Technology as Writing Instruction

Here I am again, discussing all the benefits of incorporating technology in writing instruction. Oh, what digital literacy has to offer! Geoffrey Sirc in "Box Logic" says the following: "I want to use technology in my writing courses; as allowing students an easy entre' into compelling medium and genre with which to re-arrange textual materials--both original and appropriated--in order to have those materials speak the student's own voice and concerns, allowing them to come up with something obscure, perhaps, yet promising illumination" (113). This is exactly what I was trying to get at in my previous post, No Longer Writing as We Once Knew It. There is something about teaching people through technology, through creativity that opens the world to new and exciting things.

Is it possible to teach "writing" through technology? I would argue and agree with Sirc that it most certainly is. For example, my students are constantly contributing to the world of YouTube. Why not take what they do outside of school and incorporate that into the writing instruction? Sirc poses the question as to whether teachers should "teach to life or college" (113). He goes on to state that he would prefer "to err on the side of life" (113). You know what, I completely and totally agree with him. High school and college are only a very small chunk of person's life. However, life is...well life is a lifetime.

Going back to this idea of having writing become relevant through technology, I am once again drawn to YouTube. I think of the thousands of people that are posting videos. Some of them are not so great quality, but it's the effort that counts, right? However, on the other hand, I think of other YouTube posters that create great short stories/films. The example below is one such example of how technology as writing can be and should be incorporated into writing instruction because with the right people, creativity can appear like this:

So I get the story is a little weird, but the idea is to show students that the basis of this clip (or any well thought out clip) has to do with writing and communication. I want my students to dabble in areas of "writing" that have never been explored. I want my students to not fear the world of creativity but embrace it. Writing really is something more than pencil and paper, and I want my students to be able to figure that out first hand.