[Air-l] Technology Transforming Education--EE-Learning

Fri May 25 10:38:38 PDT 2007

Steve,

I may be more digital native in mindset, but in my heart I am an
immigrant because I believe in the power of the word. My thought is that
the word is limited when the ability now exists to receive the message
in its entirety in real time so that historians, spin doctors (which I
have been), and other media types cannot manipulate what we see and hear
more than they already do. My suggestion is that the word keeps its
hallowed place, but that we also elevate the state of the visual and
audio elements of a message. For example, most college students still
learn by lecture with many visual elements (the board, computer screen,
props etc.). If we are to communicate, let us do it with all of its full
elegance and majesty. 

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Dr. Steve Eskow
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 1:30 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Technology Transforming Education--EE-Learning

Chris,

Your message below "conflates" (the word I would use if I was submitting
this for peer review) several important issues: elites and media, the
fate of the "physical book," the control of intellectual property. And
perhaps others.

I'm particularly interested in learning more about the growing belief
that new visual media mean that education ought to put less emphasis on
developing what someone here calls "typographic literacy": what might be
generalized as the production and the consumption of "writing," language
turned into marks which make words, sentences, paragraphs, theses,
argument.

What we do on this list requires "typographic literacy." This list is
about words. Chains of words, words now using this new medium to
organize dialog over time and space.

Blogs eems to be mostly to require typographic literacy, the ability to
translate and create sentences and paragraphs.

There's a book on my shelf title THE RISE OF THE IMAGE AND THE FALL OF
THE WORD.

Is that the shared belief of the multimedia people? The intellectuals on
this list?

There are several versions of my puzzlement, and my question.

One is, will "digital natives" need for the educational system to pay
more or less attention to "typographic literacy"?

Steve Eskow   

Steve:

I have been actually thinking about this and talking to both my
colleagues in academia and entertainment/arts and I think that physical
book ownership will become the domain of the
wealthy,powerful,intellectual and religious elite worldwide. Why?
Because digital publishing can now be done cheaply on a global scale
with print, audio and video through iTunes, Amazon, Microsoft, YouTube
and many others worldwide. In fact,books may reclaim their Middle Ages
appeal with elaborate bindings and high costs with autographs of the
authors. Maybe I am cynical but I do not think the elite will give up
the physical book. I think digital books have the potential to free
authors from the outrageous publishing costs of big media conglomerates
who engage in marketing and control as excuses not to publish certain
people while publishing others of lesser talent.

Chris 

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Heidelberg, Chris
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 9:16 AM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org; drseskow at cox.net
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Technology Transforming Education--EE-Learning

All:

I am of the belief that the elite will keep books and printed words as a
status symbol while educating the masses with digital means. This seems
to be the direction that things are currently moving whether it is
preferable or not. I am a believer in multiple mediums, methods and
simulations/apprenticeships as teaching tools in every field. 

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Dr. Steve Eskow
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 10:21 PM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-l] Technology Transforming Education--EE-Learning

Philiip Wasdaskey writes: 

<<Media is the fourth R for arts.  Text may remain important much as did
latin for higher education.>>

This has become the new conventional wisdom, widely circulated and
believed by "digital natives" and those who believe that the natives are
a new breed with new nervous systems, visual learners, multitaskers, and
so on. That is:
text is the new Latin, a concern of mandarins and antiquarians, the
world itself to be organized and run by the imagists and the visualists.

What is going on, or should go, to engage with this clouded and
uncertain vision before it takes control of schools and colleges and
becomes offical intellectual doctrine?

Steve Eskow

--- Matthew Bernius <mbernius at gmail.com> wrote:

> Textual and verbal literacy will retain their privileged positions as 
> the key to positions of power and control in society, and as the heart

> of knowledge work.
> 
> As the natives becomes increasingly digital they may also become 
> increasingly image-oriented, and decreasingly print literate.
> 
> Education--schools and colleges--are assigned the task of providing 
> the knowledge and skills the general culture fail to provide.
> 
> As visual imagery and audio become increasingly pervasive in the 
> general culture, it will fall to the schools and colleges to provide 
> the core skills of print literacy which the digital natives will not 
> develop by immersion in the media.
> 
> What do you think?
> 
> Steve E.
> 
> For what it's worth, I think this is where exactly where things are 
> moving.
> Though perhaps print literate isn't quite the right phrase. 
> Typographically literate might work better (texts have too many 
> possible connotations). What we are finding, ironically here at the 
> School of Print Media, is a definite move away from the "willing"
> consumption of typographic texts (be they electronic or paper) by many

> of our students. We've found that also corresponds with problems 
> articulating arguments and concepts (be it orally or written).
> 
> The problem that I have with discussions of alternate learning 
> modalities is that typographic text still remains the most prevalent 
> method of understanding abstract concepts, especially in industries 
> where media rich training is too costly to produce. As a technical 
> school, we face the challenge of preparing students for jobs that 
> don't currently exist, using software that we know will be antiquated 
> by the time they leave the university (assuming a four year stint). I 
> cannot, at this moment, foresee an immediate future where one can 
> avoid developing the skills to parse technology manuals and/or 
> typographic web content.
> 
> It's for those reasons that I (and a number of my
> colleagues) are moving
> towards the model that Steve laid out in his final paragraph. We 
> believe that the best way to make our students adaptable is to drill 
> the core skills of typographic literacy (as well as the core skills 
> that publishing production is based upon). I am working to come up 
> with better ways to orient those skills in a larger media ecosystem.
> However, retrograde as it
> may sound, we believe that typographic literacy, and the skills that 
> are developed through the study of it, are the foundation on which 
> success will be based.
> 
> - Matt
> 
> --
> -----------------------------
> Matthew Bernius
> New Media and Customer Intelligence Strategist for Hire 
> mBernius at gMail.com http://www.waking-dream.com 
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