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com

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Computers and Composition 54 (2019) 102511

State of the Field: Teaching with Digital Tools in the Writing and
Communication Classroom

∗
Joy Robinson a, , Lisa Dusenberry b, Liz Hutter c, Halcyon Lawrence d,
Andy Frazee e, Rebecca E. Burnett e
a
University of Alabama in Huntsville, UAH English Department, 301 Sparkman Drive, Huntsville, AL 35899
b
Georgia Southern University
c
University of Dayton
d
Towson University
e
Georgia Institute of Technology
Available online 14 October 2019

Abstract
Recent rapid technological change has influenced the ways writing and communication teachers and students use digital tools
in their classrooms. We surveyed 328 writing and communication teachers about their use of digital resources in the classroom,
in planning, and in course management. Our study finds that over one-third of teachers either teach themselves or use their
existing knowledge to support digital pedagogy; learning management systems are used overwhelmingly to distribute materials;
teachers perform a range of teaching tasks with both digital and non-digital tools; and teachers often depend on familiar,
commonly available resources to perform teacher and learner actions. We recommend that the field should offer more targeted
training for writing and communication teachers about the use of digital resources, support development of a repository of
crowdsourced best practices, advocate for teachers to become stakeholders in the development and selection of digital resources
to encourage more deliberate and targeted use of digital tools, and systematically collect information about digital resource use in
the field.
© 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: teaching; pedagogy; digital tools; writing; communication; technology; LMS

1. Introduction

We now have teachers of writing and communication who have always lived in a digital world—who have
always had access to the Internet, who have always had email, and who have grown up with social media. For these
teachers (and the rest of us as well), digital resources have become ubiquitous. By 2017, for example, 77% of
Americans owned smartphones (Pew Research Center, 2018), and Facebook had over 2 billion monthly users (“Top
20 Facebook Statistics - Updated April 2017,” 2017Top 20 Facebook Statistics — Updated April, 2017“Top 20 Facebook
Statistics
- Updated April 2017,” 2017).

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: joy.robinson@uah.edu (J. Robinson).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2019.102511
8755-4615/© 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
2 J. Robinson et al. / Computers and Composition 54 (2019)
102511
Teachers of writing and communication are participants in this digital evolution. As Adam Banks noted in his
2015 CCCC keynote address, the “writing and communication universe [has gone] through not only intense change,
but an ever-increasing tempo of change” (p. 273). Groundbreaking processes and products continue to affect the
pedagogy of writing and communication teachers; moreover, the boundaries between digital resources as consumer
products and as pedagogical tools are increasingly blurred. For example, Twitter was developed as a consumer
microblogging tool but has been adapted to many classroom activities and as a backchannel for class discussion. As
writing and communication teachers, we are acutely aware that many digital resources are beneficial both to
teaching and to society at large (Pew Research Center, 2015). The range of digital resources now available has
prompted us to ask questions about the ways teachers use them in the classroom.
Our study establishes a baseline of the ways digital resources are used by teachers of writing and communication
(including composition, technical communication, and professional communication). In situating our results, we
con- tribute to current scholarship with a field-level study that falls between existing multidisciplinary surveys and
narrower case studies. Our study asks this research question: How are digital resources used by teachers in the
writing and com- munication classroom? In asking this question, we survey direct experience—that is, what
resources teachers report that they actually choose and how they use these resources.
We define digital resources broadly to include hardware and software, operating systems and mobile applications,
storage and networking, and the support structures that make them work. This definition allows us to establish the
use of resource categories rather than focusing on querying respondents about the hundreds of specific tools that
might be used.
Our study finds that over one-third of teachers either teach themselves or use their own knowledge to support
their digital pedagogy; learning management systems are used overwhelmingly to distribute materials; teachers
perform a range of teaching tasks with both digital and non-digital tools; and teachers often depend on familiar,
commonly available resources to perform teacher and learner actions. As part of our interpretation of the findings,
we identify patterns defining the ways teachers learn and use digital tools, blend digital and non-digital tools, match
digital resources with teacher and learner actions, and react to the ubiquity of learning management systems
(LMSs). Based on these results, our recommendations urge the field to focus on pedagogically based rather than
tool-based training, improve mechanisms to help teachers share knowledge, be more involved in digital resource
development, and systematically collect information about digital resource use in the field.

2. Background

In the last 18 years—equivalent to a full generation of students—we have seen rapid and widespread changes in
technology. Fig. 1 identifies major technological developments since 2000; digital resources included in the timeline
reflect some of those adapted but not developed for the writing and communication classroom. A sample of these
changes is reflected in these categories:

• Learning management systems (LMSs): Planning, organizing, and managing classes have been centralized
with tools such as Moodle, Blackboard, Desire to Learn (D2L), Canvas, and Google Classroom.
• Website and wiki technology: WordPress, Squarespace, Weebly, Wix, and their subsequent iterations facilitate
easy website development and publication. Wikis like Wikipedia and Wikimedia enable users to contribute to
collective, crowdsourced knowledge.
• Cloud services and storage: Cloud computing allows cheap, quick, and expansive server space, supporting
popular applications such as Amazon Web Services, Dropbox, Netflix, iCloud, Microsoft OneDrive, and Adobe
Creative Cloud.
• Smart mobile devices and apps: Smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices allow users to go online more
easily and to access the internet and specialized apps from almost anywhere.
• Collaborative productivity software: Online co-authoring software such as Google Docs and Dropbox enables
simultaneous, distributed collaboration. Subsequent development expanded these offerings to include
collaborative project management software, spreadsheets, and presentation slides.
• Multimedia sharing: Sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and SoundCloud permit users to create, share, and edit video
and audio content without the need for individuals to have their own sophisticated storage and delivery systems.
 Fig. 1. A timeline of digital resources since 2000.

