As a modest recommendation, we might take down this sign. And, we're all about writing right? "The No Cell Phones!" message, in my estimation, seems a bit heavy-handed. Just so that I'm being up front, I would like to note that the sign is likely slated to come down based on a converation that some members of our community had today. But, I'd like to think more about what this sign means nevertheless. First of all, I can see the utility of the sign: using cellphones in the WC can be distracting, rude, and, well, there are many more not so nice descriptors we could add to the list. So, perhaps, revising the sign to say (something) differently might be more appropriate.What could the sign say? It's likely that that is better a group discussion. However, I think it should take into account the multitude of positive uses that cellphones can have within the WC. For example, as technological tools--(gonna do a lazy em dash insertion here) such as taking the photo of the picture with my camera phone, so that I may send it to my email, then download it to my computer, and last post it up here as a weblog pic that enables a critique of the space--cellphones tools afford us to do a number of darn-right good writing-practices within a number of space(s).
For example: (please do excuse the colon; and the semi colon, too; but, I gots some addiction issues with mechanical devices) I regularly use a cellphone as clock (because I don't wear a watch) so that I know a session's duration; as a calculator so that I can do mathy type things; as a recording device for verbal reminders to myself that are too long to text (which is also a sort of extended memory device); and, I use it as a research tool. Additionally, I regularly text google for definitions of words (create new text message, enter in google as the number/letter keys correspond, type the letter d and then the word you want to know the defintion to). I write down call numbers in the library so that I don't have to waste paper/and/or worry about if I have paper and a pen(cil).
More specifically in relation to the contexts of the WC, when Kate made this awesome dry-erase board investigation on logical forms, I took the liberty of photographing it so tha
t I could think about it later. (The difficult with dry erase boards is that the content on them changes so quickly, and is then fleetingly lost.) Were visitors to the WC to follow the sign explicitly they would resultantly have lost the ability to engage this this type of memory-enhancing, note taking, writing practice (photographing cool stuff that we make that often goes bye-bye way too soon).So, in close, I would like to return, briefly, to the comment I made about having the sign say "something" differently. In Multiliteracies for a Digital Age Stuart Selber (building upon the work of Bryan Pfaffenberger) talks about ways that power can fluctuate within technologies to regularize (and even exclude) users and uses of a technology. The WC taken as a technology here (can be critiqued by the heuristic Selber offers) makes me worry about the ways that the WC could be interpreted as a less amiable learning space--we all know it's awesome and fun and rad--but signs like this function to privilege an "ideal" user/use within a space. Specifically, this sign works as a "power move" of "technological regularization" called "delegation" (103). As Pfaffenberger explains, delegation is "a technical feature of an artifact [that] is deliberately designed to make up for presumed moral deficiencies in its users and is actively projected into the social contexts of use" (Selber 103).
How could we work to make it an every more rad place?
I'm feeling this suggestion, Tim (and not only because my Crackberry is frequently buzzing in my coat pocket -- working on the silencing thing, Jeremiah, I promise!). There definitely are reasons to use a cell phone in the center, as you've listed. Another example: I'm sure my professors think I'm constantly texting right after an assignment is discussed, when in reality I'm programing the due date into my calendar. Many students utilize the electronic calendar function (the handy-dandy reminder function is key) and may want to, say, embed their newly revised work schedule for a paper into their electronic week. Wouldn't this really be a step in the right direction: Not only helping a writer set our a work schedule for any given project ("Sources by 10/18, Outline by 10/20, Draft by 10/25, etc.") but them having them integrate that schedule into the method they set all their reminders through!
ReplyDeleteOf course, gratuitous texting and call-taking during sessions is still wholly unacceptable in Tim's suggestion. Cool thoughts, Tim! And PS: Pleased you liked the diagram.
Tim,
ReplyDeleteI think I am with you on this. As technology evolves, so must we. Honestly, most students don't even seem to use their phones to actually talk anymore, and if a brazen student were to answer a phone call while we had a session going on, we could just ask him/her to go outside. I used to be really against the use of cellphones, however the last two times I chastised a student for what I thought was texting during my class, they were actually looking up something relevant to the class. Perhaps it is better to give the students the benefit of the doubt.
I agree with what everyone has said so far--it's not safe to assume that students are being inappropriate anymore when they whip out their phones in a session or in class. Maybe we could ask them to give us a friendly heads-up, though, so we don't mistakenly criticize them for being productive. Perhaps the sign could be amended to say that cell phones and other devices should only be used for research purposes inside the Writing Center.
ReplyDeleteI "second" (though fourth to comment) Tim's suggestion, and was actually wondering if we could come up with some not only fun but funny signs concerning the matter, not so much to make light of it but to indicate that we are aware and okay with many of the cell phone uses, not so much with others, but that we are also not there to police their use. This is sort of along the lines of our Wednesday discussions concerning space and tutee feedback. Question: has feedback regarding space been solicited from Writing Center visitors rather than tutors? I may have missed this information, and if I have, I apologize, but I would be interested to find out how students who come in see the space through their own dynamic (since, as we know, projecting how the "other" sees can be quite unproductive). This is not at all to suggest that how we want to feel in this space should come as a secondary consideration, especially since I am personally troubled by sneaky conceptions of tutees as "customers" and the Writing Center space as a consumerist space. In any event, I am all for eclectic mobility, couch in one corner, clean and sharp office space in the other corner, you get the idea.
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