Author: dockat

All, greetings !
I am in my final year of the MET program and look forward to this course as a way to expand my understanding in this area.
Looking forward to sharing learning with you, Kathleen

Categories
Commentary 3 Major Project

Final project, Comment#3

cmaptransitional learning copytablenewloresThe article “Does the brain like e-books” in our readings is relevant to my educational work since I deal exclusively with adult learners who are not “digital natives” (term after Pranskey, cited in Mabrito & Medley, 2008). A typical student in my online class has grade 12 education, and ages range from 18-65, with many students engaging in online constructivist collaborative learning using modern hypermedia for the first time. The typical student seems to have a period of adaptation which is required for them to become comfortable with the new skills needed for use of computer and Internet, and to develop independent self-learning and critical thinking skills.
I dealt with the issue of the aspect of independent learning (learning how to learn) “the what” (after the New London Group, 1995, p 24) and its importance for students new to hypermedia in commentary #2. This commentary will focus on the learning of the content itself (the “how”, after the new London Group, 1995, p 24), and the social focus of web 2.0 learning, for students in transition between traditional literacy and learning methods, going into a web 2.0 environment. The research here will help to support or disprove my driving question of whether the transition learning period requires different pedagogy, as my daily observations seem to suggest. This subject is perhaps not as relevant for those in K-12 learning since these students are either digital natives or well versed in multiliteracy (term after the New London Group, 1996), and not faced with many first-time issues. The commentary will close with a reflective summary I developed to help understand integration of teaching initiatives outlined in the New London Group paper.
Other study groups such as Liu’s in California, the ”Transliteracies Project” (October, 2009) are shedding valuable light on this area. Liu reports “Initially, any new information medium seems to degrade reading because it disturbs the balance between focal and peripheral attention”. His observation does seem typical for newly-online learners who do in fact get sidetracked in class. Even for those adult learners with educational backgrounds, some time to adjust is required. In the MET 540 discussion forum Prizeman (2009) observes “The hypertextuality of digital writing spaced at first confused my linear mind, but now that I have spent a great deal of time interacting with them, I feel like “I’ll never go back”!” Her insight certainly reinforces the sense that there is a transitional period.
Liu (October, 2009) also concludes “It takes time and adaptation before a balance can be restored, not just in the “mentality” of the reader…but in the social systems that complete the reading environment.” This makes good sense as all literacy occurs in context, and so the student would be expected to adapt to the new way of learning in a bigger sense. Traditional pedagogy is didactic and students are used to being passive, linear and focused on one package of learning at a time as described in the Mabrito & Medley (2008) article. The Liu group confirms that in early phases of transition to new media “We suffer tunnel vision, as when reading a single page, paragraph, or even “keyword in context” without an organized sense of the whole. Or we suffer marginal distraction, as when feeds or blogrolls in the margin (”sidebar”) of a blog let the whole blogosphere in.”
The multidimensional environment calls on the learner to multitask. The open-ended resources on the Internet can be overwhelming at first as the learner enters this novel research realm. It is not the reading comprehension that suffers, as most students are adept at reading on a screen. In the “Does the Brain like e-Books?” article, Aamodt concludes, “Fifteen or 20 years ago, electronic reading also impaired comprehension compared to paper, but those differences have faded in recent studies.”
Aamodt (October, 2009) also reports that “Distractions abound online — costing time and interfering with the concentration needed to think about what you read. “ The deep concentration which is required to reflect on what is read, heard and seen may be reduced in this type of environment. Learning to focus on the work at hand and dismiss the outliers is a learning strategy that can be coached. Aamondt points out that, “Frequent task switching costs time and interferes with the concentration needed to think deeply about what you read.” Mark (October, 2009) concurs “When online, people switch activities an average of every three minutes (e.g. reading email or IM) and switch projects about every 10 and a half minutes”. That is bound to impact reflective learning. Mark also reports “My own research shows that people are continually distracted when working with digital information” so maintaining focus is confirmed to be a challenge, and her study did not just include learners new to hypermedia. She agrees with Aamondt about depth of engagement, “ It’s just not possible to engage in deep thought about a topic when we’re switching so rapidly.”
Well adapted online learners with established multiliteracy are comfortable with social networking, and multitasking in hypermedia, so more experienced learners will need more flexible environments to correlate with their skill set. Prizeman (2009) in our forums put it very well “The possibilities are endless, and the once hierarchical order that knowledge was presented in print, no longer exists in hypertext–I feel more in control of my learning, and with flexibility and freedom, I am able to search out the information that I need, as well as explore the connections between it and my world.”
The interface with online learning needs to evolve with a new appreciation of interacting with media versus human communication. Ong explores this concept and determines “communication is inter-subjective” (Ong, 2002, p 173). Ong refers to a media model of communication that focuses on informational, performance oriented interpretation, versus true communication which requires one to have advance appreciation for the other person’s inner self. That new setting is important as he points out that getting inside the minds of persons you will never know is not an easy thing to do, “but it is not impossible if you and they are familiar with the literary tradition they work in” (Ong, 2002, p. 174). Learning online does require this re-set of human communication through the window of the computer screen, and learning a new type of literary tradition, which takes time to become internalized.
Guided learning will help to address the distracting environment for transitioning students. Use of learning objectives, goal-oriented learning agreed upon by instructor and student and web or wiki quests help to direct newly-online learners to a subset of what is a large resource pool for relevant information. This limited structure is a guide not a limit. Bolter (2001, p169) points out that “relationship between the author, the text, and the world represented is made more complicated by the addition of the reader as an active participant”. A transitional learner will need to become adapted to the necessity of being more engaged and constructive when interfacing with electronic materials compared with one-way media. Use of RSS feeds can help students find key learning materials that are of high relevance. Another strategy to help a learner in that adaptation phase is to pair them with a mentor who is comfortable in web 2.0, and can be a resource for them. As well, collaborative grouping will allow students to split up a literature search or web search so that each has a self assigned area to focus in. Critical analysis of resources can be integrated with that orientation session. Some of these strategies will only be needed until new-online students’ multiliteracy is established.
The appendix table below will provide a summary of the critical pedagogy strategies that may be used to cultivate the intellect, and how they can be utilized in courses for learners of varying competence in multiliteracy.
In conclusion, it does appear that the literature supports observations that transitioning learners may need to have some early scaffolding and support and that their learning is constantly evolving through that period. Once transitioned, students can enjoy the full richness of multiliteracy and online networked learning.
A hanging issue is sparked by the observation reported by Mark (October, 2009 in “Does the Brain like e-Books?) “More and more, studies are showing how adept young people are at multitasking. But the extent to which they can deeply engage with the online material is a question for further research” Baxter (2009) mirrors these concerns when she posted “I’m not convinced that getting used to the extra activities does actually enable one to concentrate fully in spite of them. I’m more inclined to think that – along with a lot of other abilities, like amusing themselves during a power outage – the “digital generation” is losing the ability to concentrate fully on something that doesn’t engage them.”
Though these learning strategies summarized below will help us understand the transition to multiliteracy in an online learning environment, that is another realm of future enquiry; addressing the hanging issue of how transitioned students can effectively internalize and reflect on what they have learned which has been left as a question mark in the summary table.

