The Coronavirus has been quite a far reaching disease; its infected millions, put people out of jobs, cost people their healthcare, and cancelled celebrations. It’s also changed the way that we’re doing schooling possibly forever. I can recall thinking, when I was much younger than I am now, that school might become a virtual affair. I was really afraid of this too, because my mom is a teacher, and I feared that she would lose her job and be replaced by a free-laboring teacher machine.
Post COVID-19, we are all realizing that school doesn’t need to be taught by robots, but it can move online. And some of us, like Mary Gregg Marshall, are not even upset about it. MG is a senior at the College of Charleston, and an English major — and she prefers learning online in a lot of ways. Interestingly enough, it seems that she did not favor using computers in school in the beginning. Of course, this was mostly due to that pesky standardized testing us students were forced to suffer through. Gross.
Now, MG thinks that online class makes her schedule easier to abide by. She works at a restaurant, and having class online cuts down on the amount of time that she has to spend traveling. She can get ready for work even while being in class, and still be on time and engaged in both. It can also be onerous, especially in Charleston, to make the commute to campus. This is super true for MG, who moved off campus after her freshman year and now has to drive to class. Having class online makes her mornings significantly less stressful as she doesn’t have to hunt and prowl for parking.
She also sees the assimilation of computers into learning as a way to make students more authentic with their professors. Before the coronavirus, she felt that there was a lot of anxiety around communicating online with her professors. And, when she was asked to complete written assignments online, she felt a lot of pressure to write like she was writing an essay. After we all moved to online school, she felt like she was able to relax a little bit in her writing — and she was therefore able to write more authentically. She felt less like a “robot” and more like herself.
In the following interview, I aimed to compare MG’s prior school experience to the one she has now during the pandemic. To do this, I asked her quite a few questions about her digital literacy practices. I like the way MG defined “digital literacy practices” as well; to her, a digital literacy practice is “anything that is helping you gain information or put out information” online.
A lot of the digital literacy practices that MG discusses involve both her personal life and her school life. But, the main difference between her digital literacy practices for school and outside of school comes back to that subject of authenticity. She says, “I definitely think that if you took all the writing I produced for school, you still would not have a clue as to who I am or what I like… I don’t think that the way I convey myself in an academic setting is genuine, sadly.”
Fortunately, she credits the pandemic with changing this. The Coronavirus has united us — professors and students — through some tough common struggles. We’ve all had to do a lot of adjusting for this “new normal.” It’s important to remember this, though: online school is new for all of us. And if we can find the positives in this sticky situation, we would be well to do if we focused on those.
Meg: What was a formative experience for you when it came to using technology in school?
MG: So I really hated computers when they were first introduced in school. Just because I went to a very small school and it was in a nicer community, but we still didn’t have a solid public school. We didn’t have a bunch of computers for everybody or anything. My first memory with academic digital stuff had to be whenever they would take the whole class, the whole first grade class or something, and we would have to take standardized tests on the computer. And it was a boring layout, just gray and black writing, no pictures. And that’s sadly what I remember first, and I think that kind of put a bad taste in my mouth. Because everytime we had to do something in school involving computers, probably up until high school, I got anxious about it and didn’t want to do it. I just saw it as this task that I had to do, like a standardized test because that’s the only thing we would use computers for. I associated them with bad stuff.
Meg: That makes sense! So, I want to talk a little bit about the pandemic. How has the pandemic affected your digital literacy practices outside of school?
MG: So social media wise — like Twitter and stuff like that — I surprisingly wasn’t spending as much time on it in the beginning. I’m in a long distance relationship, and my boyfriend and I quarantined together, so he was there and was entertainment and distraction. But I think when I woke up everyday and didn’t have anything to do, no plans laid out in front of me and you couldn’t really do anything, I felt there was more pressure on me to make my days have value. So I would cook something. I didn’t read as much as I wanted to. I was like, I’m going to read so much during this! But I don’t think I read one book. Anyway, I think my social media presence was a little less, but the only exception is that my friend and I — who are both really into restaurants and cooking and stuff — we started this Instagram where we posted the food that we made. And we could see other restaurants. So I started cooking a lot more for that, because you couldn’t go out to restaurants anymore. It was something I liked doing, and if I hadn’t posted for awhile I would make food and make it all presentable, and I would think of funny captions for it. It was definitely a main source of entertainment, and I felt like it almost replaced my job.
Meg: That’s so cool! So how about in school? What has changed concerning your digital literacy practices?
MG: Now, in a way, I feel like school is more approachable. But, [moving online] has also really required me to have more accountability. I’m trying to be as honest as possible; last year, in my opinion, I don’t think that I was a good student. And I think I’m doing better this year. I really like the Zoom classes. I don’t live on campus, so for me it was like this huge task where I had to get up and drive and hope that I would be able to find a place to park. So this semester, I’ve been participating more in school. It’s also really made me rethink my organization processes. Now I make a list on my laptop in a Word document of the things that I need to do for the week. I usually don’t save them, and if I did I would send one over to you! But it’s just the same Word document where I delete and retype things pretty regularly. It’s just hard because everybody has multiple classes and each class usually has a checklist online, but I have to see them all together in order to wrap my head around it. I’ll constantly feel like I’m missing something if I can’t see all of the checklists on my Word document. And, like you said earlier, it’s made writing online less intimidating. I don’t get the same feelings about writing emails and blog posts that I used to; [when I used to set out to write a blog post] I would get the same anxious feelings that I would get when I was about to write an essay. And really they’re two different things. I don’t need to have that [essay] pressure about a blog post. So moving online has relaxed me a little bit in that way.
