Using ANT to expand spaces
- Use digital tools that are easily mobile.
Use tools commonly available, usable, and easily accessible by a variety of devices. Using easily portable tools means that it is easier for students to form associations with the tool in multiple Euclidian object/spaces and therefore easier to create new networked object/spaces that move between sanctioned and unsanctioned writing activity. Leslie’s class used Google Maps because it is widely available from all devices and has an open interface. In Doug’s class, he used Twitter and web browser plug-ins specifically because those tools could be accessed on a variety of mobile technologies—including laptops, tablets, and phones—that travel with students through their worlds.
- Assign inherently social projects and tools.
Although students often do not like small group work, we think that writing work that is inherently social is different from many of the group tasks that they are asked to perform in their lives. Leveraging inherently social projects and tools allows students to share lots of meaningful associations that strengthen the objects/spaces an instructor is trying to support. The strong networked associations make object travel easier. Leslie’s students were tackling a collective problem—not just for them, but one that affected at least the sixty thousand students at their large institution, and probably many more people. Thus, a classroom management software would severely limit the rhetorical velocity of a project. A searchable Google map, though, can be found, used, and even edited (depending on chosen settings) by anyone. As was discussed earlier in this chapter, that meant that the work of the class continued to be useful far beyond the time constraints of the semester. In Doug’s class, students were able to share work and ideas that were meaningful to them collectively. Doug would highlight and engage student links when the class met in the Euclidian space of the sanctioned writing classroom and students would also read and respond to each others’ tweets within the stream.
- Reinforce associations and activities of objects in sanctioned spaces.
We think that assignments and activities must be discussed in both sanctioned and unsanctioned writing spaces to be successful. There are many writing activities and experiences that students do every day that relate to the classes we teach, but many students feel that classrooms and “real life” are inherently different spaces. Although students have always done homework, we think that the best design for expanding the space of writing classrooms is work that is mobile and blurs distinctions between home/work divides the way our technologies do. We think that one of the ways an instructor encourages that blurring is by using classroom resources (like grades, time, technologies) to strengthen the associations with sanctioned space. Leslie, for example, devoted class time to problem-solving in Google Maps, to tackling issues of collaborative writing, and to addressing the long-term and uncertain nature of online public writing. For her class, the map became the central workspace of the class—one that was mobile and used constantly in both sanctioned and unsanctioned spaces. Doug began each meeting with a discussion of student Twitter feeds. He positioned student tweets as valuable by tying student participation grades to them. These associations validated the work spaces students were making with tools at home as “sanctioned.” They were not something extra, but at the core of the class work.