 

References

Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print [2nd ed]. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
[Ed’s] Does the brain like e-books? (October 2009) featuring Liu, A., Aamodt, S, Wolf, M., Mark, G. Accessed online at the New York Times, November 1, 2009 at: from http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/does-the-brain-like-e-books
Ito, M., Horst, H., Bittani, M., Boyd, D., Herr-Stephenson, B., et al. (2008). Living and learning with new media: Summary of findings from the digital youth project. From: macfound.org , University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley.
Mabrito, M & Medley, R. (2008). Why Professor Johnny Can’t Read: Understanding the net generation’s texts. Innovate. Vol. 4, No. 6. Retrieved online November 1, 2009 from: http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=510&action=article Page 1 of 7

New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, Vol. 66, No. 1, 60-92. Retrieved online from : http://wwwstatic.kern.org/filer/blogWrite44ManilaWebsite/paul/articles/A_Pedagogy_of_Multiliteracies_Designing_Social_Futures.htm

Ong, W. (2002) Orality and Literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Menthuen.
Prizeman, S. (2009). From Calculator of the humanist-Miller MET ETEC 540 Forum on November 23, 2009 10:34 am.
Baxter, D. (2009). From Origin and nature of hypertext-Miller MET ETEC 540 Forum on November 27, 2009 1:18 pm

Categories
Rip.Mix.Feed.

Rip, Mix, Mashups

HI, for this exercise I elected to do a merger of dada poetry and environmental art by Bansky. As a traditional poet, I am not a particular fan of dada so this is a stretch, but I found an online dada generator and had fun plugging in our readings! If anyone wants it, I can dig it up.

For this exercise I tried slideshare for the first time and did not realize I needed to upload audio files separately. It was pretty easy to use though!

My link is at: 

http://www.slideshare.net/secret/aLLLB3K5pyvTXO

Categories
Commentary 2

Commentary #2 Literacies and Information Architecture

Mandala Making Activity——-

—–As a preface activity to the commentary I would like to invite classmates to review an online example, or generate their own Mandala of Muliliteracy as a way to conceptualize the organization of each individual’s concepts. Feel free to peruse the http://win-dev.communication.utexas.edu/mandala/ communication course website and check out a sampling of other ones on the site.

The Dobson and Willinsky article provides a broad scan of the many meanings of digital literacy, for which they consider technological literacy to be a synonym (p 15, 2009). The paper asks us to focus also on the impact that digital literacy will have socio-culturally. This article served as a springboard to explore the theme here that information architecture skills are integral to successful learning.  This would correlate with a structural meaning-making context, after Cope & Kalantzis (p 11, 2009)

The authors make the distinction between traditional literacy and new literacy—they encourage us to view literacy as a social practice, not an individual skill (page 15, 2009). Digital literacy is a presented as a subset of information literacy. The 1989 definition of information literacy (page 18, 2009)  cited from the American Library Association is as follows “To be information literate, a person must be able to recognize when information is needed, and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information”. Learning to learn is a saying often applied to describe general information literacy.

