A lot of what we covered in the course was familiar, but what Etec 540 provided me with was an increased awareness. This course opened my eyes to the issues and concerns regarding the digitization of text and gave me a better understanding of different Web 2.0 technologies.
Orality and Literacy (Ong, 1982) and Writing Spaces (Bolter, 2001) introduced me to the implications of such a transformation, and how it is analogous to how our society transformed from an oral to a written culture. With both of these transformations, there are many gains (eReaders, interactivity, democratization of knowledge) as well as losses (memory, culture, traditions, storytelling). Therefore it is prudent to monitor the digitization of text so that the transformation doesn’t result in us losing too much of who we are. Ifeoma’s commentary, The Impact of Literacy Technology on Learning. . . highlighted how literacy continues to change, to the point that we now must consider the appropriateness of texting language in academic papers. She also points out how the impact of writing on memory seems to have some parallels with Google’s affect on our memory and how we think. Unfortunately, I also often find myself saying “that’s OK, I’ll Google it.” Yet, the remediation of print will also bring a lot of positive aspects that are presently difficult to imagine.
While reading Ashley’s blog, The Evolution of Advertising, my increased awareness of multimodal texts helped me realize how influential advertising has been on texts. Starting from texts that introduced photographs, colour, etc. . . to web sites that started using pop ups, photos, videos, etc . . . , advertising often seems to be one of the forces behind the mulitmodality of texts such as newspapers, magazines, and webpages.
This course has given me a better understanding of the role that Web 2.0 can play in education. By ignoring an integral part of students, teachers are missing out on a opportunity to further engage students and enrich their education. In fact, I found that using some of these Web 2.0 technologies, such as wikis, WordPress, and Webslides, and reading Bryan Alexander’s Web 2.O A New of Innovation for Teaching and Learning (2006) took me out of my comfort zone and provided the most enlightening and enjoyable part of the course.
References
Alexander, B. (2006) “Web 2.0: A new wave of innovation for teaching and learning?” Educause Review, 41(2), 34-44. Retrieved, April 5, 2008, from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0621.pdf
Bolter, J.D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print (2nd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Chiobi, I. (2010). The impact of Literacy (Technology ) on learning: Has the evolution of literacy, become the evolution of human memory? Exploring Ong Chapter 4- Writing restructures consciousness. Retrieved Dec 2010 from https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept10/2010/11/30/the-impact-of-literacy-technology-on-learning-has-the-evolution-of-literacy-become-the-evolution-of-human-memory-exploring-ong-chapter-4-writing-restructures-consciousness/
Ong, Walter. (1982.) Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.
Ross, A. (2010). The Evolution of Advertising: From Papyrus to YouTube – Ashely Ross. Retrieved Dec 2010 from https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec540sept10/2010/11/29/the-evolution-of-advertising-from-papyrus-to-youtube/
