Together, computerized writing environments (e.g., physical spaces, hardware, software, and networks) and the humans who use and support such technologies comprise complex ecologies of interaction. As with any ecology, a human-computer techno-ecological system needs to be planned, fostered, designed, sustained, and assessed to create a vibrant culture of support at the individual, programmatic, institutional, and even national and international level. Local and larger infrastructures of composing are critical to digital writing practices and processes. In academia, specifically, all writing is increasingly computer-mediated; all writing is digital.

Changing Conceptions and Uses of Computer Technologies in the Everyday: This study focused on 189 sixth and seventh graders in two large suburban schools and their use of computer technologies as part of their everyday literacy practices. We were especially interested in the students’ conceptions of computer technologies and how computer use varied across grade and reading levels. Findings showed that many students, especially sixth graders, were far less interested in computer technologies than is suggested by common conceptions. Findings also showed an important shift between sixth and seventh graders toward more interest in practices that provided social interaction or entertainment.

Since 2006, Open Borders Project/ Proyecto Sin Fronteras has used digital storytelling in our work with teens and adult learners in summer workshops, computer courses and ESL classes. Participants write stories or interview others about their immigrant experience, record, edit and mix their stories on an open-source program, and create short audio stories. Their stories are published on our website, used to stimulate discussions, shared in public forums, and played on the radio. The process of creating stories and sharing them has been profound. Listening to each other's stories and reflecting on our common experience is an act of honoring our lives and affirming our sacrifices and dreams. Through our stories, we build a collective identity as immigrants. Telling our stories allows us to take risks, to talk about missing our families, our isolation, our frustrations as we try to feel at home in our new world. Our stories create openings for conversations with our friends and family, to say things unsaid. Our biggest challenge: how to use our stories as instruments for change, to give us a voice, to be heard, to organize, to become actors responding to issues that affect our lives. This article is accompanied by a CD of several of the stories produced at Open Borders Project and referred to in the text.

Anti-employer blogs, those which criticize companies or their employees, are posing significant legal and ethical challenges for corporations. The important legal issue is the conflict between the employee's legal duty of loyalty to the employer and the employee's right to free speech. Although U.S. and state law describes what an employee may or may not say in a blog, corporations should encourage employees to contribute to the process of creating clear, reasonable policies that will help prevent expensive court cases. The important ethical issue concerning anti-employer blogs is whether an employee incurs an ethical duty of loyalty. In this article, I conclude that there is no such ethical duty. The legal duty of loyalty, explained in a company-written policy statement that employees must endorse as a condition of employment, offers the best means of protecting the legal and ethical rights of both employers and employees.

This reference book brings together papers that address the whole range of topics in the area of open source software (OSS). The book is divided into seven sections, and each section contains five to ten chapters. Some of the topics covered include: a historical and contextual overview of free/libre open source software (FLOSS) and OSS; development models and methods for open source software production; laws and licensing practices; public policy, the public sector and government perspectives; business approaches and applications; and educational perspectives. The book does contain copyediting errors and an incomplete index, but despite the flaws, it is a rich source of research topics that can be used in any computer-related curriculum. It is recommended for every technical library.

Web logs, or ldquoblogs,rdquo are fast developing in diverse social and business contexts as influential sources of discourse, knowledge, and community development. In this paper, we investigate an aspect of blogging highly relevant to professional communication: the fast-developing world of ldquotech blogging.rdquo Tech blogs are blogs that focus on information technology innovation and the high-tech industry. We examine nine months of blog entries gathered by an internet aggregator site dedicated to technology news and commentary. Our analysis provides insights on the discourse of tech bloggers and an elite subgroup (ldquoA-list bloggersrdquo), on the discursive practices of this virtual community, and on issues of identity and legitimacy. Our findings hold implications for tech bloggers as well as for managers who need to navigate the expanding blogosphere and for technical communicators who can benefit from using the information that tech bloggers produce.

Virtual teams enable knowledge workers from around the globe to participate in a variety of projects through computer-mediated interactions. Given that many of these virtual teams, including those involved in open source software development and other systems development, may not have preassigned leaders, it is important to understand the factors that explain why an individual may be considered a leader by team members in other locations. Specifically, the factors information systems development (ISD) ability, contribution, knowledge transfer, and team cohesion are hypothesized to influence remote leader emergence in distributed ISD teams. The proposed model is tested in a study using ISD teams composed of student members from both the US and Scandinavia. ISD ability, contribution, and knowledge transfer in cohesive teams were found to be significant predictors of remote leadership emergence. The study also suggests that US and Scandinavian members do not use the same criteria for identifying remote team members as leaders and offers a theoretical explanation of the results.

