Posts from — September 2009

Balance Prime

The word technology is something that I struggle with often.  I see technology as any tool that aids in the creation of some other object or allows work to be completed with some amount of ease.   Consider a rock.  If I use a rock to hit another person, it is now a weapon.   If I use a rock to draw a picture on a cave wall, it is a tool.   My perfered definition of technology is best described by Ursula Franklin in the CBC Massey Lectures.   Franklin states “Like democracy, technology is a multifaceted entity.  It includes activities as well as a body of knowledge, structures as well as the act of structuring.”  (Franklin, 1999, p. 6)  Franklin further defines technology as “practice…ways of doing something.”  ((p.6)   This ‘process of work’ can be categorized into two distinct spheres including holistic and prescriptive technologies.    Holistic technologies can be equated to those events whereby the same individual envisions an idea, prepares the means to accomplish the idea, and results in an end product that was created from start to finish by one set of hands; a painting, a goblet, or writing on a cave wall.   Prescriptive technologies can be best summed up by mass production, compliance to a standard and little to no deviation or creativity for the worker; Fordism or Military training

Franklin, Ursula. (1999) The Real World of Technology. (CBC Massey lectures series.) Concord, ON: House of Anansi Press Limited.

I’m new to blogging and I’ve got a question for anybody out there that has the expertise/time/interest to respond:

Is there a way to search for authors? I tried to find the posts that I had created and couldn’t seem to find an easy way to search or sort postings in order to find the ones that I had created.

I’d like to comment on my experiences with using this blog so far.  I’ve never worked in this medium until this week but can certainly compare it to a wiki, which I’ve been using in my class as well as to collaborate on course design.

First of all, I’ve enjoyed being able to read other posts.  I could (and did) spend hours reading posts, discussion topics and generally playing with the buttons to familiarize myself with this environment.  I told some of my coworkers earlier last week that I would just come home, turn on the laptop and the next thing I know I am in a world that exists only inside this window.  And then I start to open more and more windows as I read, respond, research… well, I wouldn’t leave this spot until it was time for bed.  And still, the ideas would dance in my mind to the point of keeping me awake long past my bedtime.

The ideas came from all the wonderful posts I read and wanted to add to.  I’ve taken online courses before where the amount of research required kept us from reading other posts and perhaps saving some of the valuable resources other students might have discovered.  In other words, time constraints kept us from benefiting from each others’ research.

I think the pace so far has allowed me to read and reflect.  I am also enjoying the way I can work in a non-linear fashion.  I can spend time reading blogs or posts on the discussion boards or following up on links that have been provided by other students.  Or, I can be anti-social and go read my textbook.

It’s the social aspect of this medium that makes it so delightful and compelling.  And thank goodness I don’t have to put on my boots come winter to go off to a campus.

On the downside, I have struggled with figuring out how to post to a certain page and have feared publishing a post and finding I did it all wrong only to not be able to delete it (ungrounded fears).  I created my own blog last week for a space to experiment.  That way I wouldn’t feel foolish if I made a mistake.

And I will let you in on a secret.  One of the other students and I regularly talk on the phone or chat when we are unsure on how to proceed.  But that is quickly turning into discussions on what we might research for our Module 4 project.

As for comparisons to a wiki, I think the wiki might be simpler to understand and set up.  As such, it might be more suitable for my high school classes.  When I tried the experiment last year with my grade 12s as an alternative to a group project and presentation, there was a lot of trepidation.  I liked the wiki because it allowed me to see exactly who took part in the group work and when and how often they worked.  I am not sure how that would work in a blog.

I will continue to investigate this blogging business and hopefully, I’ll be able to use this technology as comfortably as I have used Blackboard for online courses or wikis for class projects.  For now, I just hope this publishes to the right page.

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”

Oscar Wilde

Much like the intentions within this quote, text can be meaningful in brevity while subtle nuances can make significant adjustments. The beauty of text is that is can be manipulated in so many ways and infinite possibilities are afforded to any who choose to play with letters and words. Text is the vehicle by which authors assign meaning; the artifact in which we immortalize thoughts and facts; the unspoken representation by which we speak. Text is our tangible fingerprint crafted in written language.

