Blog #3

Nicholas Carr’s article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” raises interesting points about the effect the internet is having on our way of accessing knowledge and the impact this has on how we think. Carr is disturbed at the change he sees in himself and others: “Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.” Carr also sees the benefit of the internet as a research tool:“The Web has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks, and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was after.” Herein lies the conundrum for people like Carr. The internet seems to be affecting his capacity for deep thought, at the same time it is reducing the need for this thought.

            I think Carr has a reason to be concerned to some extent. However, I see the benefits of the internet as outweighing the negatives. As we saw in Pauline and Lauren’s presentation on blogs, the web can be an extraordinary tool for teachers and students. Whereas in the past students were relatively isolated from one another in their work, this presentation showed us the capacity of the net to bring students’ ideas together. On a blog students certainly do have the quick access to information which Carr values so much. I do not think this has to be a replacement for traditional texts. For example, a discussion forum for a novel study is a useful way for students to engage with each other and gain access to other points of view.

            Of course if this process of surfing through blogs destroys one’s capacity to think it may not be worth the price. I do not think this is the case. Pauline and Lauren viewed blogs to have an overall positive effect on student engagement and learning. After all, there was never a point in time where every student was an engaged reader of traditional texts. If those who were disengaged before, can become engaged through multimodal and alternative texts, there can be nothing but positive benefits. Those who enjoy the immersive nature of books will continue to engage with them. For these readers, differentiated texts may enhance their learning further. Every text has benefits and drawbacks. The internet facilitates the exchange of meaningful and trivial information alike. It is up to the reader to decide which type they desire to pursue, and it is up to their teachers to point them in a direction that will enrich their learning.

Blog #2

“Shrek Meets Vygotsky”

Kathy A. Mills’ article “Shrek Meets Vygotsky: Rethinking Adolescents’ Multimodal Literacy Practices in Schools” focuses on the utility of new technologies in the education of youth. Mills points out that access to technology is a key issue as students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are less likely to have the resources to utilize mediums such as the internet. Even those who do have access, “digital natives,” are not necessarily well prepared to use these technologies to their full potential without guidance. Students may have the ability to access information at a greater rate than ever before, but they still require the skills that will allow them to critically analyze this material.

Mills’ definition of multimodalities consists of “…the combination of two or more modes in representation—linguistic (written words), visual, audio, gestural, and spatial.” She points to Facebook as a multimodality exemplar.

Mills’ argues that educators can use those forms of text that are familiar to students in order to engage them in traditional literacies. By taking the students’ own experiences as the starting point for methods of instruction, students can form connections between their own world and that of the classroom. As we have seen in our course, today’s youth are increasingly reluctant to engage in traditional forms of text, therefore it is important to utilize their new tech savvy skill set and help them to improve upon it.  

Traditional methods of teaching a subject such as English are fairly limited in scope. By in large the assignments consist of composing different forms of prose. Mills points to the example of claymation as a multimodal form that challenges this tradition. For this activity an entirely new skill set was required. One that combined: “storyboards, script writing, set and character design, animation, filming, audio (and) editing.”  

I am excited about the potential of multimodalities to transform classrooms. I think traditional forms of literacy remain important, and still have a place in schools. However, these forms do not allow the degree of engagement made possible by multimodal composition. I like the idea of using traditional texts as a jumping off point for students. When I was in Grade 10 English I was fortunate enough to have a teacher who gave us the option of creating a video interpretation of a scene in Shakepeare’s Julius Caesar. We transformed the book from its past to a present day scenario where Caesar met his death in a drive-by shooting. The fact I still remember this interaction thirteen years later speaks to the potential power of using multimodal texts in the classroom.

Mills, Kathy A. (2010). Shrek meets Vygotsky: rethinking adolescents’ multimodal literacy practice in schools. Journal of Adolescent And Adult Literacy, 54(1), 35-45.