• Social media: Beginning with applications such as Myspace and LinkedIn, and then moving to Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram, social media connects users in unprecedented ways.

This list is far from exhaustive; nascent technologies—such as the Internet of Things (e.g., smart TVs), personal
home assistants (e.g., Amazon Alexa), and other technologies are transforming daily communication and
pedagogical practices in writing and communication as well.

3. Literature Review

The field of writing and communication—including rhetoric, composition, technical and professional
communica- tion, and writing studies—has long engaged with digital technologies/resources in the classroom (cf.
Anson, 1999; Hawisher & Selfe, 1991; Selfe & Kiefer, 1983).1 Through our study, we want to make sense of the
ways and the extent to which teachers use digital resources. While teachers try to be responsible, strategic, and
effective in using technology, the digital universe can sometimes feel overwhelming—much like trying to take a sip
of water from a firehose.

1
We classify writing and communication as our field of focus in order to acknowledge the variety of pedagogies and outcomes found across
first-year writing, composition, and/or professional communication (e.g., business, science, technical communication) courses. We have chosen
field rather than discipline to allow for responses from faculty who do not fit easily within the disciplinary or departmental boundaries that the
field might include.
 The developments in digital resources we discuss in the Background have prompted responses from the field,
including statements of professional organizations—CCCC (2013), MLA (2012), and NCTE (2005)—urging attention
to and support of the digital in our pedagogy and professional practice. Further, publications of special issues—for
example, in Computers & Composition (Carpenter & Lee, 2016; Chandler & Scenters-Zapico, 2012; DeVoss, Ball,
Selfe, & DeWitt, 2015; St Amant & Rice, 2015), Kairos (Ball, 2013; Lunsford, 2013), Technical Communication
Quarterly (Hea, 2014; Katz & Odell, 2012), The Writing Instructor (Denecker and Tulley, 2014) and Composi-
tion Studies (Jacobs, 2015)—as well as a number of edited collections and textbooks (e.g., Bowen & Whithaus,
2013; Jewitt, Bezemer, & O’Halloran, 2016; Selfe, 2007; Sidler, Smith, & Morris, 2007; Wysocki, Johnson-Eilola,
Selfe, & Sirc, 2004) suggest intense interest in using digital resources in the classroom. Despite these valuable
publications, the field needs to engage in more comprehensive and coherent discussion of the ways technologies
and tools are used throughout the field and the ways these resources affect writing and communication peda-
gogy.
As a field, we want to understand the process and identify the factors that influence the adoption of technology in
our classrooms. Fields such as education and communication studies offer frameworks that are useful for
understanding digital adoption. For example, Everett Rogers’ (1983) theory of diffusion of innovation suggests that
technology is adopted in stages: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Innovators
and early adopters create the groundwork for overcoming obstacles to the adoption of technology by a majority of
users (1983). Other frameworks—including ecological frameworks (Zhao & Frank, 2003) and domain analysis
(Kreijns, Van Acker, Vermeulen, & van Buuren, 2013)—enable researchers to more systematically consider the use
of technology by examining individual teacher variables such as attitude and self-efficacy toward digital resource
use. Karel Kreijns et al., for example, suggest that teachers who believe they are sufficiently skilled using
technology seem to experience less pressure when using digital learning materials (2013). Scholars such as Rogers
and Krejins offer ways to examine digital technology adoption through frameworks that account for both the
influence of wider systems and the role of individual agency. These theories, while they possess great explanatory
power about technology adoption and use generally, do little to help us as a field identify what digital resources are
used and how they are used by teachers in the classroom. By surveying instructors, we may better understand the
ways in which digital resources are integrated into our field’s instructional practices.
Writing and communication scholarship offers several interrelated theoretical discussions about teaching with
digital resources, often as a subset of or interlinked with discussions about multiliteracy, multimodality, and
multimedia, a discussion effectively synthesized by Claire Lauer (2009). Simply put, multiliteracy deals largely with
the ways ideas are understood, multimodality deals largely with the ways ideas are represented, and multimedia
deals largely with the ways ideas are disseminated. Multiliteracy has been addressed by the New London Group (1996),
whose work is widely cited and embraced by writing and communication scholars for arguing that “literacy
pedagogy. . . [accounts] for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia
technologies” (p. 9). Focusing these ideas for the writing and communication classroom, Stuart Selber (2004)
discusses multiliteracies as functional, critical, and rhetorical, urging teachers to move away from a one-dimensional
perspective. Multimodality has been addressed by Gunther Kress (2005, 2003) and Gunther Kress and Theo Van
Leeuwen (2001) who provide an important framework for understanding ways digital resources affect writing and
communication pedagogy, focusing on affordances of multiple modes available through technology (2005).
Multimedia has been addressed by Lev Manovich (2001) who urges re-thinking ways information is disseminated,
considering factors such as technology and scale. Further, scholars such as Pamela Takayoshi and Cynthia Selfe (2007)
and Anne Francis Wysocki et al. (2004) have urged us to consider the ways digital technology shapes meaning and
produces knowledge.
A number of studies discuss ways teachers implement technology in classrooms across disciplines. For example,
surveys conducted by Educause (Brooks, 2015) and Inside Higher Ed and Gallup (Jaschik & Lederman, 2017) provide
views of multidisciplinary uses of digital technology. In 2017, the latter surveyed more than 2,000 educators about
their attitudes regarding technology and online teaching, finding that “35 percent of faculty members consider
themselves ‘early adopters’ of new education technologies” and “nearly two-thirds of faculty members support the
increased use of technology in education” (2017, p. 6). In a survey of over 800 faculty from humanities and social
studies in California, Diane Harley and her colleagues (2006) asked about digital resources, teaching tasks, and