 Matthews-DeNatale (2009) believes “There are at least three pieces to the puzzle. One piece is information technology fluency, one is information literacy, and another piece is media literacy. And they’re all overlapping, like a Venn diagram.” Information management is a part of multiliteracy skills, and will be the focus of this report.

Dobson and WIllinsky also cite earlier work (p 16, 2009) by Dobson (2005) in which he proposes “Digital literacy, therefore, assumes visual literacy and entails both the ability to comprehend what is represented and the ability to comprehend the internal logics and encoding schemes of that representation”.  This definition implies that one needs to understand the structure behind the information directly accessed in the media, and so associated with every representation of “data” is metadata.

With projects such as Project Gutenberg, Million Book Project, Google and others the authors refer to (p 17, 2009) today’s student has access to millions of references, and information in multiple media around each subject they may wish to explore.

Dobson and Willinsky propose that accessing multiple nodes between the links in a highly associative environment can be disorienting to a learner (page 7, 2009). This best applies to learners transitioning from traditional learning environments, not to Digital Natives. The authors do clarify that a person with good resident domain knowledge will do better in a high network situation, as they can more easily integrate situational information from this environment with their schemata (page 8, 2009).  

 Managing information in a digital environment is changing learning both in and out of the classroom. Bookmarking has surfaced as a key way to manage large sets of links on the desktop. Del.icio.us is a perfect example of how an individual can scaffold his or her learning by gradually building up more and deeper resources as understanding of a subject increases. This software allows sharing of bookmarks to further enhance functionality. This sort of tool is good example of the way that digital literacy skills can transform research, which used to be a singular activity, done in libraries’ book stack and index searches, into a highly social activity with potential for many people at great distance and of varying ages and cultural backgrounds to contribute to the process. According to Dede (2008) “RSS feeds, sophisticated search engines, and similar harvesting tools help individuals find the needles they care about in a huge haystack of resources”.

The authors refer to the fact that the unit of importance is now the post, not the page (page 20, 2009). This means that more threads and small packets of information must be managed now that microcontent is king. Behind microcontent is the web of user tags that add another dimension to the material. These linking tags allow pooling of learner knowledge of the data, by the process of cumulative novel associations.

The old way of filing and accessing material was hierarchical and taxonomic. Current information management in multiliterate learners often revolves around folksonomy (Neil, after Vander Wal, 2007). Folskonomy is defined on the EDUCAUSE website as the application of user-defined tags (so-called folk classifications) by an open group of people to categorize units of information ([n.d]). By adding tags to visual or other data in their work, learners can make powerful associative links, and even generate tag clouds, to conceivably make new meaning over and above the data itself. Folksonomy structures such as at Digg, CiteULike and others, provide a new way to manage content. New tools allow one to make a visual representation of the metadata. Generating information architecture over and above the base information is a widespread user-generated experience for the first time in history.

 The ability to customize the desktop and files within a personal digital appliance is another way that information literacy skills can enhance learning. Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) provide powerful information structuring, which provides opportunity for deeply customized user-directed learning.   PLEs can provide a way for the user to select only those modes of learning and manage information as is best suited to their learning style(s).

Informal learning environments such as games such as SimCity, and social networks (Flickr, Facebook, YouTube) also provide a new way to make meaning by providing situated learning and constructivist experiences. By accessing a path to a level of information which is appropriately in the zone of the student’s development, the comfort of the learner will be enhanced. On YouthVoices for example, young learners share their media together and have online discussions around those materials in a comfortable self-selected sharing environment.

Dobson and Willinsky acknowledge the challenges facing today’s learners when they say “And there are very real issues around too much information, in the form of inundated mailboxes clogged with spam and a World Wide Web that can seem at times overwhelmingly wide, if less than very deep”. (p 22, 2009). If educators are cognizant of the power of information architecture as a component of multiliteracy, then optimizing teaching around this strategy will help the learner focus effectively on both their individual and collaborative learning.

Unorthodox and novel strategies will continue to evolve as software evolves. Google Wave is a high priority research tool for that company because it integrates many multiliteracy tools in one place for streamlined sharing and organizing of information. This is an excellent example of how tools are evolving quickly to come to the aid of web 2.0 users in integration of information architecture.  Draude (2009) feels educators should answer the question “Maybe we should look at how to help a student figure out what is the priority information—not what information does the student have to know, but what information can the student go find that will supplement what he or she knows?  Dobson and Willinsky (2009) cite a similar theme from a 1989 work by  Lemeke regarding students learning independently, using metamedia and information literacy; they quote Lemeke saying”…places the emphasis on “access to information, rather than the imposition of learning”. Draude and Lemeke’s statements certainly represent a new appreciation of just how important information architecture is.

