Michael Day and Charles Moran call attention to the issue of privacy and in particular to the boundaries between our classes and public life. Michael raises a question considered by many teachers who have used the Web in their courses:
Just because we CAN make our students' writing, thoughts, and work available to other students and even the world through class listserv groups, MOO and Web pages, should we? What is the distinction between public and private discourse in our classes? How do student responses vary in public and private settings? Should class work and Web pages be open to the entire world?
Charles offers one response to this question:
As a writing teacher, I value the Web as a new 'scene' for students' writing. The Web becomes a place where they can publish easily and cheaply, facing squarely the interesting audience and privacy issues that come with this new writing space. As they compose Web pages, they learn to look at the appearance of their pages as well as at the print-language on the pages, a gain for the graphic elements of writing that are often submerged in our teaching by the mandatory 'typed' page with standard margins and 12 point Courier. Outside of a writing course students publish projects on the Web - a gain for a project-based curriculum, collaborative writing, and the discovery of 'real' audiences, all, historically, components of the pedagogy I understand as WAC.
Where do you place yourself along the continuum represented by password-protected class Web sites and completely open sites? How should WAC faculty - and teachers in general - address the privacy issues that Michael and Charles raise?
– Mike Palmquist
Mike.Palmquist@ColoState.edu