barriers to using digital resources. The results indicate that teachers take “‘the path of least resistance. . .a Google
search, a walk down the hall or an e-mail to a colleague’ when integrating and using digital resources in their
classrooms” (p. 8-2). These findings
suggest that while teachers are actively using educational technologies, opportunities exist to better support learning
about and using them.
One useful conversation in the literature about technology implementation addresses LMSs (Childs, Cochran,
& Velikova, 2013; Costen, 2009; Katz, 2003; Payne & Reinhart, 2008; Vovides, Sanchez-Alonso, Mitropoulou, &
Nickmans, 2007). The ability of LMSs to support collaborative learning has been examined by Carla Payne and Cornel
Reinhart (2008) who conclude that “learning architecture must encourage student interaction and conversations.
Greater control must be ceded to learners for integrated participation and constructed learning” (p. 41). Scholars
have further examined specific uses of LMS resources from the institution adoption level (Pereira & Wahi, 2017) to
the course-use level (Wilcox, Thall, & Griffin, 2016). For example, Diane Wilcox et al. (2016) examined the ways
teachers and students report using Canvas when it was implemented at their university; they conclude that teachers
and students use the LMS in fundamentally different ways. Lauren Salisbury has reported that teachers think of
LMSs as “‘just a tool’ or ‘a supplement’ to classroom instruction” (2018, p. 11).
When we move from broad surveys to scholarship focused on individual classroom practice, many articles
discuss assignment design that focuses on a specific digital resource; for example, articles about social media (Coad,
2013), video games (Sabatino, 2014; Vance, 2017), and podcasts (Bowie, 2008; Jones, 2010). Lisa Dusenberry, Liz
Hutter, and Joy Robinson (2015) discuss the affordances provided by digital assignments in the writing and
communication classroom and the ways those affordances develop 21st-century competencies. So, too, a range of
scholarship discusses the potential for digital resources to ground lectures, activities, and discussions by examining
the ways they are used, for example, for planning and delivering peer review activities (Li & Li, 2017), performing
digital editing (Hill, Wallace, & Haas, 1991), and using resources for revision (Hayes, 2004). A number of articles
review teachers’ uses of particular technologies of delivery, such as PowerPoint (Remley, 2010), Prezi (Chou, Chang,
& Lu, 2015), and MOOC platforms (O’Brien, Forte, Mackey, & Jacobson, 2017). In general, these studies
demonstrate the range of scholarship about individual practices with digital resources, and their narrow scope
necessarily limits our understanding of the ways digital resources are implemented across teaching tasks in our field.
Asking questions at the field-level increases our understanding of the ways we use digital resources
pedagogically. Daniel Anderson et al. (2006) administered one of the few research studies that produced data about
the use of digital resources within our field; their study created a “contemporary snapshot” of multimodality in
composition (p. 66). More recently, Gwendolynne Reid, Robin Snead, Keon Pettiway, and Brent Simoneaux (2016)
surveyed multimodal composition in the writing across the curriculum (WAC), writing in the disciplines (WID), and
communication across the curriculum (CXC) programs at their institution to present “a snapshot of multimodal
communication practices and assignments across disciplines” (p. 1). These studies point to the need to more
frequently assess the use of digital resources and the relationship between digital resources and teaching practices
across the field.
Our work began as a way to understand the technological changes that have happened since Anderson et al.’s
study (2006). We designed our study to reach a larger pool of respondents and to address the major changes in
available digital resources since 2006. Additionally, while Ronda Reid, Andrea Gregg, Vicki Williams, and Amy Garbrick
(2016) extend Anderson’s consideration of multimodal composition and the ways the concept works within
WAC/WID, our study focuses on the technologies used to support teaching.
Our study identifies the ways digital resources are used in classrooms across our field by asking this research
question: “How are digital resources used by teachers in the writing and communication classroom?” Our study is
distinctive because of its focus, its kairotic moment, its methodology, and its attention to ways that digital resources
are used in our field. In addition, our study examines a broad range of digital resources at a watershed moment in
technological development. Further, we establish a methodology that is useful in identifying and taking into
consideration teaching tasks, their categories, and their extent of use. Taken together, this synergy allows us to
provide a baseline from which our field can ask questions and move in productive directions.

4. Research Methods

Our study was sponsored by the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) through a
Research Initiative Grant and was approved by Georgia Tech’s Institutional Review Board (#H15075). We chose a
survey because it enabled us to collect information from a large number of people, distribute it widely, and learn not
only about respondents’ attitudes, but also about their contexts—that is, their professional circumstances,
institutional conditions, and classroom practices.

4.1. Survey Participants

We surveyed teachers about their use of digital resources in college-level writing and communication courses,
including first-year composition, technical communication, and professional writing. A total of 632 people
attempted the survey; 531 (84.0%) respondents met eligibility requirements: having taught writing and
communication courses within the last two years and being older than 18 years of age. The survey was completed
by 328 (61.8%) teachers. Respondents represented six continents, 49 states in the US, and 317 schools. Our
respondents were mostly white (85%), female (68%), and on average, 45 years of age; they mostly taught at four-
year schools (87.5%). Most respon- dents were employed as either tenured professors (28%) or lecturers (26%);
only 19% indicated they were assistant professors on the tenure track. The majority of respondents possessed
degrees in literature (74%), composition (39%), or mass communication (18%) and taught predominantly in areas of
composition (65%), technical and professional communication (39%), and literature (28%). The majority of
respondents (71%) indicated they were at least proficient with technology, and 80% of respondents reported
teaching digitally for 5 or more years (see Fig. 2).

