A Case of Web 2.0 vs. FERPA: What Do We Need to Know about Public Writing and Learning in the Digital U.S.?

Late last year, Georgia Tech took down all course wikis developed by students and instructors at the institution since 1997. The reason: GA Tech was concerned that the public could associate students names with the courses in which they were enrolled based on wiki content, which might be a violation of FERPA’s privacy rules about making “educational records” public. (See more of the story here: http://www.metafilter.com/109515/Ga-Tech-cites-FERPA-removes-all-instructional-wikis.) The United States has always upheld values of privacy, protection, ownership, and personal property. In education settings, we see this with FERPA, authorship, and academic integrity. However, when our legal culture begins to intrude on progress in education and the learning process, where is the line drawn? The commenters on the GA Tech article above suggest that students and instructors can protect themselves from the legal implications of FERPA and still use Web 2.0 tools to teach and learn by asking students to create pseudonyms and avatars and avoid reference to personal identifiers or institutional affiliation. Since it seems to be too late for GA Tech to “save” and share the wonderful knowledge and meaning-making in these wikis for a new generation of learners, what steps can educators, students, and administrators take to ensure that learning is upheld and avoid legal interference in the future?

Social learning, collaborative writing, digital literacy, and writing for authentic audiences are highly valued by educators in composition and rhetoric throughout the U.S. When using Web 2.0 tools and platforms in the classroom, students’ develop their digital literacy and skills with multi-modal media while learning more about the importance of writing well, understanding audience, and civic engagement via the written word and other rhetorical modes of communication. At the Conference on College Composition and Communication last year, there were several talks on studies, methods, and best practices for integrating Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, Facebook, YouTube, virtual worlds, and Twitter into the writing classroom and beyond to strengthen students’ writing skills and practice. For an excellent review of writing/Web 2.0 theories and strategies in composition, as well as a comprehensive list of references, see http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/moving_to_the_public.html. 

Scholars have suggested that with the integration of Web 2.0 tools in the writing classroom (and any classroom, for that matter), educators must devote time to understand the technologies and develop best practices for pedagogy in digital environments (see Clark, 2010, Vie, 2008, Maranto and Barton, 2010). However, what seems to be a more immediate issue considering the GA Tech case, and what is not often discussed in the literature, is the importance of administrators, teachers, and students discussing issues surrounding public writing and representation and online participation, not only to protect the students, but the institution as well. Students need to know about public identity, the permanence of internet postings, representations of their selves, employers, and institutions, awareness of the vast internet audience (whether intended or unintended), and the value of digital literacy and participation for learning.

While there is some evidence that composition teachers discuss these issues with their students in the composition classroom, especially if Web 2.0 tools are used, I believe what is most important in this digital age is an ongoing conversation and collaborative effort across scholarly communities and across universities to continue investigating and exploring digital literacy, privacy, and representation issues such as these so we never again have to “take down” the learning and knowing that happens in our digital worlds.

I can't help but reflect on what Michael Wesch said in 2007 at the end of his You Tube video, "The Machine is Us/ing Us": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g
 

Summer Schedule for DePaul's UCWbL

Do you have students in need of  writing support? If so, the Writing Centers at the Loop and Lincoln Park campuses are open during Summer Sessions I and II. For Summer Session I, the Writing Center is open from 10am - 5pm from Monday through Thursday, and from 10am - 3pm every Friday.

Extended Project Support is also available during the 2012 summer sessions. To begin EPS, a student can schedule an appointment to meet with a tutor, and then work with that tutor to set up recurring appointments. For general queries, please contact wcenter@depaul.edu.

"Getting unstuck" with SNL professor Dr. Susan Reed

Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? While getting the right words onto the page can sometimes prove to be very difficult, SNL associate professor Susan Reed has a suggestion that might help – journaling. She describes a time she struggled to write a piece for publication on access to healthcare in Chicago. Frustrated with her lack of writing flow, she opened up a new Word document (her journal) and just began writing to herself informally about the topic, instead of to the academic powers that be.

By first writing to herself in a journal style, Dr. Reed was able to formulate her thoughts more clearly. She wasn’t concerned with “sounding smart” as she puts it, and the words came more freely. Even though she wasn’t consciously writing for an academic audience in her journal, Dr. Reed actually found that she was able to cut and paste from her journal into her publication. View her experience with “getting unstuck” below:

 

Glen Ellyn-Based Organization Recycles Educational Supplies

S.C.A.R.C.E. (School and Community Assistance for Recycling and Composting Education) is a local organization that gives teachers, nurses, or people who volunteer at nonprofits gently-used supplies FREE for the taking. They have everything from file cabinets and in-trays to games, books, and tools—and the list goes on! They also take donations, so if you’re doing some spring cleaning, please consider S.C.A.R.C.E. Learn more about this organization by visiting their website: http://www.scarceecoed.org/.

