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The first day of her English 11 class last fall, Danielle Conner, to use her
own words, "panicked." Inwardly, at least.
But she wasn't worried about her rhetorical skills. She was worried about her
computer skills.
Far from being tangential to English composition, they're becoming
essential.
It's become one of the routine lessons learned during freshman year: Along
with learning how to find what they need in the library and interpret the
graphs in social sciences texts, students need to learn how to make web pages
and search online databases.
English 11 is one class where students learn this lesson.
"Most professors expect that writing assignments will be written on a
computer. And the Internet is increasingly used as a starting point for
academic research," said Lorena Russell, Conner's English 11 teacher.
Conner, it turns out, was better prepared than most. She had used a word
processor and navigated the Internet.
"I just wasn't confident," she said.
On the other hand, Carrah Brown, who was in the same class, said her previous
computer experience was limited to word processing.
Their classmate Penelope Deese had worked with Aldus PageMaker as her high
school yearbook editor, "But that was about it, aside from writing reports. I
had never used e-mail or the Internet at all."
Nine months later, they've mastered a variety of computer applications. Brown
now is comfortable with listservs, discussion forums and web page creation.
Deese is proficient at web authoring, file management and online searching. And
so is Conner, who had considered switching to another section of English 11 to
avoid the computer emphasis.
It's a recurring theme for entering freshmen. They're overwhelmed by the idea
of using computers for all their work. But whether the initial problem was lack
of experience or lack of confidence, now using computers is integral to their
school work.
"Learning to use the library's database has helped me tremendously with
projects," Deese said.
"I am going to be using the skills I learned in English 11 in many of my other
courses," Conner said.
They acquired this range of computer skills at a time already overflowing with
the academic adjustments of freshman year, thanks mostly to Russell.
"Even though it seemed the class was moving very fast, Ms. Russell took time
out to explain things to those of us who had questions and took into
consideration that many students had not had much experience," Conner said.
And freshmen also tapped into the increasing store of computer knowledge in
the student body.
Deese said when she was confronted with unfamiliar applications, she either
figured it out herself, talked to Russell or turned to a knowledgeable
friend.
And Brown noted that while her teacher was very helpful, she could also turn to
her peers for help.
All of which points to the increasing integration of computers into academic
life.
"By helping the students develop their file management, word processing and
Internet skills, I was contributing to the course goal of preparing them for
college writing," Russell said.
Russell hastened to add that the computer requirements weren't just a matter
of technical procedures, but also helped to develop cognitive skills.
Internet users find a lot of unreliable material, and they need to learn how
to evaluate it, she said.
Her students are certainly in no doubt about the usefulness of the computer
requirements in English 11.
"I was extremely surprised that I had to learn computer skills in English
composition," Conner said. "But looking back it makes lots of sense."
Such skills will become even more essential in 2000, when entering freshmen
will be required to have a laptop computer as part of the Carolina Computing
Initiative.
Contributed by Kevin O'Kelly, Center for Instructional Technology.
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