I must be honest and admit that I simply could not take in all the assigned readings, the forum discussions, the wiki building, and the community weblog; however, I was able to learn a lot from what I could absorb. Reading Ong and Bolter were some of my favorite activities in ETEC540 for a couple reasons. The first reason was that I really enjoyed seeing the contrasting views of these two authors and the second reason was that the reading was on paper. Even though I have a nice new monitor, my eyes could only handle so much digital reading and I found myself craving reading an actual book. That was an interesting realization as we were learning about different writing spaces and the benefits and drawbacks of each.
Before reading Bolter, I found myself seeing eye-to-eye with Ong. His great divide perspective about technological determinism is so black and white and makes sense. Then we read Bolter and his humanistic perspective not definitively labeling a cause and effect relationship on the remediation of writing was slightly disconcerting at first. Being more of a humanitarian myself, I have come to agree more with Bolters ideas than Ong’s. By understanding their contrasting views of text technologies, I was able to gain a solid understanding of the implications of the evolution of writing all the way from papyrus to Web 2.0. To be honest, I as slightly impatient learning about all this history while I was reading about it, but I am glad to have as good of perspective on writing as I do now.
The collection of material created by my classmates on the community weblog is incredible. There are so many creative and innovative ideas incorporating much of what we have read about and lots of other knowledge brought to the table from outside this course. Our blog is a good example of the wisdom of the crowds and thankfully most contributors have added appropriate tags and have categorized them accordingly making it easy to find connections in the contributions. I only wish I had access to our community weblog indefinitely for an instant source of inspiration!
Thanks to all of you for sharing all your knowledge and making this a very enjoyable course.
For my course project, I decided to create an interactive fictional story for students learning English as a foreign language. The target audience is a small to medium class of upper intermediate students between the ages of 15 and 25 who have recently learned the difference between direct and reported speech. Appropriate level reading material for non-native English students is hard to come by, especially in a non-English speaking country and is greatly appreciated when available. As indicated in the directions to be read before students start their reading journey, the activity can either be completed individually or as a group. Often when there is a competitive element to activities such as these, students are much more motivated to participate as a group. It could potentially be completed remotely but would best be suited for a face-to-face-to-screen computer lab scenario.
This project is a product of my exploration and experimentation of the mixed media hypertext as a teaching tool. Therefore the focus should be much more on the medium than on the actual content. The storyline is of course fictional and is relatively inconsequential other than providing some authentic dialogue (between the reader and their cellmate) and vocabulary appropriate to the students’ level. The story is somewhat shorter than I originally expected, however as I was writing it, I realized that it would be better to start with a simple storyline both for students and a writer that are new to this genre and the tools to create it. “An interactive fiction is an extension of classical narrative media as it supposes a direct implication of spectators during the story evolution. Writing such a story is much more complex than a classical one, and tools at the disposal of writers remain very limited compared to the evolution of technology” (Donikian and Portugal, 2004). I also had an idea of how the story would go before I started writing, but the direction changed in the process as well and I learned that creating a graphic storyboard is very helpful for organizing the different directions it can take readers. There are multiple endings, yet students are redirected to try the story again until they reach “the end.”
Bush, Nelson, and Bolter were the three main authors we read in ETEC540 in order to gain an understanding of the origins, complexity and implications of hypertext. Both Bush and Nelson were primarily concerned with hypertext as a natural means to disseminate nonfictional information, while Bolter’s chapter on fictional hypertext is the by far longest chapter in Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print. In that chapter, he presents many literary techniques using hypertext to move readers between elements such as time, place, character, voice, plot, perspective, etc. Although these techniques are intriguing, their complexity is not appropriate for my target audience. Bolter’s analysis of hypertext goes further by pointing out that instead of being nonlinear, it is actually multilinear. He points out that all writing is linear, but hypertext can go in many different directions. Even in his chapter titled Hypertext and the Remediation of Print, he writes, “The principal task of authors of hypertextual fiction on the Web or in stand-aloe form is the use links to define relationships among textual elements, and these links constitute the rhetoric of the hypertext” (Bolter, 2001, p. 29).
