Experiences from a Millennial
As a person who is commonly referred to as a millennial, I have grown up in an age rich in technological advances. Walking into my school’s computer lab at the age of eight I was presented with rows and rows of Commodore 64’s, later I sat at brand new colourful bubbles called iMac’s, then blackberries, and laptops, smartphones, gaming systems, and the list goes on and on. I have evolved alongside these mentioned computer technologies, and my experiences with computer tech define a lot of my literary culture as well as my students.
“As we look up from our computer keyboard to the books on our shelves, we may be tempted to ask whether ‘this will destroy that’” (Bolter, 2001). What bookshelves are they talking about? My reality is that if I were to move schools I would only have to take a small thumb drive with me and I could set up shop in my next school within a few minutes. Gone are the days where filing cabinets, cupboards, and bins are full to the brim with teaching resources and student work. Instead, a laptop, collaborative documents, and internet access have replaced the need for these pieces of organizational furniture in my classroom. I personally have remediated my need for printed text with electronic technology and the mass remediation of printed text to electronic tech as Bolter (2001) predicted is underway within today’s modern classrooms as well and I for one am encouraged by this and not just for the organizational aspect.
The reason why I am encouraged by this is because of the state of our classrooms. Students demand more interactive, and hands-on learning which printed books just cannot offer. Their reality is a world where information is at their fingertips and excitement in the palm of their hand. Because of this, we have to provide an experience that rivals the excitement and interactive nature that they have available within their handheld devices. Bolter (2001) asks “whether alphabetic texts can compete effectively with the visual and aural sensorium that surrounds us.” The answer is no, and our students are showing us this. I believe that allowing our digital texts to have a full wrap around approach with interactive models, augmented reality, and searchable text allows our students to gain a deeper understanding of what the author is trying to portray and at the same time retain the student’s attention and interest.
Throughout reading David J Bolter’s book Writing Space: Computers, Hypertext, and the Remediation of Print, I kept finding myself laughing at many of the outdated technology details, but also found Bolter’s forward-thinking fascinating. Remediation of printed text is in full swing, nearing the conclusion and this has been a change brought about because of the needs of our students. These needs are also paving the way for the process of remediating these electronic texts as well. Bolton’s bold claim in 2001 of pure electronic communication through virtual reality has become much more plausible than many once thought. Electronic text remediation is the next process that is going to shape my literary culture as well as my students and I for one am looking forward to this!
References
Bolter, J. D. (2001). Writing space: Computers, hypertext, and the remediation of print. Routledge.
Carri-Ann Scott
June 16, 2018 — 2:33 pm
Response from a Gen Xer.
Hi, David.
Thank you for your post. I love the imagery of the computer lab with the “bubbles”. And, I can relate! I remember the fascination of walking into the “business room” on the first day of grade 9 and seeing all the big and shiny black electric typewriters. I thought I was in technology heaven!
All joking aside, I agree that our students are demanding a more interactive world. Even in Kindergarten, the children in my class actually cheer when they realize that it is their day to use the ipads for literacy time (when all the other children have to ‘play games’). I can see the impacts of their technology use every day. Not only the good – cause and effect preditiction, beginning coding skills, knowing when to “ask Siri” how to spell something – but also the flip side – the lack of a functional pencil grip, decreasing attention spans, lack of interest in the ‘hands-on’ work of childhood.
I have a student who is reading at a grade 3 level. She is highly creative. Yet she cannot “write” a story. Whether with traditional pen and paper or with the use of technology, the actual act of putting words in order on a page is such a monumental task that it leads to outbursts of tears. The natural next step as a teacher is to provide her with a device that will transcribe her words. I cannot stifle the creativity, right? Unfortunately, the lack of 4 front teeth in the world of a 6 year olds means that pronunciation can be interesting and the dictation software often disappoints her, leading to abandonment of the project in early stages.
We could go on to talk about how children seeing their thoughts and ideas in print gives them meaning and connection to the world of literature, but I’d like to ask a whole different question. In 2018, should we care? Fast-forward 20 years. Technology will be perfected, right? I already use voice dication to send texts and other menial tasks such as writing lists. Will the children born in 2012 need to write? Will their connection to the printed word be, by necessity, a very different one than we are in now and how, as educators, can we first accept and then adapt to the future? Perhaps my days of correcting and perfecting a functional tripod pencil are at an end.
sally bourque
June 16, 2018 — 4:33 pm
Hi David and Carrie-Ann,
Xennial here! Part of the “micro-generation” between Generation X and Millenials.
It was very interesting to read phrases like “…whereas the computer is hard to carry and expensive…” and “…you cannot read on your computer screen in bed…” (Bolter, 2001, p. 12) and remember how true these statements were 17 short years ago, and how swiftly tech. has changed.
It is clear that e-readers, smart phones and tablet technology have advanced significantly in the last 20 years, creating real competition for books. If I think back to my undergrad degrees (2002-2007), I purchased all my textbooks and retained 2 boxes of my favourites. Eleven years later, those books are sitting in my parent’s basement. It was not useful for me to hold onto them, but I had enjoyed reading them and thought “Well, one day I might need one…”. Better that books like that live digitally in a database somewhere- they aren’t doing me or anyone else any good going musty in a basement.
Carrie-Ann, funny you should mention audio dictation as I have JUST started using it on my phone for searching and texting. I’m not sure why I waited so long to try it. Texting on a virtual keyboard has been an exercise in frustration since the day my blackberry broke and was forced to replace it with a touchscreen phone. Voice dictation on the other hand, is WAY more accurate and so much faster! One thing I am becoming quite conscious of however, is the difference between how I write and how I express the same thoughts verbally. I’ve always thought of myself as a better writer, and now, as I use voice dictation to bridge the space between speaking and writing I wonder if the skill will help me become better at orally expressing my ideas in general? I hope so!
