Teaching European Literature and Culture with Contents Page

C & IT
CTI Centre for Textual Studies

Introduction: technology in teaching literature and

culture: some reflections
Sarah Porter,
Humanities Computing Development Team, University of Oxford
sarah.porter@oucs.ox.ac.uk

Abstract

In March 1998 the CTI Centre for Textual Studies hosted a one-day conference
entitled 'Teaching European Literature and Culture with Communication and
Information Technology'. The lengthy title is justified by the specific focus of the
conference: to consider those aspects of current teaching in European languages
with C& IT which broaden the view beyond language learning to consider the
cultural, historical and literary elements which complement and inform the
learning of a language. There is a general perception in higher education that
technology has little to contribute to the study of literature and culture. This
conference aimed to redress the balance by giving practitioners the opportunity to
share their experiences with using technology to teach literary and cultural studies,
and to provide a platform for discussion. This paper will first explore some of the
reasons for the lack of research into the use of technology in teaching literature
and culture within modern languages, and will then explore three basic questions:
how can technology make a valuable contribution to the teaching of literature and
cultural studies? How does technology affect the relationships between subject
matter and teaching methodology? Are there implications for the traditional
boundaries between subject areas?

CALL’s poor relation?

Computer-assisted Language Learning is highly successful both as an area of

research, and as a practical methodology for the enhancement of traditional
teaching methods. This great success has led to a situation where the use of
technology in teaching aspects of language studies other than language acquisition
has frequently been overlooked. As a discipline, modern languages has constantly
fought the perception that undergraduate study of modern languages is little more
than a vocational qualification in which a skill is taught and rehearsed, with
limited emphasis upon critical thinking and understanding of issues relating to
literature, philosophy, politics and culture. This perception is confirmed by the
huge amount of literature that is available to guide students and teachers in the
field of language acquisition, with strategies for imparting and developing
expertise in languages discussed in depth. Similarly, this is an extremely active
area of research in many universities, schools, and colleges around the world, and
language learning is one of the must fruitful and successful areas of pedagogic
research at all levels.

The situation is not helped by the different camps which exist within language
studies, where teaching and research staff often specialise in either language
acquisition, linguistics, contemporary culture or literature, with at times little
exchange of ideas between these fields. As computers have so clearly proved their
value for language teaching, fuel is added to the anti-technology stance common
to some of the other areas of specialisation. Also, language teaching by nature has
a greater tendency to reflect upon and describe pedagogic methodologies, which is
not the case with literary and cultural studies.

For some or all of the reasons given above, the non-language components of
higher level language teaching are barely visible in the pedagogic literature. This
clearly does not reflect the status of many taught university courses where the
study of literature and culture has played a central role (and held considerable
academic status) in modern language departments for many years. Indeed, some of
the more traditional higher education institutions have in the past been accused of
placing more emphasis on the study of the literature of a culture than on the
acquisition of spoken fluency in a language. Literature's privileged place in
language studies has now been challenged and other cultural forms such as film
and television, for example, are frequently taking its place. This provides new
challenges to teachers of languages and to pedagogic approaches and for the
discipline as a whole. It is argued that the new emphases which we are seeing in
the syllabi of language study, with inter-disciplinary components such as Area
Studies, are leading to new developments in the discipline itself (Polezzi, 1997).
New subject areas could profitably lead to new and innovative teaching
methodologies: these changes provide us with a judicious point at which to give
consideration to teaching methods. Where the media employed may be changing,
the message is still the same: it is essential that language studies should include
core components that require critical thinking and depth of understanding. So how
can teaching of these areas best be achieved?

Technology in teaching literature

In technology-assisted learning, there is little literature outside that which

describes methodologies to harness technology for language acquisition: the
acquisition of specific vocabulary, testing and improving grammar competency,
aural and written comprehension of the second language. In general, literary or
cultural resources are used only as materials for the practice of particular language
competencies. The papers given at the ‘Teaching Literature and Culture with
C&IT’ conference focussed instead upon examples where the teaching of
literature and culture are coming together with technology to enrich the learning
process.

