressed in
fostering, designing, nurturing, sustaining, and assessing healthy
technological ecologies?
--What are potential threats (e.g., invader species, disease, viruses) to
a healthy technological ecology? How can we negotiate or, at best, avoid
such threats?
--How can particular writing technologies and/or modes of composition
(e.g., digital movies, web sites, presentations) best be supported within
a technological ecology?
--How should technology advocates in our disciplines engage those across
campus who are working to minimize our institutional carbon / silicon
footprints?
Deadline for 500–750 word abstracts: September 1, 2006 (notification by
October 1, 2006)
Deadline for chapter manuscripts: February 1, 2007 (response by March 15,
2007)
Deadline for final chapter manuscripts: July 1, 2007
Please direct questions and email abstracts to:
Dànielle Nicole DeVoss, Michigan State University ([log in to unmask])
Heidi A. McKee, Miami University ([log in to unmask])
Richard (Dickie) Selfe, Ohio State University ([log in to unmask])
--
Heidi McKee
Assistant Professor
English Department
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio 45056
tel:513.529.2635
fax: 513.529.1392
email: [log in to unmask]
--
Heidi McKee
Assistant Professor
English Department
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio 45056
tel:513.529.2635
fax: 513.529.1392
email: [log in to unmask]
**********
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