Proposal Contexts
As with each new technology that humans have developed—from clay tablets to papyrus scrolls to the printing press and beyond—digital composing tools vastly affect the work that we do and how we do it. As editors Heidi McKee and Dànielle Nicole DeVoss (2007) noted in their introduction to Digital Writing Research, “Computerized writing technologies impact how and what we write, the ways in which we teach and learn writing, and, certainly, computers and digital spaces affect our research approaches” (3). Not only do the technologies play an important role in the development of our writing, teaching, and researching practices, but the way we use such technologies also matters. McKee and DeVoss also noted that “digital technologies and the people who use those technologies have changed the processes, products, and contexts for writing and the teaching of writing in dramatic ways” (11). It follows that the various contexts in which these communication technologies, teaching, learning, and writing take place also vastly impact our processes.
In developing the proposal to swap computer lab spaces and reconfigure one of our primary instructional labs, I worked with many of my colleagues across programs who have a vested interest in updating the lab. I also considered institutional and financial contexts that would constrain the kinds of changes that were possible. Additionally, I considered the overlapping contexts of the Digital Technology and Culture Program with those of Composition and Rhetoric. In what follows, I explicate each of these contexts as they relate to the proposal.