This collection does not attempt to present the examples discussed during the
conference as perfect examples of teaching practice with C&IT, because we do
not yet know enough about what is required to make that judgement. However,
they are interesting examples which present varied perspectives and which can
thus be used to discuss some important issues. The reader will note that the
collection also describes examples of practice drawn from the teaching of
literature in its own language, primarily within English studies. This was a
deliberate decision, as the teaching methodology used in these subjects has many
areas of commonality with the teaching of European literature and culture, for
obvious, though frequently overlooked, reasons. It is interesting to note that as the
emphasis upon literature is lessened in some language courses, language studies
components are increasingly included within English studies courses in the UK.
Projects such as the 'Read-Write' project at the University of East Anglia are
looking at the way that the study of literature is used as a basis for increasing
general literacy skills, which is interestingly similar to the traditional model used
as a part of second language teaching.

The following section will describe some of the papers given from a common
analytic perspective: to examine the teaching methodology was used and how the
technology influenced the success of that methodology.

Using C&IT to teach literary and cultural studies

The Digital Variants project grew out of the development of a research archive,
and this has no doubt helped its application to teaching in an innovative and
challenging way. Working with writers such as Antonio Millán, Roberto Vacca,
and Francesca Sanvitale, the Project’s website makes available a number of drafts
of each author’s work, with the variants in the text highlighted and linked by
hypertext, as well as sound recordings of interviews with the authors; we can also
compare the text transcriptions with the manuscripts in digital format. The
resources allow a user access to otherwise inaccessible materials, and, most
importantly, we can follow the author’s decisions made during the authoring
process. The resources thus have the potential to allow a user to learn on a number
of different levels, and this was exploited within the University of Edinburgh’s
department of Italian, where the Digital Variants archive has been used to teach
language learners skills in literary analysis, and in particular analysis of the
authorial process, with the refinement of language skills as an educational ‘by-
product’. An important part of the teaching strategy was that the IT resources were
extremely well integrated into the regular face-to-face sessions. Many
implementations of technology involve its use as a support tool or as an additional
source of resources, but in this case the IT resources were an essential part of the
course, and were given substantial amounts of class time. The tutors’ attitudes
towards the technology were also influential; for example, IT training sessions on
the use of the WWW and using word-processing packages for research activities
were carried out in parallel with introductions to new research skills, such as the
analysis of a critical edition. It was thus made clear to the students that the tutor
perceived IT research skills to be as important and relevant to their studies as the
more traditional research skills which they were also taught.

Examples of the exercises which the students completed and all the project
materials are available from the Digital Variants web site at
<http://www.ed.ac.uk/~esit04/digitalv.htm> and from reading Fiormonte et al.
(1999).

Benito Pérez Galdós is one of Spain’s most celebrated realist authors and is thus
widely studied at undergraduate level. The Pérez Galdós Editions Project is
combining two complementary aims: to publish a new scholarly edition of
Galdós’s works in traditional format complete with apparatus; and also to make
available an electronic collection of scholarly materials which will complement
the paper edition. The electronic collection, to be published on CD-ROM, will
include full, searchable editions of all of the texts and also draw together
otherwise inaccessible materials such as the manuscripts, galley proofs, serialised
versions and first editions, with other research tools such as indexes and
concordances. There will also be some multimedia background materials such as
maps and other relevant images. The electronic collection will thus contain more
material in more varied formats than the scholarly print edition.

The electronic collection is openly aimed at an academic rather than popular use,
which is reflected in its selection of serious, scholarly content. It is hoped that
students may find that the use of digital search tools and editions can give them an
easier route into the text, particularly where language may be something of a
barrier to understanding.