Unlike a traditional storyline, hypertextual storytelling gives the students the freedom over how they read it. This (perceived) control is a much more common characteristic to the way we interact with digital information today and therefore should be incorporated into classroom activities regularly. Putting the student in the proverbial driver’s seat is indicative of a constructivistic teaching approach, which is especially effective when employing ICT in the classroom. However, as Donikian and Portugal observe, “Whatever degree of interactivity, freedom, and non linearity might be provided, the role that the interactor is assigned to play always has to remain inside the boundaries thus defined by the author, and which convey the essence of the work itself” (2004). For that reason, I have suggested that students actually modify and customize the story after they have read it. They could do that individually or in pairs in class or for homework. Most often, the more control students are given, the more they are motivated to participate and learn. For their final project, they could create a complete story with multiple endings.
There are so many possibilities when writing fiction with hypertext and I have hardly scratched the surface in my first exploration into this genre. This project has given me a solid base from with to create longer and more complex pieces for wider teaching contexts. I hope you enjoy it and that it inspires you experiment with this exciting medium as well. Click here to access the story or copu and paste this url: http://wiki.ubc.ca/Course:ETEC540/2009WT1/Assignments/MajorProject/ItsUpToYou
References:
Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing Space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 27-46, 121-160.
Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. The Atlantic Monthly, 176(1), 101-108.
Donikian, S. & Portugal, J. (2004). Writing Interactive Fiction Scenarii with DraMachina. Lecture notes in computer science, pp. 101–112
Nelson, Theodore. (1999). Xanalogical structure, needed now more than ever: Parallel documents, deep links to content, deep versioning and deep re-use.
For my Mix. Rip. Feed activity, I have compiled a list of bookmarks in del.icio.us of most of the online tools and resources we have come across in ETEC540. Some I have used before, but most are new to me. I have added tags and brief descriptions of what the tools are for. What this lacks in creativity, it makes up for in usefulness.
Long before there were computers in most of our homes, there was Mithila Art in homes of what is now India and Nepal. Originally, this folk art form mainly consisted of lively murals painted on the walls of homes in rural villages. But it was much more than simple art for art’s sake. “Mithila painting is part decoration, part social commentary, recording the lives of rural women in a society where reading and writing are reserved for high-caste men” (Arminton, Bindloss & Mayhew, 2006, p. 315). This was art that gave a voice to powerless rural women as a communication technology.
Historical and Cultural Context
This art form acquired its name from the kingdom of Mithila where it originated around the seventh century A.D. At that time, the region was a vast plane located primarily in what is now eastern India as well as in southern Nepal. However, the cultural center and capital of the region was in what is now the city of Janakpur, Nepal only 20 kilometers from the Indian boarder. Janakpur is of course the home of Janakpur painting while the town of Madubandi, India is home of paintings of the same name. Mithila art consists of both kinds of paintings of which Madubandi are more common.
It is said that Mithila art was born when King Janak commissioned artists to create paintings at the time of the marriage of his daughter, Sita, to the god Lord Ram. This might have to do with the fact that most Madubani paintings are created during festivals celebrating marriages and births, religious and social events and ceremonies of the Maithil community. Others say that, “Its original inspiration emerged out of the local women’s craving for religiousness and an intense desire to be one with god” (Janakpur Women’s Development Center, n.d.). However it actually began is not clear, but what it became after being passed down through many generations surly is.
“Mithila is a wonderful land where art and scholarship, laukika and Vedic traditions flourished together in complete harmony between the two” (Mishra, 2009, 4). This harmony was uncommon during this time in many other regions in southern Asia as well as the rest of the world. The general attitude toward artists in this region is one of utmost respect and they were even compared with gods. That could be a major reason why women in ancient Indian society, whom were traditionally regarded as much less significant than men, adopted Mithila art as well as other art forms as not only a communication technology, but as a means for empowerment as well.
“Picture writing is perhaps constructed culturally (even today) as closer to the reader, because it does not depend upon the intermediary of spoken language and seems to reproduce places and events directly” (Bolter, 2001, p. 59). The murals were originally painted during important community events as a kind of subjective snapshot as well as social commentary. This was a positive way for rural women to have a voice and to be heard.
Implications for Literacy and Education
In a communicative context, ‘literacy’ is commonly defined as “the ability to read and write” where to ‘write’ is defined as to “mark (letters, words, or other symbols) on a surface, with a pen, pencil, or similar implement” (Oxford University Press, 2009). So although most Mithila artists were not literate in phonetic writing, they were exceptionally literate in picture writing. As with oral communication, this type of literacy served to bring people together and strengthen their communities. “As we look back through thousands of years of phonetic literacy, the appeal of traditional picture writing is its promise of immediacy. By the standard of phonetic writing, however, picture writing lacks narrative power” (Bolter, 2001, p. 59). The “narrative power” of which Bolter refers to, is the ability of phonetic writing to convey detailed information from a first person perspective. Unfortunately, this ability also has a tendency to actually distance those in communication rather than bring them together as in picture writing.
