In a lot of ways this is exactly what CCR 711 is about: What role do technology-based (or enhanced) networks play in how we "design" relationships. I realize I'm starting to get fuzzy here, but let me try to work through this. Consider this question: What theories or practices support your decisions in regard to using technology in a classroom? If you answer that question from an Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation perspective, your thinking is likely to be influenced by learning and instructional psychology. If you answer from a Comp/Rhet/English perspective, you're likely influenced by communication theory. And if you’re answering the question from a Tech Com perspective, you’re most likely struggling with all that and a good dose of systems theory.

There is a wide spectrum of theories and supporting practices that explain why we do certain things as teachers in regard to technology. The reflexive nature of Comp, while encouraging to those of us studying a dramatic range of topics under its banner, should come with the following caveat: No discipline can claim ALL cites in which a single activity occurs (i.e. writing), particularly instructional cites created by the presence and use of multiple technologies (which themselves are created by multiple complex elements). Any educational technology (the blog is only one such technology) is composed of a number of elements. The tool is singular, but the elements that bring the tool into being are many and complex. Unless we as teachers (and users) consider these elements together in our course designs, there is no pedagogical purpose in considering the technology at all – even if we think we know what we’re doing.

In the case of the Blog Fiasco, aspects of “applied” (is that still a four-letter word?) communication theory could have helped identify the implications for using a blog to fulfill the instructional requirements of a resident course. I’m not talking about advanced communication theory here. We were all introduced to Shannon and Weaver in Comm 101. Much of that fundamental theory has found its way into modern instructional design practice; it’s simply been co-opted and merged with concepts of learning theory -- and in regard to the Blog Fiasco – especially in the presentation of information to learners and the use of feedback.

So what’s your point man? Well, I’m saying we need to study and work across a number of disciplines before we can confidently embrace and exploit technologies in the writing classroom. Simply knowing what a certain technology does is not enough. We need to consider it from multiple disciplinary perspectives. When we lack that perspective, we need to seek it out. We need to collaborate with the experts or become experts ourselves. But we should never try to wing it. There’s too much of that being done already in the name of online and distance ed -- and trust me, it’s why Comp’s disciplinary struggles look like a game of Candy Land in comparison to what Distance/Online Education is going through.