Congratulations to the 2011-2012 SNL Writing Showcase Winners!

SNL Writing is pleased to announce five SNL students as winners of the 2011- 2011 SNL Writing Showcase. The winning entries included a creative writing piece and research papers on a wide variety of topics. View the winning entries below:

Toni M. Bond Leonard, The Struggle for Reproductive and Intellectual Integrity

Lisa Freeman, Running for the Train

Brian Leonard, Lost in America: A Reagan Era Comedy and Goldman Sachs’ Bonuses: Justified or Not?

Leonard Musielak, The Corporate Culture Conundrum: Cross Cultural Issues in International Human Resource Management

Kristine Schultz, It’s the End of the World as We Know It

These students will be recognized with a plaque and public congratulations at the Spring Awards Luncheon to be held on June 2^nd, 2012.

The SNL Writing Showcase is an annual competition which celebrates the outstanding writing students do for their SNL classes and Independent Learning Projects. SNL Writing is currently accepting applications for the 2012-2013 Showcase. Please encourage your students to visit the SNL Writing website to download an application or contact snlwriting@depaul.edu for more information.

Writing tips from Sr. Helen Prejean, best-selling author

On Thursday, May 17th, DePaul University faculty, staff, and students gathered at the Lincoln Park campus to hear author Sr. Helen Prejean, CSJ speak about her writing process at the facilitated discussion, “A Dialogue on Memoir Writing with Sr. Helen Prejean.” This program was one of several campus talks that Sr. Helen participated in last week to celebrate the donation of her archives to DePaul University. She has authored two books about her experience with inmates on Death Row and her activism to abolish the Death penalty, the best-selling Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocence. She is currently working on her third book, River of Fire.

When asked “What does it mean to you to be a writer?” by one student participant, Sr. Helen stressed the importance of committing to the craft, “If you’re writing, you’re a writer. If you’re just talking about writing or reading about it, you’re not a writer. You need to keep showing up to the page. You need to get into the habit of writing. It’s about commitment.” She suggested that every writer carry a writing pad with them at all times to jot down ideas. Many of Sr. Helen’s thoughts for Dead Man Walking were penned on her way back and forth from visiting Patrick Sonnier on Death Row.

Another writing tip she shared was that one’s writing should “show, not tell.” She says, “Don’t do a heavy commentary. Let the reader decide for themselves.” One student asked if Sr. Helen viewed her writing as a form of activism, to which Sr. Helen responded yes. She said, “If you can change consciousness, you change culture” and that she believes in the power of the book. Her reasoning is that books bring people to a quiet, deep place for reflection where they don’t have to debate.

At the end of the discussion, Sr. Helen wished the writers in the room luck and urged them to band together to build a community of writers. She said that since writing does not have much cultural support today, it is important that writers support one another. To learn more about Sr. Helen Prejean’s writing and activism, please visit: http://www.prejean.org/. Her archive exhibit, “In Deeds and Words: The Prejean Ministry Against the Death Penalty,” will be open to the public Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Nov. 30 in DePaul’s Special Collections and Archives, Room 314 of the Richardson Library, 2350 N. Kenmore Ave., Chicago.

SNL Writing Spotlight: Ezzat Goushegir

SNL Writing Faculty member and playwright, Ezzat Goushegir, had a very productive 2011. She saw many of her works published and produced, both in the U.S. and abroad. Her short story "You are not a Man" was published in an anthology "Afghanistan, a Window on the Tragedy "in January 2011. Her play "My name is Inanna" was translated into Chinese language and produced at the Trojan Theatre in Beijing, China. This play has had several staged readings in Chicago and Washington DC in 2011, and was chosen by the 9th International Women’s Conference to be performed in Sweden in August 2012. For more information and to view some clips of the Chinese production, check out: http://ezzatgoushegir.blogspot.com/2011/11/my-name-is-inanna.html. You can read more about productions of her other plays, including “Bride of Acacias” and “Two Iranian Children,” both produced in London this past year, on Ezzat’s blog: http://ezzatgoushegir.blogspot.com.