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| Overview |
 As citizens of a highly technological culture, our students see (and
often use) technologies as a daily experience. Because of their proliferation,
these technologies become are often taken for granted and unexplored. This lesson
plan asks students to pay attention to these technologies explicitly. In this
activity, students brainstorm lists of their interactions with technology, map
these interactions
graphically, and then
compose narratives of their most significant interactions with technology.
By writing these technology autobiographies, students explore what
their stories reveal about why we use the technologies we do when we choose to use them.
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| From Theory to Practice |
In her 1999 Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century, Cynthia
L. Selfe urges that educators “must try to understand—to pay attention
to—how technology is now inextricably linked to literacy and literacy
education
in this country; and second, we must help colleagues, students, administrators,
politicians, and other Americans gain some increasingly critical and productive
perspective on technological literacy” (24). Just learning to use a piece
of software or new digital gizmo, what Selfe defines as computer
literacy, is not enough. We need to explore technological literacy, which Selfe
defines as “a complex set of socially and culturally situated values, practices,
and skills involved in operating linguistically within the context of electronic
environments, including reading, writing, and communicating” (11). In
other words, our classroom activities need to consider not just how to use
technology
but also to pay attention to why we use the technologies we do when we do.
Technology autobiographies ask writers to examine their interaction with technologies
closely. As citizens of a highly technological culture, our students see (and
often use) technologies as a daily experience. As Kitalong et. al explain, “[T]echnology
is taken for granted, invisible, a mere backdrop to their lives. Writing technology
autobiographies encourages [students] to reflect upon their own
(and sometimes
other people’s)
experiences with technology, which leads them to think critically about technology.
In the process, the invisibles become visible, the implicit can be made explicit” (219).
This lesson plan asks students “pay attention to technology” by
recognizing the many interactions that they have had with technology during
their
lives and thinking about what those interactions reveal about themselves and
others.
Further Reading
Kitalong, Karla, Tracy Bridgeford, Michael Moore, and Dickie Selfe. “Variations
on a Theme: The Technology Autobiography as a Versatile Writing Assignment.” Teaching
Writing with Computers. Eds. Pamela Takayoshi and Brian Huot. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 2003. Pp. 219-233.
Selfe, Cynthia L. Technology and Literacy in the Twenty-First Century:
The Importance of Paying Attention. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1999.
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| Student Objectives |
Students will
- explore and expand their definitions of technology.
- identify key moments, people,
and places in their personal relationships with technology.
- create an evaluative scale, from high points to low points,
ranking the most significant moments or interactions.
-
write an autobiographical essay that explores their relationship to technology.
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| Instructional Plan |
Resources
Preparation
Instruction and Activities
Session One
- Explain that you are about to begin an exploration of your relationships
with technology.
- To begin, ask students to spend 5 to 10 minutes freewriting about the
role that technology plays in their lives.
- Once the writing is complete, explain that students will return to the freewriting
later, but that they can set it aside for now.
- Ask students to brainstorm a
list of technologies that they use, see, or know about
in their
notebooks,
in order
to give students
a few
minutes
to gather their thoughts.
- After everyone has collected a short list of ideas, invite students to share
the technologies and write all the responses on the board, chart paper, or
an overhead. You will return to this list in later sessions.
- If students begin running out of suggestions, encourage to think about the
technology available in specific locations and situations, such as the following:
- What technology do you have in your backpack or locker?
- What technology do you see in the classroom?
- What technology do you see in other classrooms and locations in the school?
- What technology do you see in
the workplace (yours, a family member’s, or someone else’s)?
- What
technology do you see on your way from home to school?
- What technology
do you see in the mall or grocery store?
- What technology did you see or use
when you were younger?
- If students have not included nondigital technologies in their list, share
the first two paragraphs of the definition
of technology from Wikipedia. The List of Technologies Topics from Wikipedia may
also stimulate discussion.
- With this expanded definition, ask students to suggest additional technologies
to add to the class list. Encourage them to focus in particular on non-computerized
technologies for a few minutes.
- At this point, you should have an extensive list of technologies assembled.
Step back and review the entire list with the students. Make any additions,
revisions, or deletions students suggest as you examine the list as a whole.
- If any patterns emerge from the list, take a few minutes to talk about
the comparisons among technologies. Consider not only similarities among
the items but also patterns in how the information was shared (e.g., does
the list begin with personal technologies like cell phones and laptops and
later move on to industrial technologies such as nuclear power reactors?).
Your goal is simply to ask students to think more deeply about the various
technologies
that
they
use, see, or know.
- As discussion concludes, ask students to collect a personal list of 20
to 25 technologies that they have had some personal experience with from
the class list. Encourage students to be sure to include technologies that
have been particularly significant in their lives.
- For homework, ask students to return to the freewriting they wrote at the
beginning of the session. Ask students to reflect on their original response
in a second freewriting or journal entry, focusing on how their response
would change as a result of the class list that was compiled and the personal
list of technologies that they identified at the end of the session.
Session Two
- Distribute the Technology
Autobiography Assignment to the class and discuss
the assignment.
- Share one or more technology
autobiography examples written by Michigan Tech Publication
Management Students during Fall 1999.
- Divide students into groups and ask each group to examine at least one example
technology autobiography. In their groups, ask students to note specific characteristics
that make the autobiography successful.
- Circulate among students as they work, answering any questions.
- Once groups have had a chance to gather four or more characteristics, bring
the class together and invite group members to share, noting the characteristics
on the board or on chart paper.