4.2. The Survey

The survey was created in SurveyGizmo and took respondents an average of 35 minutes to complete (instrument
available online: https://goo.gl/4WFiSk). The survey was soft launched with 38 faculty members of Georgia Tech’s
Writing and Communication Program in spring 2015. Subsequently, it was disseminated through professional and
teacher-oriented listservs (TechRhet, CRTNet, WPA, and ATTW) and social media networks. The survey remained
open for 168 days and periodic reminders were sent to the listservs. Respondents were not offered remuneration for
their participation.
In order to answer the research question, we designed the survey to address three different areas: (1) digital
resources,
(2) teaching tasks, and (3) teacher and learner actions. For digital resources, we organized digital tools into two lists
(an extensive list of 20 items and a summary list of 9 items, all of which are designated digital resource types).
For more detail, see the Appendix. For both lists, we elected not to provide narrow definitions; instead, we pro-
vided examples of resources that fit the category. We wanted participants’ answers to reflect their specific context
and choices, which might not be captured by a singular definition. The extensive list included common commercial
digital tools and resources that could be used in the classroom. This list included resources such as digital video
(for example, YouTube and DVDs) and chat (for example, Snapchat, AIM). The 9 item summary list allowed us to
inquire broadly about the extent of resource use for specific questions; for example, instead of asking about
Microsoft Word, we asked about productivity apps and provided examples that included Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
and Adobe Acrobat.
For the teaching tasks, we described a set of 14 different tasks in the classroom, so we could further identify the
ways digital resources are being used by teachers (for example, planning class lectures, facilitating in-class
activities, or distributing course materials). Additionally, we developed six teacher and learner actions that each
describe a type of classroom engagement in order to better understand the extent to which digital resources are used.
Drawing on typical teacher behaviors, teacher actions were defined as plan with before class, talk about in class,
and demo it during class. Learner actions—actions teachers require of students—were defined as view (students see
it in class), use (students use it as part of an activity), and make (students produce it as an assignment). See the
Appendix for the specific item lists.
A few other studies employ the teaching tasks concept, but refer to the tasks as “behaviors” (Fisher et al., 1981;
Saklofske, Michayluk, & Randhawa, 1988), “characteristics” and “styles” (Lumpkin & Multon, 2013), or “routines”
(Yinger, 1979). However, these previous studies isolate only a few tasks; we designed our survey to cover the
majority of a teacher’s tasks. Furthermore, we grouped individual tasks into three larger teaching areas: planning
and delivering, course management, and projects/assignments—similar to what Charles Fisher et al. (1981) calls
“functions.” These larger task categories helped us focus responses on the ways teaching tasks and digital resources
relate to each other.
 Fig. 2. Demographics of teachers in the study.

5. Results

The data addressing our research question, “How are digital resources used by teachers in the writing and
communi- cation classroom?”, are summarized in Table 1. In this section, we report results about teacher use of
digital resources for teaching tasks and for teacher and learner actions.
 Table 1
A recap of the results from the survey.

Fig. 3. Resources that support digital pedagogy (Q14).

5.1. Teaching Tasks Using Digital Resources

We asked teachers about the support for and use of specific categories of tools in their teaching. We asked
teachers, “Please rank order up to five resources you find most valuable in supporting your digital pedagogy”
(Q14); 25 options were available from which respondents could choose. In Fig. 3, we identify the top 10 ranked
responses.

• The most valuable options ranked by respondents to support their digital pedagogy emphasized relying on
themselves (a combined 36.8%): they either “taught themselves” (21.3%) or used their “own existing knowledge”
(15.5%).
• Another group of ranked responses sought help from others (a combined 23.4%) which included “internal local
colleagues” (7.2%), “technology specialists” (6.7%), “professional development” (5.9%), and “external academic
colleagues” (3.6%).
• The final group of ranked responses sought help in print or online resources (a combined 18.4%), which included
“peer-reviewed scholarship” (5.7%), “external online information” (4.9%), “campus library” (4.2%), and “non-
peer reviewed publications” (3.6%).
Table 2
Teaching tasks and the most and least used resources.

Respondents were asked “Which of the following resources do you use to accomplish the following teaching
tasks?” (Q15). Respondents could select any of 11 resources—seven digital and four non-digital options (“does not
apply to me,” “non-digital” [e.g., pen, chalk, markers], “in-person” [e.g., face to face, with colleagues, with
students], and “none”)—for any of 14 teaching tasks (e.g., facilitating course discussion, distributing course
materials). Table 2 shows that for nine of our teaching tasks, the most used digital resource was “course
management apps.” Table 2 also shows the least used set of resources were “your own internet resources” and
“internet resources by others.” A non-digital resource, “in-person,” was used the most in five of the 14 tasks. In
addition, respondents reported they used the following resources the most for specific teaching tasks:

• “in-person” (non-digital) practices (93%) for the task of facilitating “in-class discussion”
• “course management applications”2 (90%) for the task of “distributing course materials”
• “productivity apps” (85%) for the task of “planning course assignments”

The relationship between digital and non-digital activities is displayed in Fig. 4, which uses the same data from
Table 2. The vertical bars indicate the use of non-digital resources (i.e., “in person” and “non-digital”) for teaching
tasks. The shaded background represents the highest use of digital tools for each teaching task. The superimposition
of

2
LMSs are included in course management applications.
 Fig. 4. Teaching tasks completed by non-digital methods (Q15).

Table 3
Most and least frequently used digital resources by teacher actions.

the highest non-digital use (the bars) on the highest digital use (shaded background) reinforces that the data show no
teaching task as entirely digital or entirely non-digital; however, some tasks are decidedly more digital (e.g.,
planning course assignments) and other tasks are decidedly more non-digital (e.g., facilitating class discussion).