Bolter goes on to write that, “Sometimes, particularly when the picture text is a narrative, the elements seem to aim for the specificity of language. Sometimes, these same elements move back into a world of pure form and become shapes that we admire for their visual economy” (2001, p. 63). This explains the duality of this art form as both a communication technology and an aesthetic art form. Another perspective of visual communication technologies is that, “Display is, in respect to its prominence and significance and ubiquity, the analogue of narrative” (Kress, 2005, p.14). So while Mithila paintings perhaps lacked the ability to convey a first person narrative, they narrowed the gap between the composer and her audience in a beautiful visual mode of communication.
For the Maithil artists, the ability to express their desires, dreams, expectations, hopes and aspirations to their community in (picture) writing through their painting was most likely much more valuable than communicating detailed information to outsiders by means of phonetic writing. “Unlike words, depictions are full of meaning: they are always specific. So on the one hand there is a finite stock of words—vague, general, nearly empty of meaning; on the other hand there is a n infinitely large potential of depictions—precise, specific, and full of meaning” (Kress, 2005, pgs.15-16). The meaning they conveyed through their art was unmistakable and accessible to all. In this case, picture writing literacy did not lead to phonetic or alphabetic writing literacy. It did, however, require education.
As all writing is communication technology, Mithal art required education to master the particular tools, materials and techniques of this unique style of picture writing. Most of these artists were not formally educated and were illiterate in the ways of phonetic reading and writing. But they did have to learn about the range of natural hues that could be derived from preparations and combinations of clay, bark, flowers and berries as well as how to fashion brushes from bamboo twigs and small pieces of cloth (Mishra, 2009).
Conclusion
Although Mithila art did not directly lead ancient India to a conventional sense of literacy nor to formal education of the masses, it did give a voice to the voiceless. As a communication technology, it provided something for those artists that was and remains a critical element of their society: a heightened consciousness. As Ong writes, “Technologies are not mere exterior aids but also interior transformations of consciousness, and never more than when they affect the word. Such transformations can be uplifting. Writing heightens consciousness” (2002, p. 81).
Mithila art still exists today, but unfortunately has been commercialized with the introduction of tourism. Much of what this art form and communication technology was and did for these people has been lost. Most pieces are painted on paper and many are of scenes made-to-order that have nothing to do with Maithil culture, although selling their artwork has proved an increasing source of income and has in turn improved their quality of live. With the support and guidance development organizations, groups are now promoting the consumption of Vitamin A, voting, safe sex, and saying “no” to drugs to their communities (Janakpur Women’s Development Center, n.d.). So although it has changed considerably over many generations, Mithila art is still a meaningful communication technology.
Kress, G. (2005). Gains and losses: New forms of text, knowledge, and learning. Computers and Composition, 22, 5-22. Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science
Mishra, K. K. (2009). Mithila Paintings: Past, Present and Future. Retrieved October 4, 2009 from Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. Web site: http://ignca.nic.in/
This chapter is divided into two sections. In the first section, “The literate mind and the oral past”, Ong introduces the reader to the concept of a division between orality and writing by quoting many linguists and other scholars throughout history. He is painting us a picture of what human communication looked like before writing. He first quotes Ferdinand de Saussure noting, “Writing has simultaneously usefulness, shortcomings and dangers”, and that, “Still he thought of writing as a kind of complement to oral speech, not as a transformer of verbalization” (2002, p.5). This made me realize that is strikingly similar to how many people feel about information and communication technology (ICT).
Throughout the chapter, I was constantly thinking about the analogy between the introduction and influence of writing and that of computers knowing that the latter is one of the main themes in this course. In this analogy, ‘orality’ (as pre-writing communication) represents ‘literacy’ (as pre-computer communication). Therefore, Saussure’s second idea above would be translated into, “…computers are a kind of complement to written communication, and are not a transformer of verbalization”. This is clearly not a perfect analogy, however it has given me an interesting and enlightening perspective on the influence of ICT. For example, Ong points out that out of 3000 spoken languages presently, only 78 have a literature (2002, p. 7). That is nearly 40% whereas the percentage of the world’s population using the Internet is less than 25% (2009).