- Ask students to suggest similar characteristics that have been recorded.
When possible combine ideas to simplify the list, which will serve as a checklist
for writers as they work on their autobiographies.
- Ask students to look back at their personal list of technologies and their
freewriting from the previous class and circle or highlight significant details.
- For homework, or in class if time allows, ask students to narrow their personal
lists of technologies to no more than 15 items, arranged into roughly chronological
order. Explain that it’s is fine—indeed likely—that technologies
will be repeated on the list as they are shifting their focus from all the
technologies they have interacted with to those key interactions with the technologies
that have shaped how they have become the technology users they are today.
Session Three
- Demonstrate the Graphic
Map Student Interactive, which students will use to gather more specific
details about the key technology interactions.
- After typing a name for the project and their own names, students choose
a label for the items they are going to list. Their choice will be the label
for the horizontal line on their finished Graphic Map (the X-axis on a mathematical
graph). Discuss the options for labeling the information. The most obvious
choice is “Time”—with students listing the day or year that
specific interactions occurred; however, students may find other ways to structure
their information.
- After choosing, click Next and show students the options for how they will
rate their technology interactions. Students can choose any of the rating options.
The “3, 2, 1/-1, -2, -3” option provides the widest range of choices.
- After choosing, click Next. Demonstrate that students can change any
of the choices they have made by clicking the Edit tab.
- Enter a technology interaction as an example, filling in the information
and choosing a rating. Explain that the information that students enter in
the Graphic Map Student Interactive can
be used later as they write their autobiographies, so the details that they
include in the description field will be useful later.
- Enter two or three more sample interactions, and click Finished to
show students the Print Preview, which shows the relationship among the items.
- Explain that the tool allows for a maximum of 15 items. If students want
to include more technology interactions, suggest that they focus on specific
ranges and complete a different Graphic Map for each (e.g., interactions
in pre-school, interactions in elementary school, and interactions in middle
and high school each as separate maps).
- Mouse over items on the Print Preview to show the topic title, and double-click
on an item to edit the information.
- Demonstrate the printing process. You must change the printer to use Landscape
orientation in order to print the entire map.
- Answer any questions then give students the rest of the class period to expand
the items from their personal lists from the previous sessions using the Graphic
Map Student Interactive.
- Circulate among students as they work, answering any questions.
Remind students to print their work, and help them change the printer setting
to Landscape orientation if necessary.
- For homework, ask students to use the notes from previous sessions and the
information from the Graphic
Map Student Interactive to compose their technology autobiographies. Students
should come to the next class session with a complete draft.
Session Four
- Divide students into groups and ask them to share their technology autobiographies
with one another.
- Ask students to look for similarities among the autobiographies in
their group as well as what the details reveal about
themselves and others in their groups.
- Allow students enough time to read the autobiographies in their groups
and spend a few minutes in general discussion of their impressions of the
pieces
- Give
each group a piece of chart paper and ask them to brainstorm what the
technology interactions in their group’s autobiographies reveal about them.
- After each group has had a chance to collect a list, ask groups to post
and share their observations with the rest of the class.
- After all the lists are posted, ask students to identify patterns among
the lists. Add or revise information on the charts as students discuss
the information.
- Conclude the session by asking students what the lists and their stories
reveal about the various groups that they are members of—their school,
their family, their community, and so forth.
- For homework, ask students to review their freewriting
from Session One as well as their Graphic Maps and autobiographies. Ask students
to reflect on what they’ve learned about their relationship to technology
in another freewriting or journal entry.
Extensions
- After completing their autobiographies, try the Paying
Attention to Technology: Exploring a Fictional Technology lesson plan.
In this lesson, students complete a short survey to establish their beliefs
about technology then to compare their opinions to the ideas in a novel
that
depicts technology
(such as 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, REM World, or Feed). The
lesson plan can also be completed with short stories, video games, films,
and other fictional resources that examine issues related to science
and technology and their possible effects on society.
Web Resources
- Definition
of Technology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology
- The Wikipedia definition of technology can help students see the range
of tools, gadgets, and machines that can be thought of as technology.
- List of Technologies Topics from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_basic_technology_topics
- Like the definition above, this Wikipedia entry helps expand the items that
students list as technologies by providing explicit examples of tools and machines.
- Extended Technology Autobiography Assignments for First-year Classes
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~rselfe/5115/TAassign/TAover.html
- Dickie Selfe created this 5-7 week assignment sequence first-year
college students. The activities can be adapted or used as is with high school
students as an alternative to the assignment here.
- Technology Autobiography Heuristic
http://www.readwritethink.org/lesson_images/lesson325/
TechnologyAutobiographyHeuristic.pdf
- This list of questions written by Pamela Takayoshi can provide starting
points for student discussion or journal prompts for writing that extends the
activity.
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| Student Assessment/Reflections |
This activity should be treated as an informal writing and critical thinking
assignment. You may give participation points simply for completing the activity,
keeping anecdotal records of students’ participation
in the process and checking off students’ work during the course
of the activity.
Review students’ final journal entry and focus feedback on students’
recognition
of
significant technology interactions. Provide support for reflections that
demonstrate students are able to move beyond their own personal stories to draw
conclusions and ask questions about the how technologies influence the world
around them and what technologies reveal about the cultures that they are a part
of.
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4 - Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
5 - Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
6 - Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
11 - Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
12 - Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).
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