Overall, the discussions were stimulating and focused on redefining traditional notions of literacy. We invite you to read the transcript of the live chats and to discover what it means to break the author-reader boundaries.

Tuesday, January 27, 1998

Martha Dillner: The first agenda item is: What questions do you have about the methods or the results [of Tierney's study]? How might you conceptualize doing such a study differently? Remember: Rob will respond first. Then the rest of us will respond simultaneously until I tell you to stop.

Rob T: When we conceptualized the set of studies we were excited by being able to examine message and medium from its advent. But we were aware that it was difficult to study such in any systematic form nor were we sure that we should.

Rob T: You will note that the second study involved the student in a productive mode so that we could begin to look across folks dealing with similar ideas and similar forms, but regardless each text is different as each individual is different.

Rob T: Let's just close with the idea that I would do the study much more emergently, and at this point in time I would avail myself of some of the software which has made hypertext so accessible.

Don Leu: Rob, you noted that each person [in the study] was somewhat different. Did you mean that each person took a different route through the hypertext documents?

Rob T: When you are studying hypertext in a production mode, you are doing a kind of discourse synt of writing from multiple sources and the students access, knowledge of the topic, and agility with hypertext, etc., all come into play.

Maya: Was there an authentic audience for the students' work?

Rob T: The whole set up was as if they were operating as a community.

Maya: Say more about the "community" concept.

Rob T: A limitation of my approach to looking at the data was not to look more in terms of it as a community experience.

Don: Please explain the notion of community.

Rob T: By community, the students operated together in a team helping one another proceed with their efforts as an audience as counselors, etc.

Rob T: As I mentioned in the conclusion, I wish I had looked at the students more as a community exploring the media for a host of purposes.

Maya: My other questions about research design had to do with using volunteers in a short summer session. The observation period seemed short for qualitative research. The interviews seemed rich, though. Perhaps time was irrelevant. Novelty effect may have interfered with results?

Rob T: I agree...these were shortcomings, but we were also dealing with explorations of issues.

Rob T: Yes, but novelty is grafted on to old ways and the way that occurs may be interesting.

Rob T: I would also want to embed this short probe, which I think was overly systematic.

Maya: I think you were talking about how the study was embedded within a larger longitudinal study which gives it more punch.

Martha: Let's all try and summarize item one about the methods of the study.

Maya: There were limitations but they were balanced by the work that preceded it.

Rob T: The introduction of hypertext in the classrooms was an event that was beginning to have a huge impact and the school year was over too soon that is when we decided to try to learn how to research hypertext and begin to think about what was happening to the students as participant learners.

Maya: I see now why you did the summer workshop.

Martha: Item two: Can anyone compare this study to some of your own work?

Maya: In my qualitative research with junior high students' designing school Web sites, I have also discovered similar themes such as (1) student motivation, (2) student collaboration, and (3) student empowerment.

Don: I wonder, Rob, if you could talk about problematic aspects of comparing hypertext with more static texts.

Christa: Middle of planning a 3-year study involving online comp. I am not doing anything with hypertext but am in the monitoring on computer.

Rachel: I have read several works (Reinking, Bruce) which focus on the transformation of the definition of literacy. This study seems to parallel the work in that the technology was changing the way students and teachers consider school curriculum.

Don: We have done several comparative studies of comprehension of dense informational texts in both static and hypertext/media seeking to understand design issues to optimize comprehension.

Maya: Don has written excellently on the topic of new conceptions of literacy to include hypermedia literacy.

Rob T: I have become much more interested in how texts including hypertext are woven into the social fabric of learning and community membership as well as community and individual change. In terms of texts, hypertext is a combination of text links.

Christa: What about students who do not get access to this technology (for example, students with disabilities) and how does their definition of literacy get hindered by these changes?

Maya: I also view technology within this semiotic/sociocultural/constructivist lens. From a multiple intelligence perspective, perhaps technology affords greater opportunity for disadvantaged students.