References

Cope, B. & Kalantzis, M. (2009) ‘Multiliteracies’: New literacies, new learning. e-published March 17, 2009;  Accessed online November 5, 2009 at: http://newlearningonline.com/~newlearn/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/m-litspaper13apr08.pdf

Dede, C. (2008). A seismic shift in epistemology. EDUCAUSE REVIEW, Vol. 43, No. 3. Pp 80-81. Accesssed online November 15, 2009 at: http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume43/ASeismicShiftinEpistemology/162892

Dobson, T., Willinsky, J. (2009). Digital literacy. Cambridge Handbook on Literacy. Accessed online at: http://pkp.sfu.ca/files/Digital%20Literacy.pdf

EDUCAUSE. Folksonomies [n.d]. Accessed online November 15th at: http://www.educause.edu/Resources/Browse/Folksonomies/30459

Neal, D. (2007). Folksonomies and Image Tagging: Seeing the Future? ASIS&T Bulletin. Accessed November 15, 2009 online at: www.asis.org/Bulletin/Oct-07/neal.html

 Schaeffer, S., Fry, M., Droude, B., Matthews-DeNatale, G. (2009) Information literacy and IT fluency. EDUCAUSE REVIEW Vol. 44, No. 3 pp 8-9. EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) Annual Conference podcast at: <http://www.educause.edu/NewTechPodcast>.Under Creative Commons License3.0

Websites Referred to:

Youth Voices  http://youthvoices.net/legg/

SimCity http://simcitysocieties.ea.com/index.php

digg http://.digg.com

Flickr http://www.flickr.com

citeulike http://www.CiteULike.org

facebook http://www.facebook.com

Google Wave http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html

Categories
Research Paper

Research Assignment 3:Tv to Radio

Mass Media—Radio to TV 1950-1970

 Radio and television are highly influential mass media. Transforming technological achievements do not end up in a vacuum, without repercussions— individuals, society, language itself, cultural, political and religious institutions are part of the sphere of media influence and in turn, influence media.  Radio is our ears on the world, and television our eyes on the world.

We allow these machines into our lives and homes. Life has changed between the time radio dominated the airwaves, and subsequent widespread adoption of TV. What unforeseen effects occurred? Do we as consumers stop to analyze these things? Does the TV belong in the children’s bedroom?

Historical and Cultural Perspectives

The radio and TV are both passive, non-interactive media—information only goes one way (Beatty, 1998). As each new invention arises, fears of how they may be used and misused contribute to a reluctance to adopt them. Looking back, they now seem more benign to authoritarian societies in the setting of our current times, as we now have the 2.0 web, which has empowered all with access and know how. Power is out of the hands of the few, and interactions and information access is around user-based choices, not network or radio station control of content. But as radio and then TV emerged, those times were important to the history of communication because this represented a way to transfer information—as instantaneous mass media, much different than the printed word. Aural, and then subsequently visual data was in the pipeline.

Kramer (p 5, 1991) proposes mass media is really quite old—he sees libraries as mass media which evolved from the very first mass medium, writing. He reviews how telegraph and Morse code were the first steps towards instantaneous communication. Morse’s first words on the device, he quoted were “what hath God wrought”; acknowledging the early inventors’ appreciation of the widespread impact for the future, reinforces the appreciation of the primary purpose of early mass media for military and commercial interests (Kramer, p. 9, 1991).  The history of radio started with the wireless telegraph. Marconi is most widely thought of the inventor but Nikola Tesla first patented radio technology. The first commercial trans-Atlantic service was carried out by Marconi in 1907, which spawned the era of audio broadcasting starting in 1919. The Radio Corporation of America or RCA was formed in 1919 and started the Americanization of radio (Kramer, p 15, 1991).

In the context of radio, I will focus on the CBC as representative of a nation’s media in both radio and television and representative of the transition that occurred. According to the CBC archival website on the history of CBC/Radio Canada, there were a number of landmarks, summarized as follows.

The year 1901 was marked by the first wireless trans-Atlantic telegraph, and 1922, the first private commercial radio stations in Canada. In 1927, the first national broadcast took place and by 1932 the government created the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC). In 1937 76% of Canada was receiving CBC radio, and in 1939 CBC carried the declaration of war and subsequent wartime, and farm broadcasts and political messages as their primary messages.

In education, 1940 saw the first provincial school broadcasts, and in 1941 the CBC news service emerged. By the year 1943 the first English School Broadcast Department formed, which emphasized the role the government saw in the function of radio for the learning of young Canadians. In 1947 the first FM radio stations emerged in a few major cities, and the FM band was credited for carrying radio forward into the TV era, due to excellent music programming and audio quality.

By 1955, CBC television had emerged and reached 66% of the population and in 1958, the first coast-to coast live TV broadcast occurred and so, welcome to hockey night in Canada!  Canada developed the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) Canadian content to protect the cultural integrity from being overwhelmed by American music, TV and film industries, by supervision and regulation of the telecommunications and broadcasting (mission statement from website).

Wikipedia reports that in 1950 one million American homes had televisions. Kramer (p 20, 1991) speaks of the rise of radio appreciation purposed to spread culture and educational experiences to rural and poor. The BBC in Britain was launched to meet this need.