The author offers her experience of modeling mistakes—lots of them—and writing spontaneously in the computer classroom to get students’ attention and elicit their editorial response.

Abstract Scholars of rhetoric have veered away from non-traditional rhetorical artifacts in the classical period. In this article I examine the Ara Pacis Augustae, Altar of Augustan Peace, as one such overlooked rhetorical artifact. I argue the altar, although constructed as a war monument, shapes public memory to persuade the people of Rome to accept the dynastic succession of Augustus's heir. In addition, I show a variety of rhetorical theories operate on the altar in visual form including amplification, imitation, and enthymeme. Ultimately I contend that by focusing on non-traditional rhetorical artifacts, we can deepen our understanding of the rhetorical tradition in a period in which rhetoric is generally believed to have faded away. Additional informationNotes on contributorsKathleen LampKathleen Lamp is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Communication, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 702 S. Wright St., 244 Lincoln Hall, MC-456, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. E-mail: lamp@uiuc.edu

Reviews 109 Print. Electronic Mail and the Ars dictaminis», de Joyce R. Walker, est une confrontation du courrier électronique avec l'histoire de l'épistolaire depuis le Moyen Âge (il aurait été intéressant de pousser jusqu'à l'Antiquité). L'auteur s'intéresse à la fois à la pratique de l'e-mail et aux documents, sur papier et «on-line», qui se sont multipliés depuis les années 1990 pour donner des conseils de rédaction (modes d'emploi des logiciels et tentatives de définition d'une «netiquette»). Il précise les spécificités de ce nouveau mode de communication, mais note à l'occasion, non sans humour, les points de rencontre inattendus avec les anciens manuels. Si les guides épistolaires du milieu du XXe siècle tendaient vers un formalisme en quelque sorte médiéval, le courrier électronique, plus libre et plus créatif, s'apparenterait plutôt à la lettre érasmienne. Énumérer tout ce que ce livre laisse de côté (par exemple, il n'y a rien sur la lettre byzantine) serait vain et injuste. L'intention de C. Poster et de L. Mitchell n'est nullement de fournir une somme de l'histoire de la théorie et de la pratique épistolaire, mais, comme l'explique l'introduction (voir p. 4), il s'agit d'un ouvrage destiné à servir de base («preliminary ground work») à l'exploration d'un champ relativement peu étudié jusqu'à présent; il s'agit de tracer un cadre général et de mettre à la disposition de tous le moyen de s'y repérer, comme en témoigne l'étendue de l'annexe bibliographique. On regrettera néanmoins à ce propos que le contenu des bibliographies qui suivent chaque article n'ait pas été intégré à la section finale, ce qui aurait évité de citer deux fois les mêmes ouvrages (pour ne citer qu'un exemple parmi d'autres, l'ouvrage de Jean Robertson sur les manuels épistolaires anglais des XVIe et XVIIe s. figure à la fois p. 125 et p. 308, avec une légère différence de formulation) et de contraindre le lecteur à de nombreux vaet -vient. Mais ce n'est là qu'un détail d'ordre pratique. Le grand mérite du livre est décloisonner les études et de permettre à chacun, du spécialiste de la littérature grecque à l'observateur des courriers électroniques qui s'échangent chaque jour, de mettre son objet d'étude en perspective. Il me semble que les auteurs atteignent parfaitement le but qu'ils se sont assigné et que leur ouvrage suscitera (et accompagnera) de nombreuses études. Pierre-Louis Malosse Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier Silvana Ghiazza e Marisa Napoli, Le figure retoriche. Parola e innnagine (Bologna: Zanichelli, 2007) 350 pp. Ha ancora senso proporre, tra le molteplici pubblicazioni dedicate alla retorica, un nuovo manuale? A cosa, e a chi, puô essere utile un'ulteriore illustrazione analítica delle diverse figure deWornâtus? Queste domande, lungi dall'essere un mero artificio retorico incipitario di una recensione, sono i reali interrogativi che il lettore si pone non appena 110 RHETORICA abbia tra le maní questo libro; ma costituiscono anche, al contempo, gli intei iogati\ i che hanno guidato e motivato le Autrici nel loro impegno di ricerca. La risposta pin efficace è formulata nell'tntrodnzione stessa (p. IX), laddove 1 attenzione è concentrata sulla "dimensione mediática" della société contemporánea: «il problema che nella classicité vedeva la contrapposizione tra onesta e falsita, vérité e verisimiglianza, si è andato spostando verso un ámbito socio-etico-pedagogico, in cui domina la preoccupazione per il condizionamento attuato dai media, e dunque l'interesse per la difesa della propria liberté decisionale: conoscere i meccanismi, gli schemi e i procedimenti stessi messi in atto per colpire e persuadere pub aiutare il ricevente a smascherare 1 intenzione coercítiva nascosta dietro gli abili artifici della persuasione piú o meno occulta». I pregi di questo testo, allora, proprio sulla scorta di questa risposta, possono essere indixiduati in una serie di elementi: una chiara definizione del concetto di figura retorica e delle singóle figure, che mette il lettore in grado di conoscere; numerosi e molteplici...