Rachel: Good question, Christa. Are those students being left behind?

Rachel: I don't know if the definition necessarily gets hindered. Except those students who attend schools without it (which many do).

Rob T: What is exciting is how open the definition has become. It is as if we are at a moment in time when we can watch students explore new forms of literacy.

Christa: So is technology now defining what literacy is?

Rachel: Are we letting the technology define it?

Maya: Just as the pencil defines print literacy...

Don: I agree, Rob, with these rapidly changing definitions of literacy. And, as new technologies appear, these definitions continue to change...it seems like every day.

Rachel: If so, who is creating the technology? Not educators.

Rob T: Part of my interest in participating in this chat room was to experience the continuities, discontinuities, etc., that might occur.

Martha: Boy did you get the discontinuities!!

Maya: This technology isn't quite what it could be.

Maya: An example of hypertext in action!

Don: Has anyone considered the consequences for rapidly changing definitions of literacy? Rob? Maya?

Rob T: I guess it appeals to my postmodernistic lives.

Maya: New definitions of literacy are necessary for teachers and researchers and teacher-educators at the university level.

Martha: Does anyone have any summary comments to make about the last agenda item?

Maya: We are all interested in new conceptions of literacy that move beyond print-based text.

Rob T: I think that we don't know enough of the transmedial as well as sociocultural nature of how these emerging technologies are working.

Tuesday, February 3, 1998

Martha: Why don't we start by introducing ourselves. I think everyone knows me because I have been the "contact" person.

Don: Hi! I'm Don Leu in snowy upstate NY. I'm at the reading and language arts center and very interested in new visions of literacy for classrooms through Internet technologies. I don't type too good either.

Rob T: I am Rob Tierney and am fascinated with what technologies entail for literacy and society.

Maya: I'm Maya Eagleton from The University of Arizona. My doctoral research is focused on the use of hypermedia technology in the language arts classroom.

Rachel: I'm Rachel Karchmer and I am a doctoral student at Syracuse. I work with Don.

Martha: OK, let's try and brainstorm a little about the chat process.

Martha: Let's all type at the same time (don't be polite). Just type what you think would work best for a live chat with an author.

Martha: You can either react to this as an agenda item or react to other people's comments about the item.

Don: I'm interested in hearing Rob continue his thoughts about his work and also interested in hearing about Maya's work.

Don: Format?

Maya: Perhaps we can start each item with the structure in place, then go "free-form" for a bit.

Maya: It does help to be polite at times, but not to the point of losing momentum.

Martha: OK, does this mean that we should go for an item focusing on Rob's research; start out structured and then freeform?

Maya: Sounds good!

Rob T: I am fascinated with how we will negotiate meanings using what we know about conventions from other literacy and how we might adapt to these technologies and our goals individually and as a group.

Maya: Martha, will you tell us when to dive in?

Martha: Sounds like you are ready.

Don: Rob, do you mean meanings within the multimedia contexts or new envisionments for using the contexts to communicate or both?

Martha: I like Don's comment. Let's dive into that one first.

Rob T: I mean both. I am struck with having the possibility of being free of past restrictions at the same time as we deal with referential issues.

Maya: It seems like both to me.

Rob T: I do find this chat room as somewhat linear. I think a chat room with a white board would be great.

Martha: That's why I like it when we can get more freeform.

Maya: Each new semiotic medium has its own constraints. We need to assess what new "restrictions" hypermedia may entail.

Don: This seems like a matter of great freedom and opportunity for new ways of thinking and working but also great potential for miscommunication.

Maya: Miscommunication between what and whom?

Martha: What do you mean by miscommunication? How so?

Martha: We are talking about how this medium gives us great freedom and opportunity for new ways of thinking and working but also great potential for miscommunication.

Don: Maybe I haven't got it quite right, but within informational texts writers intend certain meanings and the openness of hypermedia environments often allows readers to explore interesting meanings, but not always the ones intended by the author.