Meg: So how do you feel about the changes and moving online?
MG: I like them, I think. The one thing I really don’t like is that most of my classes — I’m an English major, so I really didn’t have a lot of tests to begin with — but I’m surprisingly a test taker instead of a project person, and most of my classes this semester have given me more projects. And I get that’s a better way to gauge learning especially when we’re not face to face, but other than that I think I liked it for the most part. It’s better suited to me personally, especially when my job started back up.
Meg: And how do you think your professors have handled the switch to online?
MG: Pretty good. Last semester when we were at the last two months, and we had to rapidly change, that was not good. I felt like my professors were scrambling, and they didn’t really know how to go about it because they had to immediately transfer their lesson plans online. But that’s understandable. And my professors this semester are pretty good. And they’re very understanding. I like how in this class [English 316] you can participate synchronously or asynchronously because it opened up the amount of time for classes I could take. And, I didn’t have to worry about my schedule as much; like, this class starts at two and I have to be at work by three, so I can just watch the recording of this class later when I have the time. So that’s really nice, and it’s less stress. And a lot of my teachers are using the checklist [in OAKS] and I find that really helpful. For each unit you can actually go through and check off all of the things that you’ve done.
I even had one class that was supposed to meet face to face after the first three weeks and he said that in person is optional and he’s still recording every class, so mostly I’ve just been attending online. It makes things so much easier because it’s immediately after another class that is just online, so it makes more sense to attend them both online. It’s really made things easier and I feel like it’s made everybody more empathetic to each other and their needs and schedules. I feel like that’s how school always should have been. I don’t think that life should surround schools like it has been in the past. I think that schools should be a small piece of life, and [the transition to online] mirrors that more.
I feel like that’s how school always should have been. I don’t think that life should surround schools like it has been in the past. I think that schools should be a small piece of life, and [the transition to online] mirrors that more.
Meg: I like the way you said that. Okay, so this is a way different question. What do you consider to be a digital literacy practice?
MG: So I’m taking a rhetoric and media class right now, and I feel like that helps me answer this question a little bit. But I feel like it’s anything that is creating a type of content. Or, anything that is helping you gain information or put out information. The simplest example I can think of as a digital literacy practice is reading something online, making a website, or making a post. All of that. Anything that involves content and meaning would be a digital literacy practice, whether it’s pictures or words or a blog or anything like that.
Meg: Are there any major differences that you notice between your digital literacy practices inside and outside of school?
MG: I think the way I express myself, and the way I type and the way I word things is a lot more rigid for school, even though the switch to online has made that more relaxed. I definitely think that if you took all the writing I produced for school, you still would not have a clue as to who I am or what I like. Or what I’m about. I think that’s probably true for most people just because in school we aren’t always writing about the stuff that we are passionate about. Outside of school, [my digital literacy practices] are more for enjoyment, but I don’t usually write as much outside of school. Sometimes I journal, and I think that helps flesh out my ideas, so that could be helpful in school. But really, the main difference is in how I express myself. I don’t think that the way I convey myself in an academic setting is genuine, sadly.
Meg: I see. This is the last question, and you kind of touched on it a little bit. Do you think that there are any transferable skills between your practices in school and out of school?
MG: Yes! I think practices out of school can help with being a little bit more creative in school. Because we’re constantly ingesting other people’s ideas [online] and that obviously influences the way that we think and how we view things. And whether we see something in school or out of school it’s going to affect what we do in school, just because we are constantly on social media. And like I said in the last question, there’s a total difference between my writing for school and my informal writing, but now I’m seeing them become a little bit more similar. I used to feel so much pressure to sound bureaucratic when I wrote in school, with these long sentences and complex words, and now I see myself relaxing a little bit and sounding more real, I guess you would say. More like a real person. Especially since everything is going online and we’re seeing more methods of communication online, nobody wants to sit there and read an email that sounds like Albert Einstein wrote it, you know?
When I would try to write emails to my teachers, I would try to make myself sound so smart, and now I’ve realized that the teacher is just coming and reading this email, and then forgetting about it. So my writing has definitely relaxed a little bit in school, to summarize the answer to that.
Meg: So do you feel more authentic? Kind of like you were saying earlier about how if people read your school stuff they wouldn’t know you, but do you feel like that’s changing a little bit?
MG: Yeah, definitely with this semester. We can now switch so quickly from academic to informal. And we can be in a Zoom call and on social media at the same time. I don’t want to say that I’ve lowered the standards for myself, but there is definitely less pressure on myself. And I feel like it’s best for everyone that way, because, you know, teachers don’t want you to sound like a robot.