Phishing e-mails deceive individuals into giving out personal information which may then be utilized for identity theft. One particular type, the Personal Solicitation E-mail (PSE) mimics personal letters—modern perversions of ars dictaminis (the classical art of letter writing). In this article, I determine and discuss 19 appeals common to the PSE. These appeals were established first by conducting generative rhetorical analysis, then by volunteer coding, on 170 e-mails collected over a 12-month period. After defining these categories, I show how these letters are excellent twenty-first century teaching tools for pathos-based argumentation, logical appeals, the creation of ethos, and kairos in the development of perceived exigency.

This study analyzes gender variation in nonstandard typography—specifically, abbreviations and insertions—in mobile phone text messages (SMS) posted to a public Italian interactive television (iTV) program. All broadcast SMS were collected for a period of 2 days from the Web archive for the iTV program, and the frequency and distribution of abbreviations and insertions, as well as overall message lengths, were analyzed according to sender gender. The results reveal that females posted more and longer SMS and followed more, and more varied, nonstandard typographic practices, contrary to previous gender-related findings in the sociolinguistics and computer-mediated communication literatures. A theoretically grounded explanation for these findings is developed in terms of the localized norms of a heterosexual market—and an implicit dating market—in Italian iTV SMS.

Joanna Wolfe is Associate Professor of English at the University of Louisville where she teaches courses in rhetoric and composition, human-computer interaction, and research methods. She is author of the forthcoming textbook Team Writing from Bedford-St. Martin's, a guide to writing collaboratively and working on a team. Her previous scholarly work has appeared in journals such as Written Communication, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, and Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning.

Legislative requirements like those in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have sharply increased the incidence of monitoring of electronic communications, but the consequences of this trend are little understood. This study examines the impact of organizational monitoring of sensitive instant message (IM) discussions with a designed experiment. When their IMs are known to be monitored, individuals are found to sharply curtail their discussion of personally incriminating information and to increase their spontaneous denials of knowledge of sensitive topics. Surprisingly, perhaps, they also increase their discussion of relayed information that may incriminate others or the organization. Qualitative analysis suggests that people are not aware they make these adjustments to their IM communication content when monitored. Given the legislative compliance motivations for some of the monitoring activity in companies, it is ironic that study findings suggest organizations may communicate less firsthand information about potentially curtailable legal liabilities and other sensitive incidents requiring corrective action when communication is monitored. Organizations enacting monitoring of IM should pay heed to the requirements as well as the discretion available to them within those requirements to enact monitoring in a way that suits their organizational goals.

Abstract Recent work on the relationship between rhetoric and magic has tended to pivot around the issue of magic's perceived identification of signifier and signified and what that might mean for its relationship to larger theological, empirical, and rhetorical approaches to language. This article seeks to problematize the assumptions underlying this issue through an examination of the work of Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535), the author of what is commonly regarded as the European Renaissance's most influential magical text, De occulta philosophia libri tres (1533). In investigating the rhetorical strategies contained in Agrippa's famously ambiguous retraction of his occult works we may uncover an equally polysemic stance toward the ability of language to deal with both the everyday world and the realm of the sacred, a stance that uses textual instantiations of paradoxes of self-reference to forcefully undermine the apparently paradigmatic magical identification of signifier and signified. Acknowledgment I thank the Editor and anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments and suggestions on this article. Notes 1See Lehrich (Language of Demons and Angels) for a comprehensive analysis of the three books. 2See Zika for an overview of Reuchlin's influence on Agrippa. 3"…, lapides loquitor, caveant ne cerebrum illis excutiat." J.F.'s use of the alliterated "b"s in his English translation is perhaps more effective in its Anglo-Saxon brutality. 4Note that the quotation marks are not in the original Latin but added by J.F. for the English translation of 1651. 5Again, the quotation marks are an addition of J.F.'s English translation and are not in the Latin original. 6See Kneale and Kneale (228–231) for a discussion of the Liar's context in medieval logic. 7See Sainsbury (114–132), Simmons (2–7), and Hofstadter for accessible re-formulations from the nineteenth century onward. Additional informationNotes on contributorsChris Miles Chris Miles is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, Eastern Mediterranean University, Gazi Magusa, Mersin 10, Turkey. E-mail: chris.miles@emu.edu.tr