5.2. Teacher and Learner Actions Using Digital Resources

We asked teachers about specific ways they use digital resources in the classroom by using the nomenclature of
use it for planning, talk about it, demonstrate it, view it3, use it, and make it4 —with the “it” being a digital resource.
Instructors were also asked about teacher actions, “In the past two years, in what ways have you used the following
digital resources in your teaching?” (Q11), and about learner actions, “How do students interact with the following
digital resources in your classroom?” (Q12).
Respondents reported they used the following resources for each teacher action (see Table 3):

• For Plan: 85% indicate that they use “websites,” 83% use “course management software/system”, 82% use
“digital video.” Only 6% use “video games” for planning.

3
For expediency and clarity, we use the term view it here, but the survey language refers to it as “Students experience it through in-class
activities or exercises.”
4
Note: when we asked teachers “Do students make. . .?”, we intended “make” to indicate artifacts of assignments. For example, for chat, we
intended “make chats” to means “create chat texts.” For “make presentations,” we intended “giving presentations.” For “making apps” or “making
games,” we intended that students would create their own original apps or games, not use apps or games created by others.
• For Talk: 70% indicate that they most talked about “email,” 68% about “presentation software,” 67% about
“visual resources” and “digital video,” respectively, and 66% talk about “websites.” Only 21% talk about “chats”
and “video games,” respectively.
• For Demo: 69% indicate that they most demonstrate “presentation software,” and 65% demonstrate “course
manage- ment software.” Only 12% demonstrate “chats” and “simulations or animations”, and only 5%
demonstrate “video games.”

Respondents reported that they asked their students to use the following resources as part of learner actions (see
Table 3):

• View it: 84% indicate that their students view “websites.” Only 11% indicate that their students view “video
• games.” Use it: 85% indicate that their students use “email” and “websites,” and 80% use “course management
soft- ware/system.” Only 18% use “chat” in completing an assignment, and only 11% indicate that their students
use “video games.”
• Make it: 73% indicate that their students use “presentation software” while only 5% indicate that their students
use “chat” for an assignment or project.

6. Discussion

Based on these results, we discuss findings related to self-reliance, resource selection, teaching and learning, and
the ubiquity of LMSs. Each section synthesizes our data, suggests patterns within the data, and offers implications
for the field of writing and communication.

6.1. Self-Reliance for Teaching with Digital Resources

Our data (Fig. 3) suggest that support for teachers’ use of digital resources comes from a range of sources,
including personal and departmental support as well as formal and informal training. Our survey respondents seek
help from others to support their use of digital pedagogy (23.4%) and seek help from print or online information
(18.4%). Notably, we found that more than a third of respondents are self-reliant, indicating that they use their own
existing knowledge or teach themselves about digital resources.
In writing and communication, self-reliance is prevalent; respondents may perceive that using one’s own
knowledge or teaching oneself takes less time and is more convenient than seeking formal training (which may
require planning and logistical support). Our data reaffirm a point made by Harley and her colleagues (2006), who
suggest that teachers often seek what they perceive as the easiest or fastest approach. Additionally, we speculate
self-reliance may also result in unidentified gaps in knowledge—that is, self-reliant teachers may not know what
they do not know. Training, therefore, becomes imperative.
If we—as a field and as educators—are committed to staying updated about new compositional and pedagogical
technologies, we need to consider ways to learn these technologies more efficiently. As Christine Denecker and
Christine Tulley suggest with regard to multimodal composition, we “cannot be static; therefore, the learning and
support must be on going. And those who want to grow and develop multimodal composition practices often need
technical training—or at the very least, technical support—in order to keep up with the changes in the field” (2014
p.1). Given the ever-increasing development of digital resources, institutions and administrators should ask
questions about the ways departmental culture may affect teachers’ choices about digital resource use and should
examine practical ways in which teachers can use their time more efficiently when they seek training to use digital
resources. Kreijns et al. see this training as critical to improving teacher self-efficacy with digital resources (2013).

6.2. Selecting Non-Digital and Digital Resources

Our data suggest that decisions teachers make about resource use are primarily driven by the type and complexity
of task. We identify two patterns about the ways digital resources are used to accomplish particular teaching tasks
(e.g., planning course assignments, facilitating discussions, and distributing materials).
6.2.1. Using Non-Digital and Digital Resources
Our data indicate that teaching tasks are accomplished through various means: digital, non-digital, or both. Fig. 4
shows that both digital and non-digital resources are used for any particular teaching task; simply put, digital and
non-digital technologies (including in-person interaction) are not mutually exclusive. For example, respondents
report that tasks such as “giving student feedback” and “distributing student feedback” are accomplished almost
equally by digital and non-digital means.
Teachers are not using digital resources as much as we had expected, especially given the prevalence of such
resources discussed in the Background section. We believe increasing the use of digital resources does not have to
mean sacrificing in-person or non-digital resources. With additional training or tools developed specifically for the
field, teachers may be able to accomplish complex and in-person class goals (e.g., increasing participation,
including marginalized students) through the use of digital resources in classes.