Whilst the project clearly has a strong research orientation, it also has interesting
implications for teaching and learning at undergraduate level. By collecting
together into a single source the type of resources which would normally only be
accessible to a determined researcher, the project developers are opening up
scholarly research to a far wider community. This raises a number of issues for a
tutor who is considering directing students towards these types of sophisticated
research resources: undergraduates cannot be presumed to have the skills needed
to work with this type of material, as it makes new demands upon them. In
addition, it is not yet clear whether the new information interrogation techniques
afforded by automatic indexing and searching help or hinder the development of
independent research skills. We need to think carefully about the implications for
the future of scholarship and the special relationship which a scholar builds with
resources that can be accessed by only a select few. The use of complex research
tools by undergraduates requires careful introduction and ongoing support. (1)

A web page for the Pérez Galdós Editions Project is located at

<http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gep/>.

The resources at the Communiqué web site are centred around specific taught
courses in literature, language and culture, and the structure of the site reflects this
focus. The site was developed through a collaboration between academic and an
educational technologist, and this has led to a reflective and thoughtful approach
to the development of the resources. Some of the more complex sections to the
Communiqué site include the ‘Introduction to Contemporary France II’, where
frames and hyperlinks have been used to allow students guided access to poetry
written in verlan, or slang; poems are re-produced in full and additional frames are
used to give access to an online glossary of terms. Also included is ‘Les chemins
du savoir’, a collection of over a hundred short texts or ‘textèmes’ which have
been selected to relate to the themes of the course. Students can perform word or
phrase searches and explore themes across a number of different texts but in a
non-linear fashion.

The teaching strategy for this implementation of technology was carefully

thought-out and implemented. In brief, the aims were ‘to improve the quality of
student participation in both lectures and seminars, to encourage wider reading of
secondary sources, and to develop essay writing skills’ (McNeill, 1999). The tutor
felt that IT could help to meet these aims by offering more stimulating ways of
delivering content and supporting learning.

The tutor explored several different methods of delivering materials in different

formats as he believed that web resources hold advantages in terms of access, easy
updating, offering flexibility for the student, easier administration, and the
opportunity to use multimedia. The most successful uses of the resources were in
two areas: where they were integrated into the teaching schedule in seminars, and
where the resources offered additional possibilities beyond the traditional teaching
paradigm, for example by offering better supporting materials, the possibility for
students and tutors to communicate between lectures and seminars, with a
consequent expansion of the teaching situation to create ‘more space’ beyond the
few contact sessions per week. In addition, the use of web resources will allow the
student to share more of the responsibility for their learning with the lecturer.
Communiqué can be accessed at
<http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/~us0cma/comm.html>.

The Virtual Seminars for Teaching Literature project has produced four online
tutorials for teaching the poetry of the First World War. The project has been
developed with a dual purpose: firstly, to provide high-quality teaching materials
for use by teachers all over the world, and secondly, to explore issues of using
technology in teaching, by giving concrete examples of ways in which technology
can enhance teaching methods. This is seen most clearly in the third of the four
tutorials, ‘An Introduction to Manuscript Study’ which uses digital versions of
Wilfred Owen’s manuscripts for ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ to introduce the student
to the academic skills used in the close study of manuscripts. Students study four
different manuscripts for the poem, and then use decisions which they make about
the chronology of the manuscripts to create their own edition of the poem. Using
methods which are coincidentally similar to the ‘Digital Variants’ project, this
tutorial gives step-by-step instructions for the development of skills, accompanied
by practical exercises. Like a number of other projects, the tutorial gives the
student access to research resources of which they would probably not ever have
been aware, and certainly would not have had the opportunity to study in depth.
Access to these resources allows students to create their own digital copy and to
compare it with other rare resources. The carefully structured introduction to the
study of manuscript resources helps the student to overcome some of the problems
described with the Pérez Galdós project; students are guided through the activity
in a precise and detailed manner, with new tasks carefully explained.

