Re: What do you think?

[Alexia Prendergast <alexiap -at- SEAGATESOFTWARE -dot- COM>]

Wow. <eyebrows on ceiling>

I wrote a scathing e-mail message this morning, then decided to
trash it and let my thoughts age for a few hours. :)

My overall reaction is still "Where does this person teach?
In a barn?"

Now, my responses:

1. In my technical writing classes, the computer was
not literally *in* the classroom. We used a variety of examples,
some computer-industry-oriented, some not. The focus was on
communicating clearly and concisely. *However*, the school's
focus, for all students (including Fine Arts) was that all
students were going to be computer literate. Period. We learned
that computers are part of the real world and you'd better get
comfortable and familiar with them and know enough to do more than
"get by". I expect the same from folks I hire (and then some).

2. Sure, the folks at the top, as with most other industries,
are primarily white men. That's why I choose to stick with smaller,
more entreprenuerial companies that tend to be more diverse.
I haven't found the environments to be particularly forbidding.
In school, there wasn't any question that we wouldn't be able to do
the job or that we'd would find the environment forbidding -- as
someone pointed out, that would hardly be conducive to
learning. There's plenty of time for folks to deal with that BS later.

3. I'm willing to train folks on the specifics of our products and
processes. I generally don't have time to train folks on basic tools
they need to get the job done. However, I need to remember that when
I started my first job, I didn't know much about writer's tools (other
than word processing). I did know a bunch about computers, programming,
software tools in general, so was able to pick up stuff by myself
quickly. No one spent the time to train me on that stuff then, and
they certainly aren't going to (most of the time) now.

My opinion of this book, based on these quotes, is not high. If
I was an instructor, I wouldn't use it.

Hopefully not too rambling... It's the end of a long week :)
A.
--
Alexia Prendergast
Senior Technical Writer
Seagate Software
alexiap -at- sems -dot- com

>----------
>Snipet One -- Question: Do you agree that the majority of technical
>communication is paper-based?
>
>"Still other instructors have consciously decided against using
>computers in their classrooms, and they have had good reasons for
>doing so.  First, they argue plausibly that the majority of technical
>communication in the workplace is still paper-based and that many
>students will be entering companies where they could certainly get by
>with little more than basic word processing skills.  Second, these
>instructors argue that their courses are intended to teach technical
>communication, not computer literacy."

>Snipet Two -- Question:  What do you think of the word "forbidding"?
>
>"Computers and networks are, as Dale Spender (1995) notes, an
>environment of privilege-created by privileged white men and used
>mostly by them-and those environments are quite often forbidding to
>women and people from disadvantaged groups."

>Snipet Three -- Do you think that your employers will be willing to
>train new hires in technical communication on how to use a computer
>to do their jobs?
>
>"It's true that many workplaces are still primarily paper-based, but
>does that mean we should ignore the enormous growth of electronic
>media-the journal Electronic Publishing estimates that by 2001, 30%
>of all workplace documents will be at least partially electronic
>(Romano, 1997)-in the hopes students will find an employer willing to
>train them?"
>

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