Blog #1

Manguel’s “The Last Page”
“The progression of my reading never followed the conventional sequence of time. For instance, reading out loud to him texts that I had read before on my own modified those earlier solitary readings, widened and suffused my memory of them, made me perceive what I had not perceived at the time but seemed to recall now, triggered by his response.”
This quotation reflects Manguel’s account of his intimate experiences with printed texts. He makes mention several times of the multiple layers that books which possess. These layers offer themselves to readers to decipher and construct a personal meaning. This is the deep introspection that the digital generation appears to be moving away from. As Carr points out in his article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” readers of online text tend to scan laterally, seldom even revisiting websites they have bookmarked. Manguel offers the reader an account of life in Peron’s fascistic Argentina of the 1960s which recognized the subversive potential of books and moved to ban authors whom they deemed to be a threat to the ideas of the state. In Wallis’ article we learned that many of today’s youth are self-censoring. Recall Claudia Wallis’ account of the professor at Duke University who was informed by a student that today’s youth do not read whole books anymore. To me this represents the double edged sword that is the internet. The power of the common person to create their own texts, and communicate ideas has reached a level that is unprecedented in the history of humanity. At the same time, the almost infinite number and variety of texts threatens the capacity of humans to engage in deep, introspective thought. This is not due to an alteration of cognitive ability, but rather the array of more trivial and pre-packaged texts that are now available for consumption.

Bikret’s “The Gutenberg Elegies”
“A change is upon us—nothing could be clearer. The printed word is part of the vestigial order that we are moving away from—by choice and by societal compulsion…This shift is happening throughout our culture, away from the patterns and habits of the printed page and toward a new world distinguished by its reliance on electronic communications.”
Bikret’s article correlates with Manguel’s in that they both view reading books to be a private activity. The shift Bikret speaks of is one that moves away from the private into the public domain of electronic communication. It also represents moving from a logical interpretation of text to one that is focused on images. Bikret views this process to be one that is not only transforming how we receive information, but a reshaping of our entire society. He sees this process to be largely susceptible to the influence of media conglomerates in what amounts to an information war. Bikret envisions three consequences of this shift. 1) language erosion – Bikret believes society will be reduced to “plainspeak,” a devolution of our ability to communicate complex ideas. 2) flattening of historical perspectives – we will lose the capacity to understand the past and have the impression that the present state of affairs are the way things have always been. 3) the waning of the private self – the world will become ever more interconnected and individualism will be lost.
We can certainly make connections between these three aspects and the digital generation. Acronyms have replaced even basic sentences through instant messaging through text messages and Facebook. Whereas twenty years ago landlines and snail mail were the only forms of communication, this fact is lost on the digital generation. They are more interconnected than any other generation, at the same time, electronic communication now often serves as a replacement for real time personal interactions. Status updates on Facebook keep hundreds of people informed of the most up to date intimate details of one’s life no matter how mundane.
I have mixed feelings about this electronic shift. I was born in 1981, therefore, I am essentially a hybrid of the old and new texts. I grew up reading traditional books, and I still prefer them. However, I am increasingly finding myself drawn to reading quantity rather than quality. I think this may relate to my innate curiosity to what is transpiring in the world. I find it incredibly valuable to be able to go online and receive multiple perspectives on the same news item. However, there is a certain satisfaction that is obtained through reading an entire book on a subject, even if it is only from one perspective. I find this hard to parallel electronically. Even if I could find the same book in an electronic format, I find it much less appealing to settle in with a laptop or IPad for sustained reading, than I do with a physical book.
References:
Birkerts, Sven. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age.
Carr, Nicholas. Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Manguel, Alberto. The Last Page.
Wallis, Claudia. The Multitasking Generation.

Spreadsheets

     The class on creating spreadsheets was a very useful one. I can definitely say that I would use this as a teaching tool in my area of expertise, which is Social Studies. I think this would be a great way to graph election results and to see long term trends in Canadian politics. It could also be a good assignment for students to graph results from different years and compare them.

    I would also use spreadsheets and graphs to show differences in standards of living throughout the world and within our own nation. I think this would be an effective way to teach the disparities in the world, as it would provide a visual component to compliment a lecture.

    I would also use graphs to chart the economic decline which led to the Great Depression. This could also be contrasted with a graph which shows the recent global recession. It would be an effective way to compare the two collapses and it would really make the concept easier to understand.

Allow me to reintroduce myself

Hi everyone,

My name is Mike Batty. I am originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan where I resided until I was 21. I have lived and worked all over British Columbia for the past nine years. I completed my undergraduate degree in Political Science with a minor in History this past spring at the University of Victoria. I look forward to the next 16 months in the Post Degree Professional Program. I hope to gain valuable experience before pursuing a teaching career. My area of specialization is Social Studies and I hope to post ongoing pertinent information to my blog.

The artwork which you see on my header was done by a graffiti artist called Banksy. If you want to see more of his work you can go to www.banksy.co.uk or just google: banksy.

Here is a link to an organization called Kiva: http://www.kiva.org
It is a microfinance organization which facilitates loans between lenders and small business owners in developing countries. Check it out!

That is all for now,

MB