Categories: Theory & Rhetoric, Technology
Summary:
Salvo's thesis stated that "Technical communicators have an ethical as well as intellectual
responsibility to engage the interface between technology and culture" (Salvo, 2002, p. 317). He expressed concerns about the oft overlooked difficulties that technology may bring into a classroom. He believed professional, technical communicators must examine the impact of technologies. Using assignments and discussions in a graduate class, he addressed how power, politics, culture, digital literacy, and other variables could impact the experience of a student using technology.
Citation-worthy:
'"Funding for machines is often easier to secure than equally important funding for training, maintenance, and administration (see Grabill; Haas, “On the Relationship”; Klem and Moran; Harralson; Selfe)" (Salvo, 2002, p. 317).
"While remembering that technologies do not always drive change, technologies must be studied critically and evaluated to determine how technologies have been used to support and/or enable practices as well as how the deployment of technology can thwart pedagogy" (Salvo, 2002, p. 318).
"Once raised, the ethical dimension is not limited to sustainability but questions issues of power, particularly the distinction between technology producers and consumers. In addition, Johnson-Eilola’s “Relocating the Value of Work” expands the understanding of technical communication instruction to include context and ethics, yet few concrete details are offered for how one might discuss Robert Reich‘s construction of symbolic-analytic
work at either the graduate or undergraduate level. When attention shifts away from the document itself and towards the context for the design, development, and reception of that document or information object, one places more distance between one’s self and the information object. This distancing allows one to see global issues that impact the design of the information or rhetorical object. In Johnson-Eilola’s construction, how work is understood and defined becomes an important element for discussion" (Salvo, 2002, p. 333).