Sir Arthur Clarke, co-author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, was a science fiction and otherwise “speculative fiction” author, inventor and “futurist”. He coined the three laws of prediction as follows:

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

The last two laws in particular represent a commentary on technology from my perspective. The notion of the impossible becoming possible; the notion of having to reach beyond what is currently afforded in order to truly see what we are capable of achieving; the notion that present innovations would have been considered magical in the past. Technology is anything that furthers our current capabilities into the future, by keeping the lessons of the present and the foundations from the past in mind.

Since being made aware of the fact that the word text is contained in the words texture and textile and is defined as “woven words” in Module 1, I’m reminded of the song Tapestry by Carol King, that relates to the words textile and texture. In The first stanza, she compares her life experiences to a tapestry, which is a form of textile that has a rich texture. She says that she can see and feel the experiences in her life, but she can’t hold on to the experiences. Here are the lyrics of the first stanza of this song:

“My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue
An everlasting vision of the ever changing view
A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold”

Carol king wove the words of the first stanza together to form text that began a very lyrically rich song.

When I think of technology, I’m reminded of the many years I worked as a technical writer learning about and documenting many telecommunications’ technologies: Creating conceptual and procedural information to accompany complex telecommunications equipment. I’m also reminded of the fact that technology speaks to me as being something that’s supposed to make our lives easier, better, and is very important. Its importance is described by Postman: ” Technology imperiously commandeers our most important terminology. It redefines freedom, truth, intelligence, fact, wisdom, memory, history, all the words we live by. (Postman, 1992 pp.8-9)

Postman, N (1992). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York:Vintage Books.

I believe that technology is a process that is ongoing and is hard to define. After all, we consider items like Blackberries and Computers technology, but technology is really everywhere as represented by this article, http://www.cbc.ca/sports/amateur/story/2009/03/14/fina-swimsuits-ruling.html.  I love this story because it caused an uproar and made for great talk show fodder. Most people were being overly critical about merging technology with sports, as if this has never happened before.

Technology seems to be constant changing and supposedly attempting to make our lives easier and better. In education this is a double edged sword, which is why I choose this picture. Another reason I chose this picture is because it merges technology and teaching together. Although technology does improve our lives it can also take away. I like this picture because it makes me wonder where we are heading as educators. Are we eventually going to give students a topic, have them Google it and present it as fact? Or is that already what is happening?

Although we certainly do see and use text on computers and the internet, I wonder if there is something inherently flawed with using this way of viewing text with students. I don’t believe that the text excites students but that the computer that excites students.

A few short months ago I was teaching a primary summer school program. The program was designed for young learners to improve their English writing skills. I decided to have fun one class and have them create their own sentences using stamps. One thing that I noticed, apart from the activity getting really messy, was the excitement that the students had communicating their ideas onto paper using the stamps. There was something in the action of choosing a word, placing the stamp on the ink pad, and seeing their work that that engaged the students far more than a computer activity ever could.

Now is this text that the students created? I think that it is. The students printed their own work on paper, using letters and numbers.  It did not matter if the text was coherent or not. Of course, is this the proper way to teach writing skills? However the students received an intriguing lesson and were able to create text manually in an old fashioned way that hopefully enforces the message that there is more than one way to create text.

In its most basic state, I see text as something designed to induce a state of mind both when text is created and when it is consumed. Marks are applied to a surface and visually consumed with the intent of inducing an awareness of something else apart from the awareness of the mark itself.  That’s an amazing head trip.

Text stimulates us to see our minds reflected back into space and thus, compared to early primal humans, gives us this out of body experience of who we are.  To early humans, consuming text would be like taking peyote buttons.

Reference:

Image uploaded by Arenamontanus on 11 Dec 08, 2.00PM PDT on Flickr.  Modified by Drew Murphy.