With the importance of online research, writing, and communication, computers are increasingly vital to instruction within the humanities. To help prepare teachers and administrators who engage with computerized instruction, this article examines faculty development through the lens of technology training by reporting on issues and concerns expressed by twelve technology trainers in a series of interviews. The interviewees provided their experiences and advice, including ways to approach institutional challenges, faculty participation, and pedagogical integrity. Most importantly, the author argues that technology training is a complex rhetorical activity involving a strong sense of kairos, context, and audience.

Writing, especially when accompanied by feedback and revision, is a powerful enhancer for learning, as the writing-to-learn literature attests. Yet, writing as a vehicle for learning seldom appears in engineering content courses. We relate our experiences with a pilot program in engineering design funded through the National Science Foundation. Specifically, we focus on using Calibrated Peer Review as a platform for formative and summative assessment of integrated writing assignments in targeted courses. Our results show that students improved their skills in elements of engineering design and in writing. Additionally, assessment of the learning outcomes from the targeted courses were used successfully to document accreditation board for engineering and technology's criterion EC3 (g), "ability to communicate effectively," in our latest accreditation cycle.

Authentic Design” is an attempt to convey a sense of playfulness and frustration, along with a hefty warning to digital writing scholars: We need to understand that meaning is not inherent in our tools (writing, media, ideas, language) nor does meaning reside in ourselves.

The site’s goal is to examine "the ways in which rhetoric, visual culture, and pedagogy interact with and inform each other. In keeping with this mission, the viz. blog is a forum for exploring the visual through identifying the connections between theory, rhetorical practice, popular culture, and the classroom.

It is evolutionarily adaptive for humans to have enhanced memories of events surrounding surprise situations, because in our ancestral past surprise situations were often associated with survival threats. Vividly remembering memories immediately before and after a snake attack, for example, allowed our hominid ancestors to be better prepared to avoid and deal with future attacks, which in turn enhanced their chances of survival. This study shows that such enhanced memorization capacity likely endowed on us by evolution can be exploited for knowledge communication through computer interfaces. A knowledge communication experiment was conducted in which subjects were asked to review Web-based learning modules about International Commercial Terms (Incoterms), and then take a test on what they had learned. Data from six learning modules in two experimental conditions were contrasted. In the treatment condition, a Web-based screen with a snake picture in attack position, displayed together with a hissing background noise, was used to create a simulated threat that surprised the subjects. In the control condition the simulated threat was absent. As expected, based on the evolutionary psychological view that surprise can enhance learning, the subjects in the treatment condition (i.e., with the snake screen) did approximately 28% better than those in the control condition (i.e., without the snake screen) at learning about Incoterms. This improvement occurred only for the two Web-based modules immediately before and after the snake screen. Those two modules comprise what is referred to in this study as the surprise zone. There were no significant differences in learning performance between the two experimental conditions for modules outside the surprise zone.

<para xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> This article provides an introduction to the Special Section on Darwinian Perspectives on Electronic Communication. It starts with a discussion of the motivation for the Special Section, followed by several sections written by the Guest Editor (Ned Kock) and the Guest Associate Editors (Donald Hantula, Stephen Hayne, Gad Saad, Peter Todd, and Richard Watson). In those sections, the Guest Editor and Associate Editors put forth several provocative ideas that hopefully will provide a roadmap for future inquiry in areas related to the main topic of the Special Section. Toward its end, this article provides a discussion on how biological theories of electronic communication can bridge the current gap between technological and social theories. The article concludes with an answer to an intriguing question: Are we as a species currently evolving to become better at using electronic communication technologies? </para>

The study of writers and writing in digital environments raises distinct and complex ethical issues for researchers. Rhetoric theory and casuistic ethics, working in tandem, provide a theoretical framework for addressing such issues. A casuistic heuristic grounded in rhetorical principles can help digital writing researchers critically interrogate their research designs, carefully examine their relationships with research participants, and make sound ethical judgments.

