Blog post due February 3, 2013

Blog posting due February 3, 2014:

Summary

            Lupton described the evolution of fonts.  He began by describing the structure of a font: serif and stems, thickness or design, and the vertical versus horizontal stress of a font.  He then described the transition from wood to pantograph printing and discussed how the ability to quickly reproduce letters revolutionized printing.  He discussed the evolution of fonts over time from days when it was considered immoral to alter fonts to the 1990s, characterized by the “decay” of typeface (p. 30).  There are three categories of typeface, humanist, transitional, and modern, and it was interesting to learn the differences between them.

Critique

            I enjoyed the section discussing the difference between bitmap fonts and traditional fonts.  Bitmap fonts are made for digital screens and work by emphasizing the size and digital display of geometric shapes.  I liked the connection the author made that typeface relies upon connecting many visual elements and is much more complex than it at first appears.  The fact that newer, digital fonts are made out of pixels or “picture elements” (p. 57) emphasized to me how writing seems to go through cycles.  We began with a very visual system of communication in ancient times with hieroglyphics and other systems that represented symbols as pictures, then we moved to an oral era where the oral tradition was valued and letters were strongly tied to their phonetic sound representation, and now, in the digital era, we seem to be moving once again toward a more visual system of communication.

Connection

            This discussion of fonts and the connection to bitmap fonts, which are specifically designed for the screen reminded me of my reading of Kress (2003) Literacy in the New Media Age.  In this text, Kress describes how the screen is displacing the text and how literacy is becoming more visual than ever.  The reading of Lupton also emphasized how writing and fonts has always been a very visual process and that the creation of typeface is artistic rather than perfunctory.  As we move to the digital age in which text is often surrounded by visuals, sound, and hyperlinks, I am reminded that are need for visual representation of meaning is not new, but has always been an emphasis.

Blog Post for January 27

Blog post due January 27, 2013

Summary

            Plato’s Phaedrus is a discussion between Phaedrus and Socrates.  Phaedrus has just come from listening to a speech by Lysias, and he makes his own speech to recount Lysias’s speech for Socrates on the subject of love.  Then, Socrates and Phaedrus have a discussion on the written word versus the art of speech making, in which Socrates seems to suggest that rhetoric is for serious matters and writing is for lighter matters.

Critique

            I thought the most interesting and applicable point of my reading was when they talked about what makes a good argument and whether or not the person arguing merely had to have rhetoric techniques or needed true knowledge of his or her subject.  I agree with Socrates that those that argue well know the subtleties of their subject well enough to argue fine lines of argument. 

            Socrates’ point about the written word being unable to stand by itself was interesting to me: “Then he will not, when in earnest, write them in ink, sowing them through a pen with words which cannot defend themselves by argument and cannot teach the truth effectually” (p. 166).  I thought this was interesting because our readings thus far have emphasized the connection between writing and making things permanent and lasting, such as writing beliefs about religion, law, or taxes to keep a permanent record.  However, Socrates brings up an interesting point that even though writing is lasting it is also mutable as it is subject to the reader’s perspective.  I like the idea that are words carry more weight if we are able to orally defend what we write.

Connection

            I am a doctoral student in my second year of my program.  If all goes according to plan, I will take my comps this summer, and begin my dissertation work next year.  This reading made me wonder about the tradition of defending the written dissertation before a committee.  The oral defense seems to be something that Socrates would approve of as the committee has a chance to raise questions and the researcher must orally defend his or her written word.  By ordering the defense in such a way, the oral after the written, this tradition seems to value rhetoric over writing, just as Socrates argues in this piece.

Blog post for January 20th

Blog Post for January 20, 2014

Boorstin, Ch. 60-

Summary of Main Points:

            In this chapter, Boorstin discusses that memory was not only a skill, but an almost sacred virtue in ancient times.  He discusses that memory was valued and even taught, urging those wanting to improve their memory to associate memories with images and store the in rooms as if the mind was a cathedral with infinite rooms to connect images and memories.  However, as the invention of the printed word became more and more of a possibility as printed pages solved some of the problems of the roll, people began to value memory less.  Socrates predicted that this substitution of the written word for memory would cause learners to become forgetful.

Critique of the Reading:

            I thought Boorstin’s discussion of memory as not only a skill, but a virtue was interesting and made me question my lack of value for memory.  The ancients seemed to equate memory with a person’s learning and virtue, and I have never placed much esteem in memory.  Especially as an educator, I always prioritized writing, critical reading, and reasoning skills and was not a teacher who focused upon memory as a skill.  When some of my colleagues would make their students memorize poetry, I often wondered what value such a practice had for students.  However, this reading made me appreciate memory more, especially as I think about the reading I have done so far in The Shallows, which suggests that the Internet may be decreasing our ability to focus and retain information.  I wonder if my lack of reverence for memory has been a mistake.