Maya: Of course, a transactional theorist would argue that any text holds a multiplicity of meanings.

Christa: The meanings are always constructed by whomever interacts with the text and there are multiple meanings whatever the medium.

Rob T: What I love about these new technologies is the fusion together of texts in lots of ways as well as text and graphics appropriated from others. I am not sure it is miscommunication so much as a kind of festival...not quite jazz.

Martha: But if we teach a chat room as part of this, what part does that interaction have to do with communication/miscommunication?

Bill Rupley: Rob, the fusion will become 30 times faster once we are able to upgrade all users to twisted wire lines.

Don: Sure, but when I write informational text, I struggle to imbue it as clearly as I can with the meaning I intend.

Rob T: It is as if the author may provide a suggested score that I might ignore, adapt, or parrot.

Maya: The authors of hypertext, then, need to plan for the many routes a reader may take.

Rob T: I have always been struck with the attempt by our student authors to use hypermedia to get a rise from others -- a kind of emotional engagement.

Bill Rupley: Do I as an author of manuscripts plan for the route, and all the possible alternative routes, on which a reader may choose to embark?

Maya: I like the metaphor of a suggested "score."

Martha: Rob, do you mean ninth graders or adults?

Don: To a certain extent this is possible, but not nearly as possible within traditional texts. I hope I am not arguing against hypermedia. I don't "intend" that as I think my way around this issue.

Rob T: High school and elementary aged students I found that they have a strong sense of special effects -- except sometimes they give teachers what they think they want which may be rather conventionalized.

Maya: Children are so enthused about the meanings they are able to make with multimedia -- meanings that are often not possible with conventional text.

Maya: Adults, too, for that matter.

Rob T: You are right, we could do with texts what we do with hypermedia and some artists have tried to do so, but written text seems so conventionalized.

Martha: This really hits the agenda item concerning what special difficulties might on incur when dealing with hyperlinks in studies.

Maya: Written text has a looong history of conventionality, especially in educational institutions.

Martha: Do students respond to hypertext in ways that need to be uncovered but have not been?

Maya: It is up to us to discover what new conventions will emerge as we enter into hypermedia-based literacy.

Don: I have found students often gravitate to "wide band with media" in classrooms more because it is, in their words, "cool," not because it contains information useful to a task they are attempting to complete. It is quite seductive.

Rob T: I wonder what happens to society when discourses change and hope that we are self-critical with respect to what might be the possibilities.

Maya: Don, your point is well taken. It helps for kids to have a strong sense of purpose/audience in mind.

Don: That's wide band width media, things like videos and sound.

Maya: Kids do get carried away with graphics, sound, and animation. They need to be taught to use these as textual enhancements rather than distractors.

Christa: When discourses change the ones who have the new discourse under control become the new elite.

Don: I wonder what people think, following up on Rob's point, as to the relative importance of textual reading in these new information environments and in the future?

Maya: What do you mean by "textual reading"?

Don: I guess I mean the ability to read traditional text elements.

Maya: Good question. Perhaps traditional text will shrink in relative import.

Christa: I think one of the challenges for teachers and university educators is to assist their students to develop control of the multiple discourses.

Rob T: I think that it could mean that students have to learn to read media and its fusion with text etc. more critically and flexibly and intertextually. In terms of research, it could lead to different expectations relative to reporting and review as...

Martha: I know we have talked a lot about having text scroll on the Internet as compared to having text in small chunks, i.e., separate HTML files. Some people find the scrolling easier; others don't like the scrolling.

Bill Rupley: We are talking about language, which is intended to inform, entertain, and direct. How can we overlook the parameters of understanding in relation to the consequence of knowing, entertaining, and directing?

Don: I wonder, Christa, if it will ever be possible to achieve control of multiple discourses as new technologies and new envisionments for these technologies continually redefine the nature of literacy? It is interesting to consider the nature and consequences of continuous change in all this.

Martha: What kind of different expectations relative to research and reporting?