Democratic Dialogue in Education: Troubling Speech, Disturbing Silence, edited by Megan Boler; “Computers and Writing: The Cyborg Era,” by James A. Inman.

Many recent studies on computer-mediated communication (CMC) have addressed the question of orality and literacy. This article examines a relatively recent subgenre of CMC, that of written online sports commentary, that provides us with written CMC that is clearly based on firmly established oral genres, those of radio and television sports commentary. The examples analyzed are from two English, two French, and two Spanish online football (soccer) commentaries. The purpose of the study is to examine oral traits and genre mixing in online football commentaries in the three languages and carryover from the spoken genres of radio and television commentaries to this developing genre, following Ferguson. Special attention is paid to Web page design. The study reveals that form and content of online football commentaries are strongly affected by the style of the online newspaper.

This study on computer-mediated deception features an experiment involving an interactive interview of deceitful applicants for a fictitious scholarship, using one of three different computer-based communication media. Results showed that people were successful at deceiving others no matter what medium was used, but interviewers who used interactive, as opposed to non-interactive, media probed interviewees more during the interviews. Probing led to better lie detection. Also, interviewers who had received simple warnings about the possible presence of deception were better at detecting deception than were interviewers who had received no warnings. However, warnings alone were not sufficient to increase interviewers' probing.

New forms of computer-mediated, online learning can benefit from new forms of assessment that fit the medium and the pedagogical style of the online environment. This paper investigates students' learning styles and learning strategies in taking online collaborative exams. Applying constructivist and collaborative learning theories, the collaborative examination features students' active participation in various phases of the exam process through small group activities online. Students' learning strategies, including deep learning and collaborative learning, are investigated using a 1 3 field quasi-experiment to compare the team-based collaborative online exam with the traditional in-class exam and with the participatory exam, where students participate in the online exam processes individually. Data analysis using results from 485 students indicates that collaborative examinations significantly reduced surface learning in exam study, enhanced interactions and the sense of an online learning community, and increased perceived learning. The results also suggest learning predispositions were significantly correlated with exam study strategies, and provide indications of their effects on learning strategies.

Hofstede's cultural dimensions model has been widely used as a basic explanatory and predictive model in a variety of business studies, including studies addressing information management and electronic communication issues. This study aimed at assessing Hofstede's model by looking into a key issue for information management and electronic communication-information overload. The study compared information overload-related data from the US and New Zealand. The sample involved 108 MBA students who held professional or management positions. Data analyses employed comparisons of means and partial least squares (PLS)-based structural equation modeling techniques. Information overload perceptions in the two countries appear to differ significantly. This finding seems to be inconsistent with the relatively small differences in cultural dimension scores between the US and New Zealand, and with those two countries being placed in the same country cluster in Hofstede's model. The results call into question the adequacy of Hofstede's model as a basis to explain information management phenomena.

This essay explores the potential for wikis in English classrooms and writing pedagogy through discussion of a class project involving Wikitravel. Topics include the influence that wikis have on collaboration, an example of networked writing, and the role of writing with technology in knowledge creation.

As college instructors endeavor to integrate technology into their classrooms, the crucial question is, “How does this integration affect learning?” This article reports an assessment of a series of online modules the author designed and piloted for a business communication course that she presented in a hybrid format (a combination of computer classroom sessions and independent online work). The modules allowed the author to use classroom time for observation of and individualized attention to the composing process. Although anecdotal evidence suggested that this system was highly effective, other assessment tools provided varying results. An anonymous survey of the students who took this course confirmed that the modules were effective in teaching important concepts; however, a blind review of student work produced mixed results.

“Voice” is no longer a hot term in composition journals. Yet it continues to deserve scholarly attention, in part because it is still often referred to in classrooms and seems applicable to new forms of electronic communication. At the same time, we should avoid taking an either/or stand on the usefulness of “voice” as a term. This is a case where we should embrace contraries, by advocating concepts of “voice” on certain occasions and resisting the term on others.

