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 is it? Let’s take a look at the considerations for technological communication…
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—Pwrpt is a common software tool and the professor is not challenging them to do anything above and beyond using templates.
IS—students must know how to use this technology in this field to produce communicative documents.
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.
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 that is tangentially related to our discussion here.http://www.insidehighered.com/audio/academic_pulse/it_etiquette_in_the_workplaceI think this certainly speaks to the purpose of our inclusion of technological as a communication-intensive mode. 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.