Topics/Writing is  a drag/ questions from the first module/ personal definitions of Text and Technology, Orality becomes Residual….more questions…

I think we have had  an amazing discussion in terms of defining Text and Technology…and Orality… as pointed out in the cambridge session…. someone always objects to a new technology….

Socrates: Writing is ‘inhuman’

Writing, Socrates argues, is inhuman. It attempts to turn living thoughts dwelling in the human mind into mere objects in the physical world. By causing people to rely on what is written rather than what they are able to think, it weakens the powers of the mind and of memory. True knowledge can only emerge from a relationship between active human minds. And unlike a person, a text can’t respond to a question; it will just keep saying the same thing over and over again, no matter how often it is refuted.

What is Orality? When It becomes….Residual

‘Residual orality’ refers to thought and its verbal expression in cultures that have been exposed to writing and print, but have not fully ‘interiorized’ (in McLuhan’s term) the use of these technologies in their daily lives. As a culture interiorizes the technologies of literacy, the ‘oral residue’ diminishes.

[This information was Retrieved from Wiki Reference: Orality, Sept 14, 2009]

Questions from Module 1:

What is Text? Text to me is synonymous with writing, it also infers content and meaning, that is, text without meaning or letters that don’t form words, would not be “text” but rather just an assemblage of letters, of strokes on a page. Text is meaning, a codification of meaning, but the whole point of text for me is to communicate, communicate what? Communicate meaning.

What is Technology?: means everything that involves technique, that involves a tool, so a pen is a type of writing technology….and language is a kind or technology of orality…etc.

What, for example, does textile have to do with text? Texts are tapestries or weavings of words to create meaning… just as threads are used to create a pattern, letters are used to create a pattern that describes a word, which in turn describes or outlines a meaning….

In the hopes that a visual is in order here….and to layer that onto our discussion, of course all I come up is…more questions…such as…

How is meaning communicated visually?

….Some consider music the highest art form, but just how does music “speak” to us?

How do sounds through speech really communicate meaning?convey Emotion?

Okay I will let the picture do the rest of the speaking here….Barb

Did You Know?

I used the “Did you Know” YouTube presentation created by Karl Fisch and modified by Scott McLeod. I like it simply because it is a technological presentation, created and broadcast globally through YouTube and because of the information it presents on the information age. The technical aspects it mentions are both the exciting and  disturbing aspects mentioned in the Papyrus to Cyberspace broadcast and well as some of the  others readings. This presentation reflects that new technologies can be both a positive and ominous force. It also demonstrates the creation and use of technology and how it’s interrelated with life. I find it helps illustrate where and how technology fits in our Western society.

Highlights of the presentation include:

– If Myspace were a country it would be the fifth largest

– The amount of text messages daily exceeds the population of the planet

– There are roughly 540,000 words in the English language ( five times the amount in Shakespeare’s time)

– New amounts of technical information doubles every two years

– Those taking a four year technical degree will find that the information they learned in their first year will be obsolete by the time they graduate

Now that we have completed most of the assignments for Module One I would like to comment on the posting to the community weblog. I have found it very interesting to read the highly varied and creative responses of the students.  When for example, we were first given the assignment to create two responses to the word text and technology I drew a blank. Other than a dictionary definition I found myself perplexed where I should turn and what I could produce. Then, as people began to post their responses I felt more at ease (less of newbieitis??sp) and began to enjoy the exercise, use my own creativity and benefited immensely from the process. I also have found the form valuable in being able to read all the different ideas, views and opinions as well as engage in discussion and response. It has been a great deal of work but very worthwhile. (Plus, I have learned where to click and how to sign it now and am no longer getting lost somewhere on the cwl. )  As a teacher, I find it an excellent learning tool as there is a place for individual response and group discussion via post. I like it as it requires me to make connections and think critically, while at the same time establishing some impressions of classmates and their views.