Application of the Reading:

            This reading on memory made me think of the latest news about Alzheimer’s disease.  I seem to be hearing more and more about this disease in the news, whether that is because the disease is actually increasing or more Americans are aging, I am unsure.  As I was reading an article on Alzheimer’s (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/17/opinion/sunday/alzheimers-anxiety.html?_r=0), I was struck by just how much damage a loss of memory can do.  It is not simply an inability to recall facts and figures, our memory is tied to our memories, our past, and our fundamental identities.  Thus, maybe we should focus more on the skill of memory and not completely ignore memory as a skill to be retained and developed.  Maybe memory is still important even now that our written word is easier than ever to record and distribute.

Post for January 13th Class

Summary of Key Points

The first video, "Web 2.0: The Machine is Using Us," was written by an anthropologist and the last line of the video suggesting that the line between humans and machines and control over those machines is narrowing is interesting.  This video shows that text has become much more fluid over time and authorship more ubiquitous.  Based upon these points the video suggests we must rethink fundamental principles such as authorship, copyright, privacy, etc.  The “Vision of Students Today” video discusses this same world in which technology dominates students’ social lives, but has not necessarily penetrated the world of university and school.  The stark contrast between the desks and chalkboard of the classroom and the laptops, mobiles, and social media of students lives suggests that education must adapt in order to be relevant to students’ digital lives.

Whereas the videos gave us an overview of authorship and digital tools in our current culture, Meggs’ Chapters 1-3 gave us the origins of writing.  Chapter One discussed that writing has always been visual-starting with pictographs and cuneiform and leading to rebus writing.  Such writing was written on different mediums such as clay tablets and led to other inventions such as libraries to house the newly recorded records of history.  Although we may currently take writing for granted, writing was revolutionary, sparking not only intellectual revolution, but also relating to religion and the ability to maintain a rule of law.  Chapter Two discussed the Asian influence upon writing from calligraphy to using introducing print into society’s daily life through using paper for money.  Chapter Three discussed the system of writing that is more familiar to our daily lives-the invention of the alphabet.  This chapter discussed how writing was influenced by such factors as geography and cultures needing to understand one another based on their geographic location.  As writing developed and the tools to write with became more various, society began to compete to house writing in libraries.  This chapter discussed Ptolemy placing embargoes on papyrus shipments (Ch. 3, p. 37) in order to prevent other societies from competing with his libraries.  Writing also differed across cultures exemplified by the discussion of the Korean alphabet, which was more scientific than other cultures’ systems.  Finally, the Schmandt-Besserat chapter discussed that although much of the history of writing suggests that writing started concrete and grew more abstract, the Uruk society started with concrete symbols for writing.  This chapter than postulates that although most credit the Sumerians with being the first to write there is evidence in the research of clay to suggest that writing may have originated as a system of record keeping in western Asia and evolved into the invention of writing.

Examples that Illustrate the Readings

            My research interests are in the area of education, specifically in literacy.  I focus upon how technology can be used to enhance writing instruction.  In this research, there is much discussion of multimodality and multiliteracies, which is a theory developed by the New London Group in 1996.  However, researchers of that group, such as Gunther Kress (2003), often discuss that although our new media makes writing much more visual, and thus, more multimodal, this is not a new concept.  Writing has been visual since the beginning of times when man was creating drawings in caves to symbolize ideas.  The texts due today prove this point, writing originated as a concrete, visual concept and slowly evolved to become more concrete and symbol-sound oriented.  It is interesting that the idea that writing is visual, and not strictly a system of sound-letter correspondence, seems like novel research since this is such a historic idea. 

            Another idea that struck me as I was reading is how writing is tied to our culture.  For example, Meggs Ch. 2 discussed Ptolemy placing embargoes in order to protect the power libraries lent to his culture.  This chapter also discussed how in Korean culture the alphabet was much more scientifically oriented.  I wonder if the cultural ties of writing affect how that society then thinks.  For instance, in international educational tests, the United States often falls behind other countries in our math and science scores.  Does this lack of proclivity for science and math have to do with the fact that our language is less scientific and more focused upon sound-letter correspondence?

Critique of the Readings

            I enjoyed the Meggs chapters that discussed the ties of writing to culture, such as the discussion of how the Korean writing differs from other cultures’ writing.  In education, I often apply my writing to sociocultural theories, so this is a topic of interest to me.  I also enjoyed the video “Vision of Students Today” because my research focuses upon trying to get teachers to use technology in the classroom in ways that allow students to create with technology rather than the more typical use of teachers merely presenting to students using technology.  This video seemed to validate this idea as these digital students seemed disconnected from classrooms that remain stuck in more traditional forms of writing.