I am reading HTML5 for Web Designers by Jeremy Keith and I feared that I was at opposite ends of my dissertation mash-up topics of technical communication and student affairs. While I am certain that, in general, technical communication principles and practices can improve performance of student affairs professionals, I struggle with how writing and designing web pages improves service to students as a student affairs professional. Maybe this is one place where my mash-up does not work. On the other hand, here are some thoughts as to why it might:
Both fields value openness and freedom and I can express my leadership style through these principles
Using digital communication tools is imperative for me in my position, and by learning to communicate digitally I can round up, organize, and deliver information in ways that are open and helpful to my staff. The information available to my staff needs to be be malleable, and this is where my professional values as a student affairs professional mesh with values in the open source and technical communication communities. Open source software is a philosophy that frees software documentation and makes it available for users to use, change, and redistribute. The GNU Project defines this freedom: "'Free software' is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer.'” Finding the commonality if the professional values helps me share information with my staff and encourage them to use the information, change the information and redistribute the information. One practical application of this is creating a wiki for training for the student employees. While there will be a page or two without writing permissions, emergency procedures for example, the wiki will be open for students and staff to use, create, edit, and change content. It allows us to push information in a more real-time fashion, something that students value.
Taking classes in technical communication has helped me to treat information differently. Information is a resource that is essential for the success of my organization in the McCormick Tribune Campus Center. With over 10,000 events and six-times as many "touches" to events in any part of the event-cycle, I need people and systems that can communicate what they know at critical moments for information delivery in ways that are easily understandable.
Working at a tech school, this knowledge helps me find common ground with students
In my role as a director of a campus center at a a technical institution, my students talk in code all of the time. And it is not just HTML code in which they speak. At a tech school, there are conversations about science-fiction, fantasy, video-gaming, mathematics, music, and many other intellectual pursuits that I am less familiar with, having come from a liberal education background.
By taking classes in writing and designing for the web, I have something in common with my students. This is no small thing in common, either. By taking classes, not only do we have an intellectual platform that we share, but as an administrator, I find that I am in tune with students' schedules even more. Sure my life has always revolved around the academic calendar, but when I am in classes, it does so even more. I am well aware of the stressful times of the semester and can balance that with expectations for staff while still challenging them to balance all that they have committed to.
In general, digital literacy improves my ability to communicate and helps me to do my job
My education in the area of technical communication, it opens new theoretical doors and I am able to view my student affairs position differently. We write considerable amounts in our positions in student affairs. In addition to the many e-mails we write on a daily basis, we write training documents, position descriptions, monthly reports, justification documents, and much more. By investigating theories of design, audience, knowledge management, and usability, I can apply this to what I do in my job. I can be more persuasive and advocate for my area. I can be clearer in my communication. I can relate concepts to my staff in ways that are understandable.
This semester, I will take a class that will help me create web applications. As I read the HTML5 book, I am taking notes about what apps I could create that may help the employees or the users of the student center. Writing digitally can help me improve my services for the students, faculty/staff, and community users of the campus and conference services.
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