The project has particular teaching aims: to open access to the resources to
students outside traditional University courses and offer more flexible modes of
delivery; to offer better learning situations for large seminar groups with more
communication tools; to offer possibilities which are interesting to the teacher and
not just the IT designer. To help the teacher to take advantage of resources in a
teaching situation which may be unfamiliar, the resources include detailed
teachers’ notes, which give advice about the best methods of using the resources,
and give some suggestions for specific classroom activities.

Three simple rules for applying technology to teaching have been developed
following the project’s experiences, namely: ‘Technology should not be used to
replace teachers or teaching; ...Technology should only be used where a
noticeable gain to the teaching quality is evident; ..., Technology should only be
applied in appropriate stages. (Lee, 1999).

The project can be found at <http://info.ox.ac.uk/jtap/>.

How can technology contribute to the teaching of literature and culture in

language studies?

Drawing from the experiences described above, this section draws together some
remarks about how technology might make a valuable contribution to teaching
literary and cultural studies. There can be no doubt that technology can make a
contribution to the teaching of literary and cultural studies, given sufficient time
and resources, but what is less clear is pinpointing the most appropriate ways in
which this can happen.

Before moving on to more specific examples of particular practice, it is useful to

first consider some of the wider implications of using technology to learn about
literature and culture. The verb ‘learn’ is used advisedly because it is in benefiting
the student and developing the learning process that the advantages of technology
are most apparent. In general, in the arts and humanities disciplines, there is little
evidence of technology saving academic staff hours of teaching and preparation
time when it is used for teaching and learning. The most striking advantages are in
offering benefits to the learners above and beyond the quantity and quality of
contact in the usual teaching situation.

At a general level, there are a number of claims made for the advantages which
the appropriate use of technology can offer to the learner. The most relevant issues
are summarised below.

 Technology can give students a greater degree of control over the delivery
of their learning: by using technology, students can access information,
learning spaces, and other resources at times which suit their lifestyle and
their other commitments. Increasing numbers of students either follow
part-time degrees or, where they study full-time, hold additional
responsibilities, such as those of part-time jobs and families, which mean
that they have many pressures outside their studies, and their learning has
to take place at appropriate times. Technology can allow students to
choose when to access resources, and it supports methods which have a far
greater potential than those of traditional distance-learning, particularly in
the degree of interaction which it affords. Technology-based resources can
be integrated into a course of study and used to complement classroom
contact, library resources, and standard methods of sharing insights.

 Technology can enable the student to feel that they have control of their
own learning: it can allow students to shape their learning by encouraging
the perception that a culture's varied media is a collection of resources
which the student can be guided through, and that they have choices about
the route which they take.

 Students can communicate and discuss ideas together, even when they are
not physically (or temporally) together: as student numbers grow in
relation to staff numbers, student-to-student and student-to-teacher contact
time is put under increasing pressure. The use of technology such as email,
conferencing systems and other computer-mediated communication tools
provides a rich environment in which communication can continue outside
the classroom.

 Technology can provide a gateway to better research methods and analytic

approaches: For several of the projects described in this collection,
technology has provided a method for sharing specialist research materials
and research techniques with undergraduates to an unprecedented degree.
 Technology offers advanced research tools, and it can also provide the
interface which helps the teacher to guide the student through the
implementation of new techniques.

 Technology can help to provide the motivation to learn and experiment:

new teaching methods will often provide a student with added interest in
the course, and impetus to develop their own learning. Technology is only
one method which can be adopted and is not guaranteed to be successful
by any means, but with carefully thought-out uses and proper integration
into courses, there can be significant benefits to both teacher and student.

There are certain specific ways in which the quantity of teaching and learning
activity, and the quality of teaching and learning can be enhanced. With proper,
well-considered planning, technology has the opportunity to enhance the learner's
experience in some key areas.

