Dialogic Dreaming

Leading into his assertion that "there is a life for student writing beyond the course and the semester" (91), Coogan betrays his idealistic dream that networked computers will somehow bring a new era of dialogic learning. Today electronic classrooms are still often configured in rows, and now they're even bolted to the floor. Add in the projector screen and it seems we have not exactly shifted "away from the 'proscenium' classroom, where students sit in theatre-style rows facing the stage" (91), Thanks to the unlimited digital distractions available on those networked computers, we have a dialogic classroom all right--it's just that students are having dialogic interactions outside of the classroom community. I always thought they were socializing on facebook, but maybe they were sharing their writing projects with students at other universities. ;-) Anyway, back in the old days, we could still rearrange the room into small groups, and we even had primitive writing technologies. What was weird though, was that the only way to interact as a group was f2f. Of course, we didn't know any better. I guess we could have passed a notebook around the room and created a discussion board that way, but I don't recall anyone thinking of doing that. So computers did help people create some new ways of doing things that are useful. But I don't think any technology or theory in and of itself will make all our dreams come true.