WSU's Views of Multimedia authoring

In my experience at WSU, I've observed that while teachers may use powerpoint in their teaching, they generally shy away from requiring anything remotely "technology" in their assignments. For example, I only learned how to use powerpoint because that was all I ever needed to be able to use. Some people may argue that Multimedia doesn't need to be in any class beyond the DTC major and perhaps some computer science courses. However, this may be related to the fact that few teachers know how to grade "Multimedia projects" because they are graded on the end product and unless there is a rigid grading scale, everyone can get an A if they have flashy text or use more "technology" than content. Unfortunately, this happens in more classes than I'd like it to. As for technology in the rhetorical writing major, it has by no means given enough attention to. This may be related to the fact that digital rhetoric is a relatively new field and needs to earn more ethos.

In any case, WSU teachers and admins need to come to terms with the fact that technology will always exist in some form of another and that people can either ignore it completely (which is highly unlikely) or become its slave (as so many people that can't stop text messaging appear to be.) Probably the best solution is hybrid teaching of Visual/Digital Rhetoric and Verbal Rhetoric (which is what we usually think of when English is mentioned) that Kress and Stroupe advocate.