Radio versus television: vying for the attention of the mass audience

In this section we will compare and contrast the effects of each media. Before one dismisses the radio as a predecessor, rather than as a continuing media influence, let us consider those parts of the world that do not have infrastructure for television even today. It seems in fact, we still pay close attention to the aural presentation, which harkens back to early orality and oratory, a concept explored at length in Ong’s book, Orality and Literacy (2002).  Kramer (p 16, 1991) quotes media guru Marshall McLuhan as saying “radio affects most people intimately, person to person, offering a world of unspoken communication between writer-speaker and listener”. That is not a concept that is intuitive, but reflects Ongs theory. Vukmirovic (p 4, 2005) states that “radio is the most accessible information channel in the world” which probably still holds true since the Internet is still not available in much of the developing world.

On October 30, 1938, listeners heard the following apocalyptical phrase, at the end of a realistic radio show, “2X2L calling CQ. Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there anyone on the air? Isn’t there…. anyone?”  That was the War of the Worlds radio broadcast that, according to history records on Wiki and elsewhere, spawned a plethora of concern, and even panic amongst listeners.  The broadcast simulated newscasts of a dire invasion. It was estimated 6 million listened, that 1.7 million listeners thought it true, and the event subsequently spawned 12 000 newspaper articles. Hitler said the panic was a sign of “decadence of democracy” and so the reaction rippled world-wide. This singular event demonstrates that in spite of disclaimers to the effect that it was fictional, radio can deeply influence and thus could subvert an impressionable audience. As far as long term influence, the event has since generated TV, movies, plays, and many analyses.  One show, lots of impact!

Kramer posits (p 22, 1991) that “world events, and the immediacy of radio news coverage made many listeners anxious about life in general” and cites the above show as an example.  In the early era of radio, it was a news vehicle. Hockey games, news, readings and discussions dominated the airways. According to Kramer (Pg 19, 1991) “broadcasting then and now, somehow makes people feel as though they are a part of something bigger than themselves, connected to the world out there”. Even though radio does not have the flashy visual aspect, it is still a powerful communication tool.

According to Vukmirovic (pp. 1-3, 2005) the radio is spoken language and one needs remembrance on the part of listener, and memorable discourse at the source. Remembrance is a selective memory process of a recipient. He cites a tri-modal theory involving the recipient, the media, and external recipient environment. Among recipient factors he feels attention, previous knowledge, attitudes and feelings, motivation, hearing skills, and recall strategies need to be taken into account.  Memory of media includes its position, the nature of the items, repetition, and how closely it meets the inner schema of the listener (Vukmirovic, p. 5, 2005). These considerations all make good sense, and help explain why the two people can hear very different things after they internalize the spoken broadcast. Kozma (1993) feels there is an interplay between physical technology, symbol systems (language, pictures, music), and processing capabilities (information received) so each medium has a profile of capabilities.

TV was invented in more than one location, and is most widely attributed to Farnsworth and Zworykin. As TV took hold in the 50s, the radio became a vehicle for popular music instead.  At that time, according to Kramer (p 27, 1991) “just as radio listening had displaced time previously spent reading, television now challenged radio as the preferred leisure time activity”,  and he cited a study which indicated “..the average American home had two TV’s with at least one of them on about seven hours every day”  and  “mid 1970s annual polls indicated that television had surpassed newspapers as the medium Americans most rely on for information, and also the medium perceived as the most credible and complete in news coverage”. Those cited studies indicate that TV had become THE pervasive medium of that decade.

 Kramer, (p29, 1991) relays that “it is well documented that people rarely watch a TV show, but rather TV, seeking the least objectionable program rather than choosing to turn it off when “nothing is on””. These observations ring very true and the phrase “couch potato” comes to mind. McLuhan sees TV as “cool” medium since it does require engagement of the watcher, but this has been widely debated.

Religious programming has become popular with TV evangelical shows spreading the Word the way the written word did with the Bible in the days of old. Political institutions have also taken the TV and used it for their own purposes, disseminating messages that sometimes border political brainwashing. Many feel that the use of media for these purposes is an abuse of power because with the exception of live debates, counter messages cannot easily be heard.  On the positive side of the coin, projects such as the UNESCO Bangkok distance education initiative described at unescobkk.org, use radio and television to improve literacy and information transfer, but using foreign media producers, in this case Educational Radio Television (ERTV) in Italy.  The initiative is used in Afghanistan also, but the use of native peoples and production facilities would have been preferred in order to ensure that the needs of the learner are fully integrated. In Beatty’s CBC lecture, he agrees “television and radio created the mass audience on a scale that had been impossible in the past. “ He builds his case, noting they were perfect tools for authoritarian governments trying to control public thought, and for corporations marketing their products.  Beatty made another excellent point, noting that early centralization and limited TV and radio licenses restricted the public’s choice.

