Information technology adds exciting new dimensions to the
language-rich active learning that Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and communication
across the curriculum (CAC) have always encouraged. Although pedagogical objectives should
determine which tools we incorporate into our instruction, electronic mail and the World
Wide Web are motivating many educators to re-examine and to modify their approaches to
teaching.
Electronic collaborations are developing across classes,
colleges, and countries as well as across disciplines. And increasingly, higher education
is responding to these trends by establishing or supporting programs that encourage
innovative applications of information technology in teaching, what we call Electronic
Communication Across the Curriculum (ECAC). This presentation will illustrate some of the
ways information technology encourages and supports communication activities as learning
strategies, emphasizing the use of the World Wide Web for student research, interaction,
and publication.
This presentation will illustrate a number of models that
expand our understanding of writing with new media in language-across-the-curriculum or
literacy-across-the-curriculum or Electronic Communication Across the Curriculum
initiatives at North American colleges and universities, mostly in the U.S. These models
appear in the following categories:
- Networked classrooms: using specialized groupware or Internet
applications to communicate synchronously, either individually or collaboratively
- WAC and CAC programs: incorporating IT into existing programs
- IT programs: incorporating WAC or CAC into technology projects
- Centers for teaching and learning: offering workshops and
resources for examining and updating instructional strategies, including WAC, CAC, and IT
- Learning communities: within and across disciplines, using the
principles of WAC-CAC and the tools of IT
The common element in these models is the integration of
information technology with "writing" or "communication" in the
broader sense that ECAC suggests.