Findings from a previous study indicate that dominance was a key inhibitor of creativity in virtual teams. This study extends understanding of dominance through an in-depth, qualitative analysis of eight virtual teams. Two research questions are addressed: (1) how is dominance manifested in virtual teams? and (2) why does dominance occur in some teams, and not others? Findings indicate that dominance occurred in three different patterns. Although both males and females dominated, a commonality across patterns was that the dominant individual belonged to the majority sex in each team. Furthermore, dominance was driven by a combination of a few team member status traits. When one or more status markers belonged to a single person - the dominant member - and were absent in other team members, dominance was pronounced. In teams that did not experience dominance, these status indicators were spread across multiple members. Additionally, even though all teams communicated strictly via asynchronous computer-mediated communication (CMC), equalization was not evidenced in the majority of teams. Status characteristics theory and proportional representation theory provide a basis to explain the prevalence, as well as the absence, of dominance in these virtual teams.

In 1974, the traffic-accident data archive maintained by the Department of Transportation for the state of Iowa was transferred from a primarily paper-based system to a mainframe computer. Data reg...

This study examines the factors influencing language and script choice in instant messaging (IM), a form of real-time computer-mediated communication, in a multilingual setting. Grounded in the New Literacy Studies, the study understands IM as a social practice involving texts, encompassing a range of literacy practices, within which a subset called “text-making practices” is highlighted in this article. Drawing on results from an analysis of chat texts, interviews, and logbooks collected from 19 young people, the author suggests that the text-making practices related to language and writing system choice are guided by the perceived affordances of the IM technology and the available linguistic resources. Seven ecological factors influencing these perceptions have been identified: perceived expressiveness of the language, perceived functions of IM , user familiarity with the language, user identification with the language, technical constraints of inputting methods, speed , and perceived practicality of the writing system. The author argues that these factors often co-occur in real use.

In this article, we briefl y review national statistics on older adults and computer usage —statistics that led us to volunteer to develop technological literacy programs for older adults at local community centers. Because we recognize that all literacies are developed and used by specifi c people in specifi c contexts, we describe the community centers where we volunteered, our roles as teachers and later as researchers, and the technological literacy curricula we developed and revised based on extensive input from participants. We discuss the barriers and benefi ts to older adults’ acquisition of technological literacies. We argue for the importance of building communities of practice based on relational support and interaction and for the importance of drawing from assets and needs existing within communities.

Research Article| April 01 2007 Thinking Critically About Digital Literacy: A Learning Sequence on Pens, Pages, and Pixels Donald C. Jones Donald C. Jones Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Pedagogy (2007) 7 (2): 207–221. https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-2006-031 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Donald C. Jones; Thinking Critically About Digital Literacy: A Learning Sequence on Pens, Pages, and Pixels. Pedagogy 1 April 2007; 7 (2): 207–221. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/15314200-2006-031 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsPedagogy Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Duke University Press2007 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Symposium: Cluelessness and Difference in the Literature Classroom You do not currently have access to this content.

The aim of this article is to show that a better awareness of the relationship between written and spoken communication can help the writer to improve his/her effectiveness. The focus will be on written texts that precede (formal and informal) discussions. The analysis will start with a description of the differences between orality and literacy. We shall deal with the functions of orality-based texts for the readers. Then we shall move to the writing process and explain how orality can find a place in this process, how it can be linked to creativity, and how it affects the way we plan the writing process. An oral way of writing is related to an important feature of speaking, namely fluency; but it also means a specific receiver orientation, dynamic rather than static and social rather than individual. Computer mediated communication could influence a more oral approach to written texts.

This study investigated the impact of weblog use on individual learning in the context of university senior-level business education. As an emergent form of personal communication, weblogs enable people to publish their thoughts as webpages, and to share information and knowledge. Recognizing the potential impact of weblogs on knowledge expression and sharing, this research sought to empirically examine whether the continuous use of weblogs as online learning logs would affect student learning performance. The assumption was that effective use of weblogs promoted the constructivist models of learning by supporting both cognitive and social knowledge construction, and by reinforcing individual accountability in learning. Results from an Information Systems undergraduate course with 31 participants indicated that the performance of students' weblogs was a significant predictor of the learning outcome (while traditional coursework was not). Moreover, individuals' cognitive construction effort to build their own mental models and social construction effort to further enrich/expand knowledge resources appeared to be two key aspects of the constructivist learning with weblogs. Our results imply the potential benefit of using weblogs as a knowledge construction tool and a social learning medium