Also, I feel there is some connection to Bolter’s comment that “The printed book favors linear writing…” and McLaughlin & Parmar’s Electronic Labyrinth exploring the implications of hypertext. I wrote down “…down the rabbit hole…” while I was reading about hypertexts, because it’s certainly easy to click several times and find yourself reading about something distantly related to your original text. Does this non-linear way of navigating and creating text affect the way our brains process information?
NathanLott
June 17, 2018 — 9:43 am
Thanks for your thoughtful post and it really made me think about the state that my school is currently in regarding the transition from a text to digital state. As you mentioned Bolter (2001) asks “whether alphabetic texts can compete effectively with the visual and aural sensorium that surrounds us.” I really think that our outdated education system is going through a painfully slow transition in this regard. As I talked about in my post for this blog I see day in and out how tradition teaching methods using outdated forms of text are still a prevalent way of teaching our students. Text really is in a state that is so much more than mere words on a page and pen on paper. Reading prose on paper on even on a screen is rapidly being replaced by the advent of powerful audio and visual mediums. Yet in my school we continue to assess and base students “literacy” level on how they do in traditional reading and writing tests.
This is an excellent article if you have time https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/02/09/technology/the-rise-of-a-visual-internet.html. As it states sound and images are becoming the universal language, so perhaps this is the rise of the “new text” just as we codex changed the way we approach information the post text world is now, and our students are immersed in it. This is not to say that my students don’t enjoy physical writing or reading. Quite the contrary, they love it! I asked them to write a story on what brings them happiness and some students wrote 5 pages in one hour with imagination and thought placed into their every word. Yet I have half of my class that could not do that, yet they can create a video presentation or create a video game using coding in Scratch that can convey the same message but uses a completely different medium.
What I enjoy about the changing tide of what we consider text is that it is an amazing equalizer in my class. Students who are seen as “low” can produce amazing multi media projects that would not be possible 20 years ago. Hyper text and control of it distributes power to those who perhaps do not fit into what the traditional education system sees as “academic.” I am not dismissive of traditional text but I feel like the “new text” has opened up a new world that allows many of our learners to shine.
sally bourque
June 19, 2018 — 4:51 pm
Hi Nathan,
Thanks for sharing the article, it was an interesting read!
It reminded me of O’Donnell’s warning in Module 1 around avoiding utopian or apocalyptic language; do you think we are really so close to replacing prose on the page? Just because there are powerful new mediums doesn’t mean they will displace the old.
It is interesting to think about a time in the future when text may be considered as archaic as writing on stone tablets, but I find it hard to believe that prose will ever fully disappear. On the other hand, I work in post-secondary education and don’t have children, so perhaps I don’t have an accurate idea of how immersed and literate young people are with new media. I can see how it would act like an “equalizer” in the classroom (as you suggest) which also suggests to me that some people may always prefer the linear, static form of prose. It seems like new communication technologies never fully replace the old. TV never fully replaced radio, and radio has had a rebirth as podcasts on the internet. Perhaps writing is ripe for its rebirth.
Zale Darnel
June 24, 2018 — 8:07 pm
Great Post David
I wanted to confirm what age a millennial was so I looked it up and;
“Pew Research Centre announced this week that they would be applying the term “millennial” only to those people born between 1981 and 1996. That means all millennials – at least according to Pew – will be between the ages of 22 and 36 in 2018” (shugerman, 2018)
That means I missed being a millennial by 1 year, too bad….
I like what you are saying around an interactive classroom with hands on learning. I think that’s key to engaging today’s learner. I think a fascinating technology to explore in the classroom would be virtual reality VR. I have had a few experiences with it in an educational setting, but nothing that was sustainable for everyday classroom uses. Last year I was at a school when Google came and did a VR demo with a few classes. They took students on a tour of volcanos and oceans and paired that with interactive questions and answers to not only have the student’s experience that place through VR, but learn some of the facts and information to why the places they explored were the way they were. It was amazing to see how engaged the students were. The only problem is that it’s not self-sustaining and the way it was presents was like a “show” or one off presentation. Imagine if we could integrate that into everyday learning?
If we could do that imagine the impact on generation ….. What generation are the kids that are in school today?….. Maybe we could engage them in something other than Fortnight……
Zale
Shugerman, E. , (2018, March 15). What is a millennial and when is the cutoff date for generation Y? New York. Retrieved June 24, 2018, from https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/millennial-how-old-is-generation-y-cutoff-date-pew-research-center-a8235731.html
Kathryn Williams
July 5, 2018 — 4:41 am
Hello all!
This is a great thread and there are several points I want to discuss further.
Firstly, David, I firmly agree that our classrooms are in the midst of a necessary change. How many times a day do I hear students in my grade 6 class say, “oh I’ll just Google that later.” The content we are teaching is shifting but also the way in which we teach needs to progress as well. Being part of the MET program, I’m constantly trying to learn and apply my new knowledge back in my classroom. I sometimes struggle when working with teachers who are less flexible and less comfortable trying new technologies in their classroom. Does anyone have any suggestions for working with these types of teachers?
I was interested how you mentioned the menial tasks of list, Carri-Ann and how you use the dictation feature on your phone to complete this task. On a side tangent, the historian in me found it fascinating when Ong (2001) described the use of lists and the earliest Ugaritic script from around 1300 BC and that lists have ‘no oral equivalent’ – the things you don’t think about until you do! On the idea of menial tasks, however, I agree with you Carri-Ann. Technology can make those tasks easier. However, is writing going to become a menial tasks? In 20 years we will still be teaching kids printing? I know you’ve asked some similar questions and I do not have the answers to them but all I can say is that it will be very interesting to see how technology has shaped education in 20 years time!
-Kathryn