1. Introduction
Historically, theoretically, and pedagogically, scholar–teachers have critically questioned the ability of electronic learning environments to foster a safer space for students who are potentially marginalized within the physical confines of the brick-and-mortar classroom. Throughout the last two decades, institutions have adopted and technically supported a range of popular course and learning management systems (C/LMSs), granting teachers the ability to deliver content to students virtually. Until recently, our home campus of Bowling Green State University used Blackboard as a C/LMS to either augment or replace physical classroom space; however, in the academic year 2012–2013, the institution adopted a new C/LMS program, Canvas. Our inspection of this shift has led us, as feminist scholar–teachers, to consider how current C/LMSs remediate physical space and may ultimately lead to a confinement of virtual space at the expense of student learning.
Just as early computers and writing scholars lamented the frequent inability to control the design of electronic writing spaces, today's digital writing instructors are often disenfranchised in their lack of power to design virtual space in institutional settings. Thus, our chapter overviews historical discussions of computer-networked environments that have focused on the potential remediation of physical space to create a virtual networked community (Barker and Kemp 1990). These conversations have also addressed the role of the computer interface in power inequities, leading to contested sites and contact zones (Selfe and Selfe 1994). This overview will extend early discussions that problematize the proposed egalitarian potential of computers to de-marginalize others in traditional classroom spaces to suggest that a number of C/LMSs—from Blackboard to Canvas to the more recent advent of massive open online course (MOOC) providers such as Coursera—remediate a physical classroom space that reinforces teacher-centered delivery modes over student-centered learning habits. Although there have been similar concerns (Blair, 2007; Payne, 2005), discussions of C/LMSs, both pro and con, have not engaged in feminist analysis, despite the long tradition of feminist critiques of technology. And given the increasing debate about the role of MOOCs, our discussion is a timely one.
Our framework for this analysis is inherently cyberfeminist. Faith Wilding (1998) reminded us that technology is not devoid of power relations, hegemony, or oppression; instead, all web spaces are marked by socially constructed systems (see, also, Wajcman 2004). Cyberfeminism, like other strands of feminism, cannot be pinned down to a single, fixed definition. However, at its essence, cyberfeminism represents "a feminist politics on the Net" that seeks to "empower women" users (Wilding 1998, 7). Maria Fernandez and Faith Wilding (2002) outlined two distinctive and "overlapping waves" of cyberfeminism: wave 1, inspired by Donna Haraway's "A Manifesto for Cyborgs," advocated (in utopic ways) for the commonalities between women and machines; wave 2 utilized critique in targeting information communication technologies (ICTs) and reproductive technologies' effects on women's bodies. And, more recently, Mary Hocks (2009) stressed that the following questions are essential for undertaking cyberfeminist research:
- Who has the power? How can we get it?
- What/who is invisible? What is/is not transparent?
- Where do readers and authors find the pleasures of writing/reading/performing?
- What institutional infrastructures work for and against these pleasures, pushing against bodies that must live in time and space?
Relying upon both Hocks's (2004) questions and Wilding's (1998) original call for empowerment, we contend that cyberfeminists must balance the critique of digital space with the design, both technologically and pedagogically, of more collaborative, inclusive spaces for writing teachers to utilize as alternatives to the limiting, primarily text-based options of current C/LMSs, in which students are inevitably positioned as subjects under the surveillance of the various technological functions and tools that enable the teacher role. To counteract these limiting positions, our chapter also includes several curricular benchmarks for writing teachers to facilitate students' multiple learning styles in ways that have the potential to democratize virtual classroom spaces.
To be inclusive of the range of C/LMSs currently in use by writing studies teachers and administrators, and thereby relevant to a broader audience, we assume a wide-lensed approach to LMSs as spaces in need of cyberfeminist critique. While a nuanced, detailed, critique of a single C/LMS would provide significant fodder for this chapter, we find the broader approach adequately substantiates our claims about all C/LMSs as exclusive spaces in need of attention. Indeed, the goal of this chapter is to call for alternative virtual learning environments (whether they be existing spaces or newly designed) that push against the foundations of surveillance and control within the digital spaces students and teachers currently inhabit. A cyberfeminist framework encourages us to develop spaces, within and beyond the varieties of C/LMSs, to accommodate a wider range of learners, learning styles, and digital composing methods.
Even as we call for such design, we recognize that not all faculty possess the expertise or the opportunity to construct alternative digital spaces and thus include discussions of the way such principles even play out within the use of a C/LMS. Inevitably, these principles, aligned with a cyberfeminist framework, allow us to provide pragmatic suggestions for "privileging decentered, multiple, and participatory practices" on the Internet (Gajjala & Oh, 2012, p. 8).
1. Introduction
2. Our historical quest for safe spaces
3. Contested spaces
4. Taking back the spaces
5. Conclusion
6. References