McLuhan (p 207, 1964) scolds society for being so blind when he says “the electric technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deaf, blind and mute about its encounter with the Guetenberg technology, on and through which the American way of life was formed”, and  on speaking about how deeply entrenched media can become, he notes “the effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts, but alter the sense ratios or patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.” McLuhan implies its influence seeps into our society while we are busy and so we are effectively blind to its effects. Kramer (p 30, 1991) identified many traps including TV ads targeting kids (e.g., cigarettes, clothes), cultural homogeneity, and gate keeping by the big stations to select news and views for the watcher.  He also lists violence, sex, and stereotypical portrayals as influencing the watcher and argues that even if the effects are indirect as modern media theories propose, these traps still have consequences.  Kramer explores issues of modelling after TV stars (soap opera example), and children modelling their behaviour (social, antisocial) in sync with characters, and states, “the conclusion is that children are indeed socialized by movies and television, especially when they identify with a character they watch” Kramer also notes popular current theory is that mass media consumption leads to a spiral of silence (after Noelle-Neumann). What he means by this is if everyone is exposed to an opinion, dissenters tend to not speak up. All of these explorations alert us to just how many hot-button issues we are not aware of as typical consumers.

Beatty (1998) states “mankind has always maintained an uneasy relationship with technology, simultaneously regarding it with both reverence and fear, uncertain about whether our machines would ultimately prove to be our slaves or our masters”.  This paranoia is reflected in the writings of the time such as in George Orwell’s book 1984.

If one stops to think, in a little less than two generations from the invention of the radio and the television, we have come a long way baby. Beatty (1998) concurs, noting it is the speed of change which overwhelms us.   Beatty (1998) cites the words over the entrance to the 1893 Chicago world’s fair “science explores, technology executes, man conforms” when making the point that we have a very uneasy relationship with these mass media boxes.  McLuhan (p 208, 1964) believes “subliminal and docile acceptance of media impact has made them prisons without walls for their human users”.

Regarding psychological influences, many propose that in the 21st century, many of the attention deficit disorders stem from fast paced moving picture consumption by our youth. It is startling to compare the average length for TV commercials which used to run one to two minutes, and now generally flash multiple engaging images in 10 to 15 second slots. The jury is still out on the effect on attention span, as it is on the effects on literacy. There are so many confounding factors it is hard to attribute any effects to just TV alone. Video games are an example of a potential confounder.                                                                                           

No discussion of modern mass media is complete without mention of McLuhan’s message versus media concept. The full sentence from which “the message is the medium” was drawn is as follows: “in a culture like ours, long accustomed to splitting and dividing all things as a means of control, it is sometimes a bit of a shock to be reminded that, in operational and practical fact, the medium is the message” (McLuhan, p 203, 1964).  On the same page he notes “..the content of any medium is always another medium” e.g., the written word is content of print media.  He would say then, I presume, that for radio, the listened to word is the content of radio and the moving picture and sound is the content of TV?  But further in that passage, he reframes it as follows, “for the message of any medium or technology is the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs”. I think what he means is that the message not the medium is what alters the human landscape. In support of that concept, McLuhan (p 206, 1964) gives an example of a Bedouin with a battery radio and how he is impinged with much new conceptually but he points out” Western man himself experiences exactly the same inundation as the remote native”.   On the contrary side of this, everybody wants it now is a philosophy widely infiltrating the masses—we are spoiled, and want different perspectives on lots of issues as they happen on the frontlines.

In closing, Andy Worhol said in 1968 “in the future, everyone will be (world) famous for 15 minutes”.  This may be coming to pass in a way for those using the Internet to post their blogs, video and music, though a new phrase has been coined to meet today’s times to the effect that everyone will be famous to 15 other people—a tongue in cheek to social networking. Radio and TV continue to both influence society in many ways and the effects of them are still under study due to the difficulty of isolating their influence on the listeners and watchers.

References

 Beatty, P. CBC Speech Archives (1998). Coping with Convergence: Social and cultural change in the age of digital technology. March 20 Lecture to UWO. Accessed online October 19, 2009 at :

http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/speeches/19980320.shtml

Kramer, E.M. (1991). A supplementary chapter to accompany: Understanding Human Communication 4th ed. By Adler, R and Rodman, G. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc. Accessed October 19, 2009 at:

http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/K/Eric.M.Kramer-1/download/papers/masscomm1991.pdf

History of Radio. Accessed online October 19, 2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radio#Beginnings_of_radio

CBC –Radio-Canada Archive Website; 1901-1939. Accessed online October 19, 2009 at: http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/history/1901-1939.shtml

CBC –Radio-Canada Archive Website;1940s. Accessed online October 19, 2009 at: http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/history/1940s.shtml

CBC –Radio-Canada Archive Website; 1950s. Accessed online October 19, 2009 at: http://www.cbc.radio-canada.ca/history/1950s.shtml

CRTC Website. Accessed October 23, 2009 at: http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/home-accueil.htm                                               

TV events: 1950s. Accessed October 19, 2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_in_television#Events

Ong, W. J. (2002) Orality and Literacy. Routledge, London and New York.

