Subject: RE: [IFETS-Discuss] Conserve Language
rparkany@borg.com
Date: Tue 23 May 2000 - 00:00:42 MEST
From: rparkany@borg.com Subject: RE: [IFETS-Discuss] Conserve Language Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 15:00:42 -0700
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Bob: I have Ong's book and refer to it often. However, in addition to
semantics, and syntax, we have semiotics in language and its technologic
extensions (runes, text, art, etc.) as aspects of these meaning-making tools. IF
we consider the semiotic dimension in language, we will see the distinctions
between text and oralcy begin to blur somewhat. I think this is what is behind
much of the recent research concerning literacy and the WEB. After Vygotsky &
Bakhtin and their contemporary apologists, we are beginning to see language in a
much different and deeper way of knowing.
I refer to this document prepared by my mentor, Dr. Karen Swan in which she
discusses literacy and text in these new hyper-interactive spaces as represented
by the WWW... ;-} rap.
DOCUMENT by: Karen Swan
Subject: Electronic Literacy and Computing in the Classroom
ELECTRONIC LITERACY AND COMPUTING IN THE CLASSROOM
"Schools are very likely the last line of defense in the global trivialization of
knowledge -- yet it appears that they have not yet learned enough about the new
technologies and media to make the important distinctions between formal but
meaningless activities with computers and networks and the fluencies needed for
real 21st century thinking."
-- Alan Kay
Mayan Codex, c. 1250 CE. from the Media History website's timeline
(http://www.mediahistory.com/)
Since men and women first started drawing on the walls of caves, they have looked
for external means to share, preserve, and extend their thought. These have
always entailed both a medium, the physical means, and a symbol system, the
conceptual means for communicating their ideas. Both are necessary, and, in my
opinion, both are inexorably intertwined.
When Marshall McLuhan said "the medium is the message" I believe what he had in
mind was something like the following argument:
Differing media make use of different symbol systems to communicate information.
Spoken language, for example, associates particular sounds with specific
meanings. Pictographic languages, such as Chinese, similarly associate
particular written marks with specific meanings. Alphabetic languages, however,
are much more abstract. They too associate written marks with sounds, but these
have no meanings in themselves, rather must be combined to produce sounds which
can then be associated with specific meanings. Other visual media, such as maps,
charts, drawings, and so on, also associate written marks with meaning but in
ways very different from either written language or each other.
Differing symbol systems structure information differently. These differing
structures enable and constrain the ways in which information can be manipulated
as thought. Differing symbol systems are thus internalized as ways of organizing
experience, as forms of reasoning, as habits of mind.
Walter Ong in Orality and Literacy, for example, provides good evidence for
pretty significant differences in the thought patterns of oral and alphabetic
cultures; and Elizabeth Eisenstein has convincingly argued that the
Enlightenment, the Protestant Reformation, the growth of nation states, and
interestingly schooling as we know it (to name just a few), all grew out of
changes in ways of thinking that resulted from the invention of the printing
press.
Communications media, then, are not just carriers of information, not just
interchangeable trucks, to use Richard Clark's more recent analogy.
Communications media, of necessity, organize the information they carry, and
those forms of organization profoundly effect how we think.
A medium, McLuhan argues, can only carry particular kinds of messages. A medium
only can enable certain kinds of thought. It is therefore more important than
the messages it carries.
Whether or not you accept McLuhan's argument en toto, it is clear that in recent
decades, we have witnessed rapid changes in how we communicate with one another,
entertain ourselves, conduct business, get information, create knowledge, and
generally make sense of the larger world. Today, for example, most American's
get the majority of their information from television, and a variety of
electronic texts are everywhere replacing printed ones as the media of choice in
a wide range of human endeavors.
Our notions of what it means to be literate are correspondingly expanding -- or
they should be.
For example, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the
International Reading Association (IRA) state in their summary of the national
Standards for the English Language Arts,
“. . . being literate in contemporary society means being active, critical, and
creative users of print and spoken language, as well as the visual language of
film and television, commercial and political advertising, and more. It also
means being able to use an array of technologies to gather information and
communicate with others.”