Implications for the relationship between content and teaching methodology

A successful use of technology in teaching must imply some assessment of the

teaching strategy, therefore. In order to do this, we need to try to take an objective
view of the real relationship between the subject-based content of a taught course,
and the methodology which is employed to teach it. It is interesting to note that
the most successful uses of C&IT resources have clear parallels in traditional
learning situations - the library, the coursebook and the seminar - and a brief
assessment of these parallels can provide a useful starting point towards
examining what methodology is being used when technology is used in teaching.

 The library parallel: Technology can open up access to rare resources

such as manuscripts, rare printed works, books which are out-of-print,
works of art, and other media. Whilst the main resource for students of
literature is usually a book and a collection of critical works, for students
of cultural studies this is not the case.

 The seminar parallel: Literary and cultural studies are centred around the
tutorial or seminar, where ideas are proposed and discussed, and
communication is essential. Tools such as email discussion lists and
conferencing systems are already being successfully used for teaching
literary and cultural studies (see for example McBride and Dickstein,
1996). There is also an additional positive factor for second language
learners who are communicating in the second language.

 The lecture parallel: Directed learning is perhaps the most highly valued
part of the traditional learning situation from a student's point-of-view.
Technology allows the tutor to use their expert knowledge to provide a
path for the student through digital resources which they believe are the
 most interesting, important or relevant.

 The coursebook parallel: It is increasingly common to furnish

undergraduates with custom-written secondary materials in a 'coursebook'
format. In a similar method to the lecture, the tutor can use the coursebook
to direct students through complex materials. Technology allows the easy
inclusion of other media within a single framework and the development
of a guided 'path' through the materials (for example adding film, links to
works, of art, multimedia learning materials).

In addition to these obvious parallels to traditional learning resources, technology

offers possibilities for innovation in delivery .Examples of innovation on a
traditional theme include:

 The student-led seminar parallel: Digital presentation of information by

the student; students are now able to present their own materials in many
media, by using digital tools, thus lessening the emphasis upon oral
presentation which is disadvantageous for the less confident students
(Litvack and Dunlop, 1999).

The most useful way to address this question is, in the view of this author, to
compare the methodologies which are enabled by the use of technology with those
which are traditionally used to teach literary and cultural studies.

We can see how the four possibilities described above - the digital library, lecture
and coursebook, and seminar - can map onto each of the three traditional learning
paradigms. To take each of the three teaching methods in turn, we can explore the
difference that technology can make in each case. Naturally, this difference will
by no means be entirely positive; in each case, technology can clearly play a part
and will influence the student's learning experience, for good or ill.

Lecturing

The lecture paradigm can be mirrored in a technology-based situation, with

varying degrees of complexity. At a simple level, the lecturer can present the
transcription of the lecture which he or she plans to give in advance of the lecture.
Unlike in the lecturing situation, the student can have unlimited access to the
digital version and the lecturer has the option to incorporate additional, more
complex text than he or she could explain during a fifty minute lecture. There is a
further advantage offered by technology in facilitating the use of additional
resources of any media which may be referred to during the lecture, or used in
addition to the lecture notes. For example, colour images of artworks which are
held in virtual galleries around the world can be referred to and linked to directly.
Tony McNeill has used this method successfully; by making his lecture notes
available to students on the Web in advance of each lecture, he finds that students
still attend the 'real' lecture, but do so with prior understanding of the issues which
he plans to discuss, and having had the opportunity to do further reading or
prepare questions in advance.

The possible danger with digital equivalents of the lecture is that the material can
lack its own 'voice'; research has shown that students are motivated to learn when
lecturers impart their information enthusiastically and knowledgably. This is
clearly more difficult to achieve when dealing with computer-based resources
which will be used independently.

In this case, materials need to be carefully structured; they need to guide the
student but also to invite them along the way. Lee and Fiormonte have provided
good examples of this; they have developed courses built around the resources
made available; the technology is enabling them to accomplish actions which
would otherwise be difficult or impossible, and they are directing students through
these resources in a structured way with a combination of online and traditional
teaching materials and methods. For example, the four tutorials which Lee
describes take resources which are rare and inaccessible and, instead of simply
exposing the student to these by listing the contents and saying 'here you are' (the
equivalent of a traditional reading list), the tutorials use hyperlinking, clear
labelling, and careful presentation of information to guide the student through the
resources.

