| With the rapid evolution of technology and digital means of communication, a significant shift has occurred in the last few decades regarding the sociological structures in which rhetoric and composition is practiced and learned. The interplay between sociological dynamics and technological evolution results in a challenge faced by institutions and by educators to constantly adapt to an ever-changing learning environment. This project examines recent scholarship in order to explore how implications by notable scholars such as Hawisher, Selfe, and Yancey in combination with Vygotsky's sociological theory of cognitive development are applicable, how these concepts are collectively useful for starting to build a working philosophy of technology. In so doing, this project examines such topics as language, multimodality, and the important sociological factors which will inform scholars' approach to technology in the teaching of composition and rhetoric, providing a set of guiding principles and areas of inquiry which will assist in the research, implementation, and exploration of technology moving forward. Important principles include an understanding of recent shifts in the experience of language use and language learning, emphasis on a shared experience in the classroom which replicates the socially based learning that occurs outside the classroom, the recognition of developing new and legitimate modes of communication, and a continued decentralization of the instructor as no longer the traditional authority, but instead, as an equipping guide on a path of mutual discovery. |
