Course Reflections and Connections
When I began this course, I expected more of a focus on reading mechanics and strategies that are used by individuals when they are reading and interacting with text. I imagined research on brain activation and a study of different cognitive processes that are required by the individual when they interact with electronic media, in comparison to print. This type of research is important in my field, as we move low vision and blind students into the electronic world of novels and textbooks, and away from hard copy braille and enlarged print. Needless to say, I was quite surprised to begin with the Ong article, and orality.
Throughout the course, I have had small “aha” moments while reading the articles, and although the information has not satiated my quest for research on brain activation and providing teachers with the appropriate tools to teach digital learning to students, I feel that I have a much better understanding of the development of the technology and its process. Particularly students who are blind from birth have a very strong “oral concept”, often being intrigued by word sounds and meaning, and some composing large chunks of text in their heads, before they start to write it down. Focusing on the orality component and the similarities of some of the multi-media tools in the “Late Age Print “ (Bolter) or Secondary Orality (Ong) phase, was very interesting for me. Because of its very high visual component, multi-media can be very daunting to an individual who is blind or has low vision. Understanding the nature of the electronic media, and the differences between literacy and multi literacies can help to bridge that gap. Multi-media can open many doors to communication and globalization, but with accessibility issues it can also be very frustrating and daunting.
I really enjoyed being a quiet participant of the web blogs, and reading post from classmates. I enjoyed the discussion on the value of handwriting in schools . I also enjoyed reading the many posts from everyone across the country and other countries! I am impressed with the number of people who have traveled far, and had different cultural experiences.
I enjoyed the discussions on social media, and I liked reading about experiences of programs that have been tried by the teachers and business individuals in our group.
My challenges? Time management and bandwidth were the biggest. Finding time to read the articles for each week, some articles required more concentration than others. I was also initially excited about using the social book on line, but reverted to the print copy, as it was portable and did not require access to the internet. As well, as I have stated in my assignment submission, the images in the blog post are very interesting, and relevant to a course which focuses the incorporation of text, visual and verbal presentation. However, with limited bandwidth in certain travel locations, the community blog post was very slow and time consuming to manoeuvre through.
I have enjoyed this course, and I look forward to my next course adventure in the fall!
Bolter J. D. (2011) Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext and the Remediation of Print (2nd Ed) Routledge, New York.