Gary Reimer's Blog

The task for this week was to take a set of metadata, in this case classmates’ choices for selections on the Voyager Golden Record, and display them as a directed graph visualization using Palladio. Examining the visualizations as a graphic network makes it easier to see patterns with each vertex representing either a student or a sound selection and each edge representing a choice made. Overall, the four most popular selections were Johnny B. Goode, Jaat Kahan Ho, Melancholy Blues, and Tchakrulo with 19, 17, 16, and 14 ties respectively….read more

Making a list like this leaves one with impossible choices. I thought I’d set out a few general guidelines before discussing specific considerations. First, the music had to be as inclusive as possible of all human experience. Having said that however, each of the three great world civilizations on the original golden record, Indian, Chinese and Western, had to be represented, to do otherwise would have been unconscionable. Second, oral indigenous cultures could not be neglected either especially since, being non-literate, their musical traditions are all the more precious. Third,…read more

  The readings this week have had as a common theme the changing nature of what we mean by literacy and particularly how this should be addressed by educators. A central concern of the New London Group has been how the confluence of media offering a wide spectrum of multimodal representation has driven cultural globalization; specifically, the group has been concerned with how disparities in literacy, defined broadly, have impacted educational, social and economic outcomes. The New London Group program is not just descriptive; it is also prescriptive. Taking the…read more