The importance of the content must be made sufficiently clear to the student in
order for them to be motivated to navigate their way through a web of seemingly
identical hyperlinks to the resources which lie beyond. It is therefore essential that
clear goals are given to the student as they move; what could be more over-awing
(and thus discouraging) than to be confronted by a web page of sixty identical
hyperlinks to sixty different resources? The student needs to be given a sense that
they are accomplishing something if their interest is to be held, and blindly
choosing from a collection of non-annotated links is not going to do this, just as a
student is less likely to read a text which is recommended on a reading list if they
have no idea of the content of that text. Free-standing hypertext is a fine model for
the creative sharing of information but it is unlikely that many undergraduates will
make time to 'explore a web' without some indication of what they are following
and why.

Small-group teaching

The equivalents to small-group teaching sessions in the digital environment are

provided by email discussion lists and conferencing systems. These resources
have been widely implemented into a variety of teaching and research situations,
to the extent that their use has been given the specific title of 'Computer-Mediated
Communication' (CMC). Much of the research into CMC has centred upon
aspects of the social interaction which is seen within groups of CMC users, for
example research into concepts of identity which a user experiences (and may
manipulate) within a CMC (see for example Marvin, 1996). This research has
been popular since the early 1990s as technologies such as Internet Relay Chat
and Multi-User Dimensions have been in widespread use since this time. Beyond
these more theoretical areas the tools have also seen use in teaching. Language
learning is one area in which these tools have been particularly popular, as the
level of communication which these resources allow will constitute some of their
purpose. (2)

Background reading and independent research

Technology has already had a tremendous impact with the widespread

establishment of computerised library catalogues which can be searched by users
with relatively little IT experience on their own keywords, and thus immediately
broaden their awareness of library resources beyond those recommended by their
tutor on a reading list or bibliography. Added to this is the fast growing number of
important resources which are now being published in digital format, some of the
most obvious being fully searchable CD-ROM versions of many international
newspapers, encyclopaedias and other reference tools, and even journals and
research papers. At a simple level, technology is working to provide far better
access to resources. At a more complex level, the type of access which is provided
will allow students to make more complex and thoughtful use of resources than
was previously possible. For example, where a student would previously locate a
copy of a daily newspaper in the native language in order to keep up to date with
events, the student can now use complex tools to perform keyword or phrase
searches across an entire year's issues of the paper, and thus look for changes in
reporting patterns across time or build up a corpus of articles on a particular
theme. In the past, this level of research would have been the provenance of the
postgraduate researcher or specialist, far beyond the time restraints and difficulties
of access experienced by most undergraduates. This state of affairs has been
dramatically changed in the digital world.

This increase in possibilities for independent research raises one essential

question: are students equipped to use resources in this way, and to interpret the
results of their investigations? More resources do not necessarily bring abetter
depth of understanding or better analytic skills. Use of the new technologies
requires equally thoughtful direction by teachers and other teaching support staff
such as library and IT staff, if they are to inform rather than to confuse.

Teaching style

All of the projects described in the following papers have come to the same
conclusion: that the latest technology, in itself, is not sufficient to create a
'learning environment'. Content is crucial to the successful uptake and use of
digital resources, just as with traditional resources such as journals and other
publications. It is frequently claimed by educational technologists and enthusiasts
of the Web alike that the use of accessible delivery mechanisms such as the Web
will increase the scholarly use of resources, simply because the Web facilitates the
delivery of resources straight to the desktop.

Clearly, lack of access to resources is a distinct barrier to their usage. While it

would be foolish to argue that making texts, images, and video accessible by the
Web will not lead to greater use of these resources by students, it is the opinion of
this author that it is not enough to simply make resources available and that the
role of the teacher is crucial in ensuring that real learning happens when students
interrogate web resources.

