As we move into the fourth mode of communication, there’s a few things I want to acknowledge upfront about this mode.First, it is the least traditional—and therefore, probably the least obvious to you—compared to writing and speaking. At the same time, it is likely the most ubiquitous of all four modes.Secondly, it is seldom a stand-alone mode Most often, technological communication activities will be multimodal involving one or all three of the other communication modes.And finally, while technology itself is extremely fluid, technological communication is less about software versions or a specific tools and more about the critical thinking involved in how we select and apply appropriate technologies to effectively communicate with our audience.
Let’s review the same graphic we’ve talked about in other modes. Just as we’ve talked about before, if you opt to certify your course technological communication-intensive, it should be seamlessly embedded into your teaching and learning. This means you’ll want to think about the requirements in the context of Your course goals, what you want students to learnYour instruction, the knowledge you want to transferYour assignments, the skills you want students to learn Your assessments, the feedback to give to studentsAnd think through how you thread technological communication experiences throughout all of it—not just in the assignment portion—to increase students’ learning and skills.So what does it take to certify your course as C-I in speaking?
Remember that for each mode, the C-I requirements are broken up in to 3 sections – teaching, learning, and demonstrating skill.The first criterion is TEACHING: Faculty member provides students ample instruction on the conventions of selecting and using appropriate technology to communicate discipline-specific ideas, including detailed directions for the assignment itself and grading descriptions or formal rubrics for assessment.
The second is LEARNING: Students participate in a variety of communication experiences that involve the use of appropriate technology to learn course content.
This requirement is all about students practicing and learning. So what might these exercises look like?
online discussions – written, audio or videoweb meeting – with peers, with instructor, with clientelectronic lab journal – excel files, videos, website word docpodcast reflections – audio or videotrainings on discipline‐specific software
The final criterion is DEMONSTRATING SKILL: Course involves a minimum of two* graded learning experiences that involve the use of appropriate technology to communicate discipline-specific information
Here’s what some of these exercises might look like.creation of sophisticated charts/graphswebsite/digital portfolio development visualization/animation modeling video creationapplication of discipline‐specific software
When you’re developing your technological communication experiences, we encourage you to consider the discipline-specific competencies you want your students to learn. Let’s take a look at each of these.
especial tech: What technologies are commonly used to communicate information/knowledge in your field?
effective tech: What technologies are commonly used to effectively communicate with peers? With clients? With general public?
emerging tech: What technologies are emerging in your field that students should be aware of?
evolving tech: What transferable skills can students gain by using technological communication? (skills at the higher level of Bloom’s taxonomy—application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation)
So when you are developing technological communication-intensive assignments—or any assignment, really—you’ll want to go through this checklist:AppropriateInstructive (process and product)PurposefulMeaningfulI’d like to share this brief audio clip with you from Inside Higher Ed.I think this certainly speaks to exactly what technological communication-intensive means. It’s not just about incorporating technology into learning and having students know HOW to use technology, its also about knowing WHEN, WHY, and WHERE to use WHICH technology to effectively communicate. Are they saying we need to discourage students from using technology – no. They are saying that we must incorporate appropriateness into our teaching, which is why you saw this term in all 3 of the criterion for certifying your course as tech-intensive.
You all know that I like games! So let’s play one now!It is called “IS OR IS NOT, THAT IS THE QUESTION.” We’ll take a look at some project examples. Keeping in mind that the technological communication component must be tied to course learning objective, you determine whether the course is or is not a T-I courses.
NOT—video production is not the core learning objective; however, as a cultural anthropologist it is a good skill to learn.
IS—the software and technology competencies are critical to this field.
IS—students must know how to use this technology in this field to produce communicative documents.
IS—this is a common way for practitioners to communicate with global clients.
NOT—Pwrpt is a common software tool and the professor is not challenging them to do anything above and beyond using templates.
IS—these technology competencies and transferrable skills are critical to this field.
NOT—video production is not the core learning objective; however the activity promotes group work, critical thinking and organizational skills.
IS—this approach to technology is valuable for this field.
Finally, let’s talk about feedback. As you’ve realized, feedback is a critical part of C-I courses. While the type of feedback you provide for technological-communication projects may be a bit more complex—integrating things such as appropriateness, skill, and high-order thinking—it is still imperative to the learning process. Because T-I is often extremely discipline we don’t have a T-I rubric per se, but many of our faculty use our comprehensive rubric as a base for assessing T-I projects.
The next step is designing your course and we’re excited to have a few of your colleagues here today to talk about how they incorporate speaking into their T-I courses, how they encourage growth of skills throughout the semester, and what works and doesn’t work for them.