Rob T: Language is also to do with liberation and subjugation, creation, etc. A reader's ability to navigate and renovate and a writer's ability to negotiate in a much more multidimensional fashion will be important.

Christa: Control also involves helping kids address the transfer of their multiskills.

Maya: I am more worried about all the K-12 teachers out there who need retraining than I am about the kids!

Bill Rupley: How can one author something without considering the reader?

Maya: On the Internet you don't always know who your audience may be.

Don: Sorry. I was cut out and missed the recent conversation. I'll try to listen and get caught up.

Rob T: I would hope that teachers approach these new texts with an openness to the possibilities rather than persevere on a closed view of how text should be read or architectured. We found that teachers tendency to focus on the amount of content in a report...

Bill Rupley: The Internet is still relying predominantly on text with graphics, audio, and film as defining parameters.

Martha: I think we are talking about several different multimedia platforms. The audience/author relationship in a live chat is not the same as a ROL discussion forum or article might be.

Don: Good point, Rob! What was the end to the final sentence?

Maya: It is exciting how the advent of hypermedia is happening simultaneously with more constructivist models of teaching and learning.

Rob T: We find that our students retreated from pushing the possibilities with text because of what we perceived to be the constrained views of teachers the constrained views of...

Maya: Perhaps the constructivist model will help teachers maintain an "openness to new possibilities."

Christa: We found in classrooms where teachers say they are "doing critical literacy" that once the kids have raised issues of gender and race (not aborigine etc.) they have difficulty with reflecting on text because this is all the teacher has focused on previously.

Maya: So it sounds like we need new assessment rubrics then, as well.

Martha: Does anyone (or everybody) want to try and summarize what we have been saying?

Don: I see more openness among teachers with respect to how learning takes place but not, as Rob pointed out, with what students are expected to learn about literacy. Does this match up with anyone else's observations?

Maya: The problem is in how those teachers are defining literacy.

Don: Wow, Martha! What a great task for what we have been talking about. I'm afraid to even try. Anyone else?

Maya: Let's see: new definitions of literacy; new possibilities afforded by hypertext; problems with teachers' feeling constrained by old paradigms.

Rob T: I guess what I like about hypertext is that things are changing faster than we have been able to institutionalize them.

Don: Nice work, Maya. I guess I would add, new challenges for communication.

Maya: ... the effect of new technologies on society; the rapid pace of new technologies.

Don: You rebel, you, Rob!

Martha: Anyone else want to add to the summary?

Maya: We are rebels just by having this conversation about redefining traditional notions of literacy!

Don: Yes, indeed!

Martha: How about some parting words?

Rob T: At my institution they keep trying to set up guidelines for what can and cannot be placed on Web sites, and then they realized that they had slowed down the change that was occurring and they had hoped for...it was as if the world had shifted and the institution was faced with standards that were not in sync even before they could be fully effected.

Bill Rupley: I am troubled by this pervasive assumption that we all have some operational definition of traditional literacy and that it is inherently bad.

Maya: Is anyone open to further communication via e-mail? Rob? Don?

Don: I'm very interested in e-mail.

Maya: Good point, Bill. There is nothing wrong with print-based literacy. It's just that there is so much more available to writers now.

Rob T: No, I don't think it is traditionally bad, but at times it has been used as a tool to define society and limit their interactions and reach.

Don: I agree, Bill. Some of these elements will become even more important, I think. Others will be lost and good riddance!

Martha: Any suggestions for the format for future chats? What would you add? Change? Remove?

Don: Seemed like a nice and useful experience to me. Wish we had more time.

Martha: I want to thank everyone who participated today. I think it easier today. The transcript will not make us "read between the lines." Thanks, Rob!

Bill Rupley: Enjoyed the discussion--thought provoking and stimulating--got to go.

Maya: I have really enjoyed this experience and look forward to future interactions with all of you! :-)

Rob T: Must go many, many thanks to Martha and everyone. This has been a great treat for me.

Reflection on a Reading Online Author Live Chat