Vukmirov, D. (2005). Radio and communication. Accessed October 19, 2009 at: http://www.brain.hr/Mind&Brain3/ABSTRACTS/Vukmirovic.pdf

War of the Worlds- radio show. Accessed online October 20, 2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_(radio)#Background

Kozma, R.B. (1993).Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational Technology Research and Development. Vol 42, No. 2 pp 7-19. (print published in 1994). Accessed online October 14, 2009 at:

http://mmtserver.mmt.duq.edu/mm416-01/gedit704/articles/kozmaArticles                                                                                 

Marshall McLuhan. [n.d.]Accessed online October 20, 2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan#Understanding_Media_.281964.29

 

Unesco Education Project; Bangkok. [n.d.]. Accessed October 18, 2009 at: http://www.unescobkk.org/education/apeid/news/news-details/article/ict-transforming-education-ready-get-set-go/

Marshall McLuhan.  Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man 1964

 NY McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., May 1964. Excerpt from NEWMEDIAREADER, II, 13. MIT Press, Cambridge and London, 2003. Accessed online October 18, 2009 at www.newmediareader.com/mcluhan-medium.pdf

Andy Worhol. [n.d.]Accessed online October 21, 2009 at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol

 

Categories
Reflections

Reflections Modules 1 and 2

I am enjoying the content of the two courses I am taking this semester tremendously, both via readings and sharing by keen and engaged fellow-learners. Unfortunately, I have a sense of missing much since there is such a plethora of material and it rests in many different places, both within course materials/wikis/weblogs/webCT,  and via the excellent links to further reading and viewing.  As I read through the postings while catching up after the flu, I feel all the salient points have been presented in so many comprehensive ways—what else can I say that is even remotely witty or wise? That adds to the discussion in a meaningful, scholarly way?

 

 In our readings, we have explored the way humans transitioned from primary orality and adapted to new ways of putting pen to “paper”. That process took from 3500 BC to now. Very recently, text is becoming more plastic and functional by integrating hypertext, and news travels very fast by widespread social network collaboration. We are moving away from solo writer, and set in “stone” letters and words, to plastic text—textology is changing fast.

 

Postman in Technopoly presents a position of concern around new technologies.

 

In Brands’ Escaping the Digital Dark Age, the loss of digitized data is explored in detail. He admonishes all to sit up and take notice of this hidden risk.

 

The CBC commentary surrounding the digital universal library concept is a wandering exploration of the issues of copyright, and private corporation involvement. The Kelly article “Scan this Book” explores many similar themes as in the other readings about the universal digital library.

O’Donnell proposed in the Virtual Library piece that the idea is neither new nor golden.  He speaks of the historical aspects from The Great Library of Alexandria through the Memex in the ‘40s, and expresses concern that “infochaos” will be the only thing to emerge from the debacle of the dreamed universal digital library of the future.

 

In the video version of funeral oration of Julius Caesar, and in Phaedrus, we saw classic oratory in the rhetoric form, which was also exemplified in the Plato Iliad excerpt. The irony of the Plato oration is that the written word is the vehicle he uses to expound his theories about the downside of writing, and he proposed that nobody who had serious and important ideas would write them down—how ironic is that! The issue Plato raises of the relationship of memory with written word is revisited in modern times in the Visible Language article, Hypertext and the Art of Memory.

 

James O’Donnell in “From Papyrus to Cyberspace” explored the flip side of new technologies—the downside, when we do not know fully the effects until after implementation. He believes that unpredictable change and a less intimate community are hallmarks of the modern time.  Dr. James Engell feels the state of affairs is that education is already transformed by new technologies, and the generational divide is a big one. He emphasizes instability in business and in information storage as examples of how unclear the future direction is in these frontier times.

 

Lamb’s article “Wide Open Spaces: Wikis, ready or not” is a good ingress into the next section of the course where we deal with the connections between text and fluidity of the web-based text realm. His thoughts about the use of wikis in academics and otherwise were a refreshing introduction to “wikidom”, the new and evolving kingdom of wikis.

Categories
Commentary 1

Commentary 1

 

Black and White

 

Walter Ong, in his 2002 edition book presents a black and white view of orality versus literacy. In his view the presence of literacy alters the human mind. On page 77, Ong refers to how writing restructures the consciousness of man, “Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when engaged in writing, but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form”.  In his historical explorations and in cited reports of studies of non-reading cultures, we are presented with his evidence to support that stance.

 

The chart accompanying the commentary summarizes in very simple terms the way he divides the one state from the other, with page references from the 2002 edition.1 Though the chart summary is considerably simplified, it does give a sense of the strong reported divide between the two psychosocial states as put forward.

 

Through the examples he gives, he assigns culture-wide transformative effects of becoming literate. Others such as Chandler feel the situation is more like a spectrum and that these two states may not be as separate as Ong purports them to be. Chandler in his chapters, Technological Autonomy and Reification in the Technological or Media Determinism study, explores this issue and states, “Rather than being ‘outside’ society, technology is an inextricable part of it”. The tools of literacy would be interpreted to be interwoven or melded within the socio-cultural milieu rather than being a separate ‘thing’ that influences.

