Response to "Technology and LIteracy: A Story about the Perils of Not Paying Attention"

In your reading responses, articulate your position regarding Selfe’s central claims. To support this position, underline at least 5 sentences in Selfe’s chapter and explain how these sentences support your position. In addition, underline an ambiguous sentence or paragraph or one about which you would like additional information. Last, generate 1-2 questions for class discussion.

Selfe is talking about the intergration of technology, that is, computers, into the public school system.  She's writing in 1999, so this article is a bit outdated.  Apparently there was some law under Clinton that was really excited about putting computers into all of the classrooms.  Selfe points out that, although that sounds peachy on the surface, there are actually some serious problems.  "Computers continue to be distributed differently along the related axes of race and socioeconomic status and this distribution contributes to ongoing patterns of racism and to the continuation of poverty" Although some of the facts and statistics she gives are outdated, the general principle still, I think, is true. The main point of her article is that educators, specifically English teachers, are not really aware of how these social trends are playing out in their classrooms. "If written language and literacy practices are our professional business, so is technology." She points out how technology is polarizing the teaching profession, "we divide ourselves into two perfectly meaningless camps - those who use computers to teach classes and those who don't". She them says why this is a problem for everyone "Both groups feel virtuous about their choices and both manage to lose sight of the real issue" which is that no on is noticing how this technology has affected them. Selfe also says that many people subscribe to the "'literacy myth', a widely held belief that literacy and literacy education lead autonomously, automatically, and directly to liberation, personal success, or economic prosperity". After reading that, I realized that I was in that category. One thing that she says that doesn't exactly make sense to me is that "by paying critical attention to lessons about technology, we can re-learn important lessons about literacy." And now for some class discussion: 1) How do you think this situation described by Selfe has changed since 1999? 2) Do you think that this issue still exists? To what extent?