6.2.2. Selecting Digital Resources by Task

Respondents indicated that they facilitate complex tasks (e.g., tasks with unpredictable outcomes such as
facilitating discussion) more often through in-person or non-digital means (see Fig. 4). As the interactivity and
complexity of teaching tasks increase, teachers typically invest more time in learning and understanding digital
resources to facilitate these tasks, often leading them to choose the default, institutionally supported resource (i.e.,
the LMS) or perform tasks without digital resources at all. Since classroom practices include dynamic and emergent
activities that have many parts and require finessed management of student contributions, teachers may select non-
digital resources given the many years of pedagogical instruction and field-level discussion about those techniques
—years that we have not yet invested regarding the integration of digital resources in the classroom.
Opportunities exist to expand the use of digital resources in our classrooms; these opportunities may, in fact, lead
to new and/or reshaped pedagogical practices. For example, teachers can find new ways to blend digital technology
with existing practices such as using projected slides to continue or advance discussions in real time or capturing
handwritten student work from the whiteboard with smartphone cameras. To make blends like this possible, teachers
need to be aware of the benefits, challenges, limitations, and synergies of both digital and non-digital approaches in
order to address a range of planning, course management, and in-class tasks. Based on our results, we speculate that
instructors do not adopt digital resources solely because they are digital or new. Teachers will sacrifice the time and
energy needed to adopt a resource and train themselves in that resource - to meet the needs of students and enhance
their courses’ learning outcomes. As a field, we should reduce the time and effort teachers must take to adapt and
adopt resources while enhancing their existing practices. Also, having greater involvement in the ways digital
resources are developed would allow our field opportunities to address the ways digital resources are designed to
support pedagogical tasks. When digital resources support our pedagogical tasks, learning outcomes are likely to be
better met as well.

6.3. Teacher and Learner Actions

Our data (see Fig. 5 after) indicate that teachers tend to use each digital resource consistently among teaching
actions (plan, talk, demo) and student learning actions (view, use, make). Certain digital resources (e.g., presentation
software, websites, and email) appear as top choices across teaching and learning actions—perhaps because these
resources are ubiquitous in classroom culture, commonly used as information sources and genres for assignments
(what Anderson 2008, p. 42 refers to as “low-bridge” technologies). However, some resources such as simulations,
chat, and Twitter are used much less often—perhaps because they require more preparation, experience, or present
privacy concerns for student use. These resources are mostly viewed and used in class but less often made by
students as assignments. Additionally, resources such as video games are rarely viewed in class or assigned as
projects for students to make—perhaps because they are more complex and use multiple communication modes
(e.g., audio, visual, and written). We present three patterns derived from our data that reflect reported teacher and
student actions using these resources.

6.3.1. Allocating Time for Teaching and Learning Actions

Our data indicate that teaching actions and learning actions are relatively balanced—that is, teachers spend
similar amounts of effort and time planning, talking, and demonstrating digital resources in class as they have
students viewing,
 Fig. 5. Stacked bar chart of teacher and learner actions areas mapped to digital resources (Q11, Q12).

using, and making those resources (see Fig. 5 which visualizes this balance split at the 50% mark). These data
reaffirm that our teaching and learning actions reflect our field’s emphasis on student-centered, activity-based
pedagogy.
Fig. 5 also shows the percentage of distribution within each action. For example, presentation software and blogs
are almost equally split on the vertical bar among make, use, view, demo, talk, and plan. On the other hand, within
the video games vertical bar, demo is the smallest in relationship to the other five actions. These variations among
teacher and learner actions for different digital resources are discussed more extensively in the sections that follow.

6.3.2. Using Familiar Resources for Teaching and Learning Actions

Even though a broad range of digital resources are used in the classroom, some resources receive only modest
attention (e.g., video games and chat) while others receive comparatively more substantial attention (e.g.,
presentation software, LMSs, websites, and email). Additionally, the data show that the resources with substantial
attention are also commonly used across all teaching and learning actions, with only small differences between
whether teachers plan, talk about, or demo a resource and whether they ask students to view, use, or make it.
We speculate that availability of and familiarity with these digital resources may explain these two findings.
Teachers and students may be more comfortable with familiar resources that have broad availability on institutional
and personal computers. These resources become the go-to choices for teachers faced with decisions about
allocating limited time in their busy classrooms. Further, familiarity is not just about knowing what tools exist and
how they are used but also knowing how those tools/resources fit into rhetorical goals and pedagogy. Those digital
resources that are used evenly across all actions are ones with established genres with identifiable
features/affordances; thus, teachers can assign these resources as deliverables in a variety of writing and
communication scenarios. However, teachers’ return to and reliance on familiar resources such as LMSs,
presentation software, and email can constrain our field’s ability to innovate and leverage new technologies. By
pushing beyond the familiar, we can begin to fulfill Banks’ disciplinary challenge to value “composing” in new
contexts and “embrace technology issues not as part of what we do, but as central to what we do” (2015, p. 247).