 

An area that is not dealt with within the course readings is the child, as pre-literate. A young child has many of the characteristics attributed to oral cultures, with the exception of agonistic or rhetorical since these are cultivated oral skills and attitudes. Early age language acquisition mimics early language and writing development historically, as pictorial representations of objects, or pictograms are slowly replaced by alphabetic writing for the developing child. Likewise some the attributes Ong has given to literates are present in pre-literate present-day children. They are informally logical, and categorical in their dealings with others and the world. Context free, and autonomous, children are in a world of their own.  They are independent, and explore on their own.  In support of Ong’s position is a study by Castro-Caldas & Petersson, et al. (1998) showing in fact that brain activity is changed by the process of learning in scans of the brain, not just in psychological testing.  

 

Secondary orality shares features with both primary orality and literacy, except with mixed media interlinking and retrieval, a third system is there—a new literacy, which many now term hypermedia.  It is like a de-evolution, whereby bits and bytes are the new alphabet and the words are no longer the units of interest—it is the nodes or connections between key concepts that matter. The icons of the modern interface are a return to the pictograph, and emoticons and hypertext add depth, seeking to re-inject more contextual meaning.

 

One might agree with Ong that literacy irreversibly changes the minds of those in the cultures or perhaps literacy has an impact on each individual’s developing mind as proposed. As the web has evolved, there has been an increasing proportion of visual and aural data, and hypertext, while static text is decreasing. Though some of this is due to increased bandwidth, the medium is changing fast in the 2.0 web and we are literally moving away from static black and white in secondary orality media environments. If literacy affects the developing mind, then early exposure to the post-literate fast-paced online hypermedia may change a human beings mind in a new way, as yet unfathomed.

 

 

References

 

Ong, W.J. (2002) Orality and Literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Menthuen.

 

Chandler, D. (2009). Technological or Media Determinism. Accessed online October 3, 2009 at: http://aber.ac.uk/Documents/tecdet/

 

Castro-Caldas, A., Petersson, K.M., Reis, A., Stone-Elander, S., and Ingvar, M. (1998). The illiterate brain: Learning to read and write during childhood influences the functional organization of the adult brain. Brain, Vol. 121, No. 6. P 1053-1063. Accessed October 2009 online at: http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/121/6/1053

Simple contrast derived from Ong
Simple contrast derived from Ong
Categories
Introductions Uncategorized

Fritzi Scheff demonstrating Magnavox for Fifth Liberty Loan in New York City, 1895

Fritzi Scheff demonstrating Magnavox for Fifth Liberty Loan in New York City, 1895, originally uploaded by Powerhouse Museum Collection.

“New” technology is being shown off here in the photo.

I selected a musical theme since music is termed the “universal language” and technology has provided a way for us to weave music into our life in a way that had never been possible. With high capacity portable players, we can immerse ourselves in our favourite tunes anywhere anytime. it is posited that so many songs have now been penned that the combinations of notes for a musical flow have been exhausted if one considers songs from all ages, all places. That is amazing to me.

The technology of music has blossomed in a way that allows us to hear a beautiful symphony without travel, the chants and drums of African and other world music at the flip of a key, and to record our own music using simple add-on technology for our computers.

Current home studio products exceed the multitrack capacities of the recording studios used by the Beatles. The proliferation of online distribution channels has revolutionized distribution.

The whole system surrounding music has significantly changed in the short history of recording. The sophistication of the tools as well. That is what appears to me to be the meaning of technology–both system and tools. The dictionary definitions I reviewed in OED and elsewhere are interesting from an etymologic perspective indeed but for simplicity, system and tools describes technology surrounding music.

I still like analog! Best wishes, Kathleen

Categories
Introductions

A blank slate, and building blocks

 

 

LAclone VPN CAVANAGH

Image from my archives. From a VPN magazine article.

The picture I selected reminds me of writing, as it generates in me a thought that the stitching together of units will result in a synergy; in the case of genes, life. More than the sum of the parts.

How we turn a blank slate (be it stone, paper, or an electronic interface) into a carefully crafted, stitched together collection of units (words, phrases) called writing is a process applied in very different settings and media these days. Successful text technologies are the sum of much more than the jumble of letters one sees if quickly perusing a text-filled page.

In the image, we see a stitching together of the building blocks of life; seeing something with a high degree of order formed using a finite collection of building blocks.

Writers must first face a blank “page”, and their text changes the space. The writing will change those who can assimilate meanings from the words and phrases. How a writer will achieve that end is determined by the traditions and rules of each language, the tools, the cultural setting, and will evolve according to the times they live and work in.

I am taking my 7th an d8th courses this fall. I am involved in technical writing and editing, I coach students for communication skills in veterinary training, and instruct a university course online. I also have developed many educational materials in electronic, print, and graphic art formats over the years. (When not doing family activities and clinical practice!)

I think this will be a fascinating course. I have had the good fortune of being able to wear many hats over the years while working on educational projects, but around every corner in the MET program, I find challenges and enrichment of my understanding of the processes we can apply, in order to turn a “blank slate” into something much more.

Warm regards to all, Kathleen Cavanagh

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