The influences of technology upon teaching and learning radiate beyond the role
of the teacher and draw upon other staff such as library and IT staff. These staff
have a growing importance in supporting and delivering learning resources and
have fast developing roles in additional areas such as teaching students the
techniques needed to make use of the resources. Thus support and teaching roles
are increasingly blurred and interdependencies and cooperative working practices
are becoming more crucial.

In general, the above points can work together to give the student a more
enjoyable learning experience. However, this is not without some cost to the
teacher in terms of development of their own IT skills, the need to research
teaching methodologies which use IT and to think about how best to apply it to
their area, and the need to invest time in the development of IT resources either
directly or in partnership.

Changing subject boundaries

It is fascinating to note the blurring of subject boundaries which occurs when

digital methods are applied to teaching and research. The seven papers given
during the conference came from a range of language areas and backgrounds,
including a commercial publisher, but the emphasis throughout was upon
resources which, whilst retaining a strong subject focus, nevertheless had
resonance for many other subject areas.

Technology encourages and facilitates a multidisciplinary perspective on learning

and on research. Hyperlinks in multimedia documents or authoring tools make it
easy (and attractive) to hop between different subject areas at a whim, and thus
arrive in areas into which one would not usually stray. The internet, bringing
increased levels of dissemination and sharing of information and knowledge, also
has an important role to play. A web search on a particular writer's name such as
Louis Aragon will return the predictable 'hits' on the Club des Poètes site but will
also highlight sites based in Finland, in Canada, in Germany and so on, with a
different perspective on the study of his work. A student can used computer-based
software such as quantitative text analysis tools to manipulate and dissect a digital
text, regardless of its source languages; as with the Pérez Galdós project, this
provides the opportunity to control and manipulate a resource in an unknown
language. Finally, the interface between technology and learning impacts directly
upon the way in which teachers of different languages communicate and
cooperate; software such as TransIT-Tiger is used by teachers of many different
languages, but with common pedagogic and technical practices, and these
methodologies are frequently shared by teachers who can appreciate each other's
efforts. The use of specialist resources thus encourages the crossing of subject
boundaries between and within languages. Cross-discipline collaboration is one of
the interesting issues which is raised in many digital projects. In areas such as
translation studies and comparative literature, where the use of resources across
standard discipline boundaries is essential to research, this is immediately
obvious.

Perhaps the new possibilities which technology offers to the teaching of literary
and cultural studies will have a doubly beneficial effect by providing the impetus
for further educational research to take place in this fascinating (but relatively
unexplored) area.

Conclusion: towards a model for teaching literary and cultural studies with
C&IT

As discussed above, something which is frequently overlooked is the interface

between highlighting content and the appropriate use of technology which leads
to successful implementations of digital learning resources. The projects which
were demonstrated at the conference are not successful because they are
technically complex, graphically stunning, or pedagogically different in their
approach. They have succeeded, however, in focusing upon interesting and
relevant content, and applying technology to it with methods which are
appropriate to a learning aim.

We need to look beyond the immediate focus of content which is specific to a

single subject area to consider at a higher level the methodologies which are being
used for successful teaching, and thus be able to make informed decisions about
whether technology will enhance or dilute the teaching situation.

References

1. See, for example, the article by Neil Rhodes, St. Andrews University
(1999), in which he describes the issues involved in teaching
undergraduates how to make use of a substantial research-oriented
textbase.
2. See the excellent annotated bibliography by Coski and Kininger (1999),
 for many examples of literature in this area.

Bibliography

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Teaching European Literature and Culture with Communication and Information

Technologies
Not to be republished in any form without the author's prior permission.

HTML Authors: Sarah Porter, Stuart Sutherland

Document Created: 25 May 1999
Document Last Modified: 7 June 1999

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