Beowulf

The beginning might not be the end. And that night

Grendel cam again, so set

On murder that no crime could ever be enough,

No savage assault quench his lust

For evil. Then each warrior tried

To escape him, searched for rest in different

Beds, as far from Herot as they could find,

Seeing how Grendel hunted when they slept.

Distance was safety; the only survivors

Were those who fled him. Hate had triumphed.

Author unknown

Line 134-143

Translated by Burton Raffel

Signet Classic – New American Library, 1963

For a representation of text my initial thought was Beowulf. For me, Beowulf is one of the ultimate representations of text. This epic poem has an unknown author and is thought to be one of the first documented texts in Anglo-Saxon history. Much debate surrounds this poem as it is thought in many scholarly circles to be a collection of oral stories. Walter J. Ong states in his book, Orality and Literacy, the difference between written literature and oral tradition. He states that “Writing makes ‘words’ appear similar to things because we think of words as the visible marks signalling word to decoders: we can see and touch and inscribed ‘words’ in texts and books. Written words are residue. Oral tradition has no such reside or deposit.” (pg. 11). Thus I see the epic poem Beowulf to be a juxtaposition of text and oral traditions. One of the first written documents in the English language is an illustration of the evolution (weaving and stitching) of written English.

The last time I was at UBC it was to complete a degree in Technology Education.  Contrary to what you might expect the technology education that I was studying had very little to do with computers.  Technology Education was (is) the name adopted for the field that used to be called Industrial Education.  I suppose the name was chosen in an attempt to make the area more in line with the times and to broaden its scope.  What it actually did though was force Tech Ed teachers  to be constantly correcting people about what they teach, ‘oh, you teach computing…’  Personally I hate the name.  For this reason the word ‘technology’ has always seemed to me to be a bit vague.  We spent a fair bit of time back then as a class discussing technology and what it means and I don’t think we ever really came up with a completely satisfying definition.  And now I find myself thinking about a definition again and still not really coming up with anything very satisfying.  Before I try to add my definition though let me quote from my ETEC 511 material, where I just read, “Technology – the world generated as artefact, or the activity, knowledge and will to make it so”.  To me that definition is even more wide open than I could have imagined, to now including ‘knowledge and will’ without necessarily any action, (conceptual technology?).  So I would like to throw a simple definition out there and say ‘technology is the means of change’.  Simple, but I don’t think it’s too bad.  I would argue that technology is about change, but unlike other definitions mine doesn’t imply that the changes brought on by technology  is good or bad, it merely changes what was to what is.

As an aside, I don’t know if anyone else experienced this but all the way through that paragraph I kept having the urge to capitalize ‘technology’.

“OED was built up from the contributions of thousands of amateur philologists all over England and, later, the world.” (vista ETEC 540 sept09).  Well in the style of the OED I google images with the search criteria “technology.”  If google is understood as access to a collective intelligence of the web (to find out more) than the images it produces could be understood as a collective understanding of technology as an image.  After searching I took the top ten images and mashed them into one. Voila technology as understood by google….

Ten top images of technology using google images.

wwquotetattoo, originally uploaded by kawaface.

Like technology, the word text is difficult define as its meaning is altered depending upon context and form of communication. I found the definition of text provided by Florida State University, a good starting point to understanding the relationship between of text and technologies.

“Texts are material artifacts that take many different forms: cave paintings, tattoos, stone tablets, clay tablets, papyrus scrolls, manuscript books, musical scores, maps, printed books, engravings, newspapers, photographs, films, DVDs, computers. Every kind of text is produced by a special technology, but all those technologies share a simple purpose: they were designed to supplement the fragile human mind by providing a more durable artificial memory system. Those technologically preserved and transmitted memories are the foundation of all human culture”
(Emmerson et al., 2009, para. 1).