6.3.3. Talking About and Demonstrating Digital Resources

Overall, our data indicate a roughly even attention given to talking about and to demonstrating digital resources
in the classroom. However, a few resources are talked about far more often than demonstrated. For example, while
respondents indicate that they talk about and demo chat and video games the least, chat and video games are talked
about at least twice as frequently as they are demonstrated. We suggest three reasons for this difference.
 The first reason is that assignments using these digital resources (e.g., chat, video games) may require a steeper
learning curve for using them as coursework and may be difficult to submit and/or assess. Student-made video
games, for instance, may require students and teachers to take more time to access and negotiate the software, may
be cumbersome to submit because of file size and format, and may be difficult to assess because of the combination
of code, images, audio, and/or writing. The second reason is that as prevalent social phenomena, these digital
resources may be considered important topics of discussion in and of themselves. For example, instructors may talk
about Twitter in relation to its influence on current political events, rather than demonstrating the ways Twitter
works or asking students to use Twitter in the class. The third reason is that the public-facing nature of these digital
resources raises issues of privacy, unpredictability, and longevity. For example, teachers may ask students to draft
text for Facebook posts or mock up a Facebook page to strategize audience analysis or argument; however, students
may not make an actual Facebook page because of issues such as privacy, access, and/or ease of evaluation. Some
institutions have policies to handle student privacy related to internet use, but following and updating best practices
to keep students safe takes considerable time and might make teachers reluctant to require such assignments.

6.4. Ubiquitous Use of LMSs

Table 2 indicates that LMSs are the most used digital tool across many teaching tasks. This finding supports
previous research that shows LMSs are used extensively (Browne, Jenkins, & Walker, 2006; Dahlstrom, Brooks, &
Bichsel, 2014)—likely due to institutional requirements (Dutton, Cheong, & Park, 2004). Further, we support
Salisbury’s findings that teachers often see LMSs as separate from their pedagogy (2018). Our data indicate that
while LMSs are generally used for relatively simple tasks with predictable outcomes (e.g., collecting assignments
and distributing grades), they are less often used for more complex tasks with more unpredictable outcomes (e.g.,
facilitating discussion among students).
Aside from the expected actions of teachers talking about and demonstrating LMSs in class as a way of level-
setting (i.e., getting all students on-board) and as a part of managing their class, we propose that teachers may also
need to talk about and demonstrate LMSs in class because the LMS may be more difficult to use than expected.
Although students have had lifelong exposure to digital resources and rhetorical conventions (e.g., format, content,
tone, and audience), effectively using these resources and conventions can be challenging for students. While LMSs
are purported to be easy to use and to be a way of providing transparency in the classroom, we also speculate that
both students and teachers have an understated difficulty learning and using LMSs. Individual teachers take
approaches that best fit their classroom practices using the various tools and features within the LMS.
Personalization of use by teachers, high training costs, a lack of adequate formal student training, and tool
complexity may prompt the need for teachers to talk and demo LMSs in class.
While LMSs provide an easily available (and typically required) way to digitally manage the class, the
functionality of the tools and resources they replicate can limit or obscure the affordances those resources should
offer (e.g., blog and wiki functionality). Teachers and students can be further challenged to engage with the digital
resources that are shaping contemporary communication—in ways that LMSs do not or cannot. We agree with Payne
and Reinhart (2008) that LMSs—being a one-size-fits-all, institutional tool—do not readily support our field’s
constructivist pedagogies. LMSs often neglect sophisticated or just sufficient options for strategies such as peer
review, low-stakes activities, and varied forms of feedback. Therefore, we assert with Harley and colleagues (2006)
and Payne and Reinhart (2008) that potential exists to involve experts (in our case, writing and communication
teachers) as agents in the development and improvement of subsequent LMSs and other resources.

7. Recommendations

Based on our findings and discussion, we offer four recommendations for action.

1 Develop tailored training that supports teachers’ self-reliance and incorporates a blend of digital and non-digital
resources for teaching. By encouraging more pedagogically based training in digital resources at the field and
department levels, we create networks of colleagues and engage with resources designed to fit our classrooms and
pedagogy rather than relying on generalized training at an institutional level.
2 Develop a curated repository that compiles teachers’ anecdotal experiences and experimental moments to pro-
vide a central collection to share and discuss digital resources. While building on existing models of community
like the WAC Clearinghouse, this repository would differentiate itself by focusing on individual, crowdsourced
input from teachers to discuss their experiences and provide video instructions, examples, and digital tool ratings.
The repository would also serve as institutional memory for the field, capturing the rich history of conversa-
tions occurring in our listservs (e.g., WPA and NCTE) while also supporting our pedagogies and their continued
development.
3 Increase our involvement in the development of specific tools at all levels (e.g., as individual experts, as a
field, and as organizations) so that tools are developed from pedagogical actions rather than trying to fit pedagogy
around existing tools. We echo Jeff Grabill’s (2016) call to involve writing and communication teachers as “field
experts” in the development and improvement of digital tools and provide the support/access to the resources and
skills required to create their own resources.
4 Create sustained, annual or biennial research studies to provide an ongoing, updated understanding of the
ways the field uses digital resources. A regularly circulated questionnaire to survey the field on the use of
technology would provide evidence to administration and resource developers to support context-specific training
and creation.

8. Conclusion

We want to end by re-posing our research question: “How are digital resources used by teachers in the writing
and communication classroom?” Digital resources are used across every teaching and learning task we asked about.
Most teachers use commonly available and familiar resources (largely LMSs), and teachers largely rely on
themselves to learn and use available technologies. Our article demonstrates that, as a field, we are responding to the
issues Banks (2015) raises in his CCCC address by exploring ways teachers are adapting, adopting, and blending
new technologies and their affordances into teaching and composing. Ultimately, teachers are using digital
resources, but such use often involves grappling with these resources’ limitations for teaching writing and
communication.
Our findings highlight a critical need to document the ways our field adapts to and deals with changes related to
digital tools and pedagogy. We urge teachers to embrace, develop, and explore a blend of digital and non-digital
resources that best fits their needs. Additionally, we encourage the field to be proactive (within limits of time and
resources) in supporting the changes and adaptations necessary to facilitate this exploration. While our study is
ongoing, we also encourage other scholars to take up this work toward establishing a comprehensive understanding
of the ways the field uses digital resources in pedagogy. The results of this research will allow the field to advocate
for the next generation of digital resources that can enhance classroom instruction.