Ong goes on to explain how, despite much resistance and criticism early on, writing gradually and eventually gained more credibility than oral communication of matters such as law, science, business, etc. Part of that most likely had to do with how readily available the information was made as well as how objective it was. If it were only available orally, than whoever was looking for specific information would have had to locate the person who actually knew the particular information. Then when they found that person, the information might not be the same as the last time he or she said it. Whereas, if it were written in a wall, scroll, book, etc, the information would be much easier to access and would be the same every time it was accessed. This fits with the analogy where the Internet makes information much more accessible than traditionally having to go to a library to find written information that had a good possibility of being inaccurate because it was out of date.
The example Ong gives from “Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric” also fits nicely into the analogy; “rhetoric was and had to be a product of writing” (2002, p. 9). Most students that have access to a computer would not even consider composing a weblog entry, much less an essay, on pen and paper. If Aristotle were alive today, he might say that writing is and has to be a product of computers. That might be stretching it somewhat; however the point is that the vast majority of all writing today is composed on computer. Ong goes on to say, “Thus writing from the beginning did not reduce orality but enhanced it…” (2002, p. 9). Many educators today argue that students consistently produce more and better written work when they are given the opportunity to compose their thoughts on a word processor. The ability to easily correct mistakes, rearrange text, change words, etc helps students to relax and just let the thoughts flow. Does writing have to be a product of a computer? Probably not; but how often do you draft an important document with a hand held writing implement?
The second section of this chapter is, “Did you say ‘oral literature’?”. This section brings us much closer to the present day thinking about the differences between orality and writing. Eventually scholars accepted writing so much that, “oral art forms were essentially unskillful and not worth serious study” (2002, p.10). Taking the analogy further, we can say that academic textbooks and journals are not (or will not be) trusted and used for research as much as electronic information found online. This again comes down to availability, convenience and the ability to maintain the most current information. In an online program such as MET, it is possible to complete all the coursework without ever setting foot in a conventional library.
One of the most interesting and perhaps difficult ideas to envision in this first chapter is what it was really like to live without any writing (2002, p. 11). It is essentially impossible for literate people to grasp the idea. Concluding the analogy, sometimes I find it very difficult to remember what life was like before computers. Younger generations, of course, will not have the option of recalling that memory. Of the few (predominately) oral cultures left, hardly any are unaware of writing and its many benefits. They also know that by becoming literate, they will inherently give up many benefits of their primary orality. Knowing this is very difficult, but “we have to die to continue living” (2002, p. 15).
References:
Internet World Stats: Usage and Population Statistics. (2009). Internet Usage and World Population Statistics. Retrieved October 3, 2009 from Miniwatts Marketing Group. Web site: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
Ong, W.J. (2002). Chapter 1: The Orality of Language. In Orality and Literacy. (pp. 5-15). London: Routledge.
“Technology” is almost as broad of a term as “text,” however; in the context of ETEC540, it’s a little easier to nail down. My new understanding of these two concepts is that they clearly have something fundamental in common. They are clearly both SYSTEMS. Examining them together has helped me see this significant overlap. Could we have “text” without “technology?” No, because text is a technology of communication. Could we have “technology” without “text?”
If you boil down all the definitions of “text” on medium heat and stirring often, what you get is essentially “language” soup. Like an onion, both concepts can be deeply layered and infinitely complex, but both have the same general purpose. Okay, so what is language then? Well, it’s a system of communication. And what’s the general purpose of an onion?? Well, to give us bad breath and make us cry.
The concept as text being like words woven together really made sense to me. This being my 8th class in the program, I am more drawn to different definitions of text than of technology. The relationship between language and meaning can be so complex, that it’s possible for text to be created merely for the sake of filling space without really conveying meaning. The picture effectively illustrates this possibility.
My name is Ryan Bartlett and although this will be my 8th course in MET, it is my first course directly through UBC. I started the program 1.5 years ago while teaching foreign/second language methodology and EFL at a private university in Oaxaca, Mexico. Since then I have been taking courses online administered through the Tec de Monterrey in Mexico. So long story short, I’m excited to see how UBC works online not to mention very interested to take a deeper look at the complex relationship between language and technology.
Long before there were computers in most of our homes, there was Mithila Art in homes of what is now India and Nepal. Originally, this folk art form mainly consisted of lively murals painted on the walls of homes in rural villages. But it was much more than simple art for art’s sake. “Mithila painting is part decoration, part social commentary, recording the lives of rural women in a society where reading and writing are reserved for high-caste men” (Arminton, Bindloss & Mayhew, 2006, p. 315). This was art that gave a voice to powerless rural women as a communication technology.