Renee Hobbs (1988) argues for a new definition of literacy based on the work of
media educators. “Literacy,” she writes, “is the ability to access, analyze,
evaluate, and communicate messages in a variety of forms.”
In the Technology and Literate Thinking Strand of the National Research Center on
English Learning and Achievement (CELA) right here at the University, we have
been thinking about what it means to be literate in the use of electronic and
graphical media. We have developed a tentative set of performance-based
standards for guiding and assessing technological literacies at the elementary,
middle, and high school levels.
The standards are derived from three existing sets of national standards:
the National Educational Technology Standards for Students
the Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning
the Standards for the English Language Arts
They break nonprint literacy performances into basic skills, critical literacies,
and construction skills for each of the three levels. The important idea here is
that we don't just use media to communicate, we use them to structure and extend
our thinking. We should be helping our students learn to use nonprint media and
computing technologies these ways. We should be helping our students learn to
think critically with and about, not just printed texts and written language,
but graphical representations, video, computer simulations, hypermedia, WWW
pages, etc.
Our list of nonprint media and technology literacy standards follows. They are
designed to guide and assess technology use in K-12 classrooms. I have
highlighted in pink those standards that deal with computers and computer
literacy. You can see that most of the standards apply.
I would like you to consider the standards now and over the course of the
semester. Try submitting your thoughts on these and on the issues of computer
literacy in general and on the integration of computers into classroom activities
to the Electronic Literacy Discussion for this module. This discussion will not
be split into groups, nor will it count for credit, but it should give you a
chance to get used to using the discussion tools before that happens.
...SNIP...
Some really good websides for continuing to explore notions of media literacy
include:
the Media and Communication Studies Site at
http://www.aber.ac.uk/~dgc/media.html, and
the Media Literacy home page at http://interact.uoregon.edu/MediaLit/HomePage
A good site on media literacy for students (and parents and teachers) is Just
Think at http://www.justthink.org/
I also highly recommend and urge you to read Robbie McClintock's "Renewing the
Progressive Contract with Posterity: On the Social Construction of Digital
Learning Communities." This paper has some really unique and interesting ideas
concerning how and why computing technogies will change education. He writes,
"Digital technolgies are for education as iron and stell girders, reinforced
concrete, plate glass, elevators, centralheating and air conditioning were for
architecture. Digital technologies set in abeyance significant, long-lasting
limits on educational activitiy."
Bob Leamnson wrote:
> Further thoughts on the degeneration of language.
> The actress Ingred Bergman was said to be fluent in a number of
> languages. She was once asked which was her favorite. Interestingly, she
> chose a different language for different occasions. She said, however, that
> English was her favorite for acting, because of its vocabulary, precision,
> and ability to express subtleties.
> Bergman knew that saying "literacy" would not confuse anyone (at least
> not at one time) or leave them wondering as to just what was intended.
> Walter J. Ong titled his well-known book "Orality and Literacy" to
> emphasize that they are (were, before postmodernism) not the same. Oral
> literacy was, and should have remained, an oxymoron.
> Bob Leamnson
>
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-- "Dein Wachstum sei feste und lache vor Lust! Deines Herzens Trefflichkeit / hat dir selbst das Feld bereit', auf dem du bluehen musst." Peasant, Richard A. Parkany: SUNY@Albany Prometheus Educational Services - http://www.borg.com/~rparkany/ Upper Hudson & Mohawk Valleys; New York State, USA rparkany@borg.com--------------------------------------------------------- Forum website: http://ifets.ieee.org/ Forum's contact person: kinshuk@massey.ac.nz Info on Join/Leave List: http://ifets.ieee.org/maillist.html Change your subscription options (digest, vacation hold etc.) at: http://www.topica.com/lists/ifets-discuss/prefs --------------------------------------------------------- ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
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