Prior to finding this definition I had never given much thought to tattoos as text. Emmerson et al. (2009) refer to technologies that produce text as “durable artificial memory system[s]”. Many people get tattoos as a permanent reminder of a special memory or person or a meaningful image, saying or word. Though I know many cultures use tattooing in traditional rituals, I had not considered the deeper implication of human skin as a vehicle for preserving and communicating information and memories. I choose the accompanying photo as it depicts tattoos of a person’s family names as well as a Walt Whitman quote – meaningful to the person whose skin it is preserved on.

References

Emmerson, R., Gontarski, S.E., Taylor, G., Walters, L., & Wiegand, W.A. (2009). Pathways to excellence: History of text technologies (HOTT) from cave paintings to personal computers. Retrieved September 13, 2009, from http://pathways.fsu.edu/faculty/hott/

According to Chow, “The meaning of text involves writing and reading or, more appropriately, production and consumption. Production carries the intention of the author, while consumption is the process by which the reader makes meaning”.

A different approach to technology was explained by McLuhan as , “Technology is literally an extension of man, as the axe is an extension of the hand, the wheel of the foot. Most instruments are attempts to extend man’s physical capacity, a capacity shared with other animals. Communications technology, on the other hand, is an extension of thought, of consciousness, of man’s unique perceptual capacities. Thus communications media, broadly used to include all modes of symbolic representation, are literally extensions of mind”.

References

Chow, Kenny K. N. Operating Text and Transcending Machine: Toward an interdisciplinary Taxonomy of Media Works, LEONARDO, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 373-378, 2008.

Rosenthal, R. (ed), McLuhan Pro and Con, p 273, Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1968.

seoul subway map, originally uploaded by oceandesetoiles.

Technology is an abstract concept that is multi-faceted and is therefore difficult to describe. Lorenzo Simpson (1995) defines technology as a “constellation of knowledge, processes, skills and products whose aim is to control and transform” (p. 16). To expand on this, Franklin (1999) believes that “technology is a system that goes beyond individual material components – it “involves organization, procedures, symbols, new words, equations, and most of all, a mindset” (p. 3). According to Murphie and Potts (2003) technology also involves cultural values, ideologies, ethical concerns and is shaped by political and economic determinants (p. 4).

In thinking of technology as a system I chose an image of the Seoul subway map. The subway is a system that works to control the movement of people across the city. The map looks complex however it is based on an organized system that relies on procedures, processes, knowledge and symbols. Culturally, the subway system is woven into the everyday lives of many individuals. Ethically, public transport allows us to be more environmentally friendly. Economically, public transport is an affordable way to travel. Ultimately, the subway map illustrates how many small and simple systems (routes) can work together to form a more complex whole.

References

Franklin, U. M. (1999). The real world of technology. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, Inc.

Murphie, A., & Potts, J. (2003). Culture and technology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Simpson, L. (1995). Technology and the conversations of modernity. New York: Routledge.

Hi everyone,

After reading through the WordPress entries today, I found that most of the passages I wanted to use had already been quoted. As a result, to find a short passage that gives meaning to the word text I decided to try my luck using the “Great Library 2.0”, i.e. Google Books, using the search terms “defining text”. I expected to find a deep, philosophical quote that would WOW you all. Well, I was indeed, surprised by the results. Of the top twenty hits, thirteen were in some way related to computer programming or desktop publishing software. I then tried a more refined search by looking for the exact phrase “defining text” (I did not use quotations the first time). This actually increased the number of computer related books to sixteen. “Define text” resulted in sixteen as IT results as well. Many searches later, I tried searching for “the origins of text”. Finally I started seeing some relevant results. However, there were still results for Unix and a text-mining computer application.

While the search results alone do not provide a passage that gives meaning to the word text, I think that the results shed light on the changing definition of the word text in the information age. The word text has become synonymous with the inventions of the digital age: text as a programming language, text as the basis for word processing, text as the foundation of the World Wide Web, etc. This was also stressed by O’Donnell and Engell when discussing the impacts that technology has had on education and on today’s youth, especially in regards to new language developing in text and e-mail. Technology not only redefines and revolutionizes text, it also reshapes the way interact with text and changes and reinvents the media through which we use it to communicate.

John