THE PEDAGOGY

I integrate a few SL-related activities into a business writing class—a required course within the business curriculum at my institution that is usually taken in the Junior year. As with some technical writing courses within undergraduate programs, it is the only formal business writing course in their program; the course is expected to cover several areas of business writing, including digital literacy elements. The final project for the course is to develop a writing product that simulates one that would be found in a professional setting; among project students tend to pursue are: a proposal that addresses a particular problem, a feasibility study associated with ways to address a problem or improve an operation, or an instructional or training manual for a particular task or position. James Kinneavy (1986) espouses the use of situated writing activities in writing pedagogy to help students learn the kinds of writing they will experience in the workplace. Further, Pennell and Miles (2009) observe numerous benefits of such pedagogy, especially pertaining to learning concepts of rhetoric and changing students’ perceptions of the world (pp 380-381). Such assignments engage students in projects that simulate real situations.

While many students think in terms of a print-linguistic document, I also encourage students to use New Media environments with their final project assignment, integrating multimodal composition. I suggest Web site development or video products as examples. Among the materials that I give students is information about the New London Group’s (1996) parameters of modes of representation and listing of potential kinds of projects (Final Project Guidelines). While I do not require them to develop such a product, I mention video and web-based products that students have done previously as examples; these include a promotional video for a musical group and development of a Website for an organization or company. Considering the growth of SL in pedagogy and business, Steve (not the student’s real name) chose to develop an instructional machinima product that teachers and students could use to orient themselves to the SL interface as displayed through a Mac machine. Steve thought that such a product would ease the orientation experience if users first saw the tutorial in which they could see the environment in action as they heard descriptions of certain actions. This is somewhat similar to the assignment that Vie (2008a) describes, wherein students prepare a walkthrough to facilitate orientation for a user of a new game as part of usability testing activities in her technical communication course (p. 159).While Vie’s students develop a print-linguistic product, Steve designs a machinima video product to facilitate that orientation. The purpose of Steve’s video is to provide instruction and orientation in several basic actions users often perform in SL such as navigating in SL and changing the appearance of one’s avatar.

CRITIQUE OF TECHNOLOGY

In addition to the video product, students who compose multimodal products submit a memo of transmittal in which they acknowledge their rhetorical decisions and critique the technology they used to compose the product. Selfe (2004 and 2007) and Wysocki (2003) encourage student critique of technologies used in creating new media products as part of such assignments. Kress and van Leeuwan (2001) observe that the design of a given message may be limited by technologies available for its design, production and distribution (p. 21). How one can convey a message is affected by the modes and media available to both the composer and the audience. Further, analysis of affordances and constraints is part of usability testing (Norman, 2004; and Spool, Scanlon, and Snyder, 1997). Such a framework for analysis within the reflection addresses this favored concept in technical writing pedagogy, recalling Vie’s (2008a) observation about applying the usability testing framework to analyzing video games. Analysis of affordances and constraints is compatible with usability testing, because both focus attention on what tasks users perceive a given tool can or cannot do.

Norman (1990) explains that, when studying technology, one should also study the psychology associated with its use, including what users perceive as affordances and constraints of a given artifact. Norman defines affordances as “the perceived and actual properties of the thing…that determine just how the thing could possibly be used” (p. 9). He defines a constraint as something that limits the way in which an artifact can be used; “Affordances suggest the range of possibilities, constraints limit the number of alternatives” (p. 82). While he emphasizes visual cues that suggest possibilities of use or limits of use, he also acknowledges that affordances and constraints may be embedded in the artifact; that is, they may be part of the artifact’s design but not immediately visible to the user.

Affordances and constraints of a given tool are relative to the user’s previous experiences with similar tools or technologies; that is, an affordance may be derived from a physical, visible attribute that readily assimilates the user’s past experience with another technology, while a constraint may be derived from an attribute of the other, referent technology that is not visible in or readily transferred to the newer technology (p. 82). Usability testing, common practice in engineering and Web-design, includes many of these same considerations. These uses make analysis of affordances and constraints an ideal theory to use in critiquing new media technologies in business and technical writing pedagogies.