| With the administrative push for degree programs offered in a distance-learning format, many writing programs in institutions of higher education across the United States have been required to make first-year composition courses available in a web-based, distance-learning format. The increasing number of new versions and regularly emerging new technologies demonstrate the diversity of technological teaching tools faculty may adopt, or be forced to adopt. As a result, no one disagrees with computers-and-writing scholars for promoting critical engagement with technology. Instead, a new problem has emerged: to keep up with the rate of technological change, the processes of critical engagement, incorporation, and assessment of new technologies need to be more easily and quickly adopted.;This study helps answer how a faculty member is able to keep up with technological change by collecting questionnaires and conducting interviews with faculty members from an English department at a southwest community college. As instructors of technologically mediated classes, the participants were asked about the processes they used to learn about and incorporate new technologies into their pedagogies. The data in this study suggest that faculty already teaching with technology do feel responsible for learning about new technologies. However, if institutions of higher education want to support faculty keeping up with new technologies, faculty will need continued motivation as well as adequate time and support to learn new technologies. Findings show that faculty motivation needs to focus on how the new technologies will benefit students as well as the faculty. Specifically, faculty will need support committing time and energy to "playing" with the new technologies to learn them. Data also suggest that the faculty are in a position to support one another in learning about new technologies and how to critically incorporate the technologies into their teaching practices. Context matters; however, as demonstrated by the repeated emphasis on collegial support. |