Acknowledgements

Despite the order in which the authors appear in this paper, all authors contributed equally to the production of
this work. This work was supported by the Conference on College Composition & Communication through a 2014-
2015 CCCC Research Initiative grant. (This is also at line 186 under heading 4 Research Methods.)
Appendix. Full Lists of Tasks, Actions, and Resource Types Referenced in the Study

List of 14 teaching tasks List of six (6) teacher and learner actions
1. Planning class lectures
2. Giving class lectures 1. I use it as a part of my planning (e.g., read blogs for ideas)
3. Planning in-class activities 2. I demo or model how to use it (e.g., make a blog post in class)
4. Facilitating in-class activities 3. I talk about it in class (e.g., discuss best practices for blog posting)
5. Planning course assignments 4. Students experience it through in-class activities or exercises
6. Distributing course assignments 5. Students use it in the process of completing an assignment
7. Collecting completed assignments 6. Students make it as an assignment or project
8. Tracking student progress
9. Distributing course materials
10. Distributing assignment grades
11. Giving your feedback on student work
12. Distributing your feedback on student work
13. Facilitating peer review, and
14. Facilitating in-class discussion

List of 20 digital resources types (Q11/Q12) Summary list of nine (9) digital resource types (Q15)

1. Websites
2. Blogs
3. News or other media outlets (e.g., Reddit, Digg)
4. Collaborative software (e.g., Google Documents, Piazza)
5. Visual resources (e.g., images, editing software)
6. Audio resources (e.g., podcasts, audio clips, editing software)
7. E-textbooks, E-journals, or digital course packs
8. Social media (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest)
9. Twitter
10. Presentation software (e.g., Prezi, Keynote, PowerPoint)
11. Wikis
12. Email
13. Simulations or animations
14. Video games
15. Cloud storage (e.g., Dropbox)
16. Forums and online class discussions
17. Online digitized documents (e.g., government
documents, archival materials)
18. Course management software/system
19. Chat (e.g., Snapchat, AIM)
20. Digital video (e.g., YouTube, DVDs)
1. In person (e.g., face to face, with colleagues, with students)
2. Non digital (e.g., pen, chalk, markers)
3. Communication applications (e.g., email, chat, Skype,
Google Hangouts)
4. Productivity applications (e.g., Word, Excel, PowerPoint,
Adobe Acrobat)
5. Course management applications (e.g., Blackboard,
Piazza, Moodle)
6. Collaborative applications (e.g., Google docs)
7. Desktop publishing applications (e.g., Adobe InDesign, Quark)
8. Your own Internet resources (e.g., websites, blogs, wikis,
links, videos, images)
9. Internet resources designed by others (e.g., websites, blogs,
wikis, links, videos, images)

Joy Robinson is an assistant professor at The University of Alabama in Huntsville and teaches Technical Communication, New Media, and User
Experience courses. She runs the UAH Evaluation and User Experience Lab where her research focuses on collaboration and teaming in various
work contexts. Her work has been published in TCQ, JTWC, CDQ, and IEEE ProComm. Her most recent article A¨ Geographic and Disciplinary
Examination of UX Empirical Research Since 2000¨investigated gaps in UX research in the US.
Lisa Dusenberry is an Assistant Professor of Professional Communication at Georgia Southern University. Her research focuses on
psychological safety, collaboration, and 21st century technical communication teaching strategies. She also investigates intersections between
technical commu- nication and children’s media, especially analyzing reader-player dynamics (demonstrating how texts operate as interfaces to
shape participation) and incorporating coding/design thinking concepts into storytelling. Her work has most recently appeared in IEEE
ProComm and JTWC.

Liz Hutter is an Assistant Professor in the department of English at the University of Dayton. Her research areas include technical communica-
tion, rhetoric of health and medicine, and STEM pedagogy. Her work has been published in Configurations, Journal of Technical Writing and
Communication, and Communication Design Quarterly.
Halcyon Lawrence is an Assistant Professor in the department of English at Towson University. She has 20 years of teaching and professional
experience as a technical trainer and usability practitioner in the US and in her native island, Trinidad and Tobago. Her research focuses on
speech intelligibility, speech technologies, and the design of speech interactions for under-represented user populations. Her most recent essay,
“Siri Disciplines” is forthcoming as a chapter in Your Computer is on Fire published by MIT Press.
Andy Frazee is Associate Director of the Writing and Communication Program and Senior Academic Professional in the School of Literature,
Media, and Communication. His interests focus on postmodern and contemporary poetry and poetics, faculty development, innovation in higher
education, and writing program administration. He served as project manager for GT team awarded a Gates Foundation Grant to develop one of
the first Massive Open Online Courses focused on college writing. His most recent work (co-authored with Rebecca Burnett and Olga
Menagarishvili) is a chapter in Blended Learning in Practice: A Guide for Practitioners and Researchers published by MIT Press.

Rebecca Burnett is the Class of ’58 Professor of Rhetoric in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication. Her areas of interest include
professional and technical communication; collaboration, groups, and teams; communication assessment; communication in the disciplines and
professions; intercultural/international communication; and risk communication. Her recent chapters appear in collections published by MIT
Press, Utah State UP, University of Michigan Press, Ashgate, and University of Chicago Press

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