The evolution of the textual genres in the educational environment Evolutions and Trends in Digital Media Technologies Professor Dr. Kathy Gill Student: Renata Almeida

Significance Much information about genres Much information about online education

Conceptual Framework “A genre is a patterning of communication created by a combination of the individual, social and technical forces implicit in a recurring communicative situation. A genre structures communication by creating shared expectations about the form and content of the interaction, thus easing the burden of production and interpretation.”

Conceptual Framework

Example of textual genres: Recipes Opinion articles Restaurant menu Lectures Theatric plays Conversations Online chats s Letters Phone calls Posters News Instruction manuals Talk shows

The Past Before the invention of the alphabetical writing: Conversations, discourses After the development of the alphabet: Letters, announcements Fifteenth century – (Press) News, posters Twentieth century (Telegraph, telephone, radio, TV) Phone calls, radio news, talk shows Today (Internet) Chats, s, forums

The Past Conclusion: Every time a communicative technical innovation arises, there is a technical force acting for the generation of a new genre. The genres are in a constant evolution.

The Present s: Asynchronous form of communication One-on-one/ one-on-many It has a standardized, fixed and automatic header: The sender’s address: filled automatically The receiver’s address: that must be inserted Possibilities of copies: that must be included Subject: that has to be filled Date and time: filled automatically Message body: generally contains a salutation, the main text, and signature

The Present Educational Chats: Synchronous Teacher → Main role → Function: elucidate student’s doubts and encourage them to participate in the conversation Students → Secondary role → Function: raise questions Short duration (Max: 90 min) Few participants (5 to 7) Demands the existence of a virtual community

The Present Expositive Virtual Lectures: Definition: every recurrent text that a teacher or instructor communicates, indicates or sends through the Internet to his/her students with the purpose of instruction or training. Aggregate of subgenres like: video or audio clips (spoken texts), presentations in PowerPoint style, reading assignments (written texts) Asynchronous

The present lists: Asynchronous Demands the existence of a virtual community Presence of threads Moderator → Top of hierarchy → Function filter the messages

The Present Conclusion: Most of the genres in online education are: Highly participative Predominately written More malleable

The Future The future’s genres will be even more interactive Asynchronous → More games/ quizzes; A.I. – personalized exercises Synchronous → Students will talk to and see each other Will encourage more involvement among students Conjoint creation of digital information without having to meet in a physical space (like video gamers) Will be more involving images, interactive graphics, animations, imaginative scenarios, and A.I. will make students not only read or hear a text, but will participate in a text Will be personalized and allow students create their own learning material Many versions of the same text. Easy transcription

University of Washington Department of Communications Masters of Communication in Digital Media Evolutions and Trends in Digital Media Technologies Professor Dr. Kathy Gill Student: Renata Almeida Date: November 9 th 2004