This was created from the transcripts released at whitehouse.gov on June 4, 2009. I removed the title and all references to “(Applause)” as I just wanted it to represent the words spoken by President Obama. Do you have any interesting reflections or observations? Here is one. If you look at the word cloud and the full transcript, you will not find the words “terrorism” or “terrorist.” Instead, President Obama opted for the word “extremist” and he used it 18 times.
Open Source Textbook Initiatives - Historically, textbooks have been the single largest line item on many school budgets when it comes to curriculum. We now see initiatives like Curriki and the California Open Source Textbook Initiative that might challenge this. Imagine a day when that line item is cut or reallocated toward people (curriculum specialists, instructional designers, etc.) and support technologies. With Open Source Textbook Initiatives as well as WikiTexts, we get a text that is continually being updated (not having to pay for a new version / edition every few years?); that can be easily customized to meet the needs of a given course, school, district; that can be used as a whole or in part; and that can be easily distributed in a variety of formats. Oh, and it many cases this option might be free or, if one needs a paper version, the cost of printing.
Electronic Reading Devices – The Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone, Netbooks, and a variety of emerging devices make it possible to deliver content, even entire textbooks and course readers electronically. These technologies are bridging the paper and electronic world of text and other media. While the book is an amazing technology, it has limitations that can be overcome by these new devices. With an iPhone or similar reader, I can be on a hike in the local forest and have immediate access to all of my texts; not to mention the ability to make use of the GPS capabilities, communication tools, and the ability to record or discuss my experiences (record notes, take and share pictures, watch video tutorials on how to identify poison ivy, email someone, talk to someone live or asynchronously, mark my current location on a map). Rather than walking through the woods with a backpack full of books (not that anyone would do this), I have my textbooks in my pocket (backpack optional, bug spray required…at least here in Wisconsin).
Online Social Networks and Mashup Technologies - I already mentioned wikis, but this deserves a separate category. In the first item, I was thinking more in terms of systematic organized projects. However, online communities and social networks make is easier for educators and course designers to learn about a variety of individual sources, organize them into themes/topics/units/chapters, link to them or embed them in a central course resource location, and bypass the use of a textbook altogether. If I am teaching Geography, I can use Google Earth and Google Maps, embed links to relevant sources right into my course blog/wiki/iGoogle page, create or borrow YouTube videos for mini-lectures, have students contribute their own resources… You get the idea. Before long, I have a customized, powerful, content-rich, multimedia textbook for my class. It really isn’t even a textbook is it? It is a multimediabook. Why would I even consider using a traditional textbook if I have the time and resources to do something like this? Maybe I just answered my own question. How many educators are willing to set aside the time and resources to do this? This does require creativity, the ability to analyze and synthesize information, and good instructional design sense. Take a look at the National Educational Technology Standards for Students and Teachers. These are the very skills that we are expecting of the current and upcoming generations of students, teachers, and administrators in the k-12 world. And they certainly seem to be abilities that we should expect from University professors who carry titles before and after their names that are supposedly connected to mastery or expertise in one or more disciplines.
Custom Texts / Readers - These have been around for years, especially in higher education. A professor creates a collection of articles, book chapters, and essays; and it is sold as an inexpensive text at the University or nearby bookstore. Now let’s add the digital element. Imagine a bookstore that will take a box of articles, books, essays, disks, files on flash drives, images, audio files, and video clips. They will take care of getting all of the necessary copyright permissions, then, based upon the instructions of the teacher or design team, they build an indexed electronic text that could be purchased online and made immediately available to students. If something changes mid-year, even mid-semester, the text can be updated with the new resources with minimal effort or cost. If a student has a learning disability, the content can be easily converted to a form that works best for that student. The instructor could even gain permission from students and include examples of exceptional student work in the next version of the reader. I may be stretching the boundaries of reality a bit, but imagine this. Imagine that people put their readers on the web for others to purchase…a ready-made option for the lazy (or busy) instructor. And those student examples that were included? What if the students received a small source of revenue out of the deal? Now that would be a brand new motivation for students to perform well on an assignment.
Hybrid Organic Textbooks (HOT) - We already have a decade of textbook companies building electronic versions of their books, rich with web-based resources, multimedia resources, pools of quiz questions, even full learning activities. In fact, some of these web-enhanced textbooks have become so full-featured that the textbook and web-based resources become the entire course (something that I lament…the last thing that we need is to further confuse the words “textbook” and “curriculum”. I’ll save that for another post). However, there is potential here. Imagine if textbook companies embraced the best of grass roots social media while also providing a core paper / electronic hybrid resource. This might include a paper-based text that could also be used on a mobile reader or device. At the same time, the publisher would have a web presence, adding new and quality resources to the text. Add to that a dynamic community and repository of client-produced lessons, resources, images, videos, discussions, keypal programs, scheduled guest presentations, and collaborative activities. Now we get true convergence of paper-based textbooks, web-based supplements, open source texts and wikis, electronic readers, and grassroots social networking. If publishers or a small group of motivated educators can catch this full vision, then everyone will get a chance to experience a powerful and positive disruption in k-12 education. Do I have any venture capitalists readings this post?
I was delighted to learn about the announcement of Amazon’s Kindle in the past month or so. This wireless reading device uses electronic paper supposedly as easy on the eye as traditional paper. But with it comes the ability to connect to Amazon wirelessly to purchase your next book. You also get the ability to earmark pages, search for keywords, and most of what you would expect from digital text. I first got the news from Slashdot and clicked my way over to Amazon to learn more about it. If it were not for the $400.00 price tag, I would have ordered one that day. Why not sell it to me for $50, knowing that you have a captive audience who will be buying books for years to come? Either Amazon expected many people like me or there are plenty who think that $400.00 is reasonable, because the product is currently out of stock, selling out within six hours of the release.
Whatever the case, it is an impressive development, not simply because of the technology (there are similar products on the market) but because of the connectivity and access to 90,000 books that come with it. The idea isn’t new either. I remember earlier versions of digital book readers back in 1999- almost ten years ago people were already prophesying the demise of the book. Earlier readers were equally expensive, harder on the eyes, and much more bulky than the Kindle. And even with those versions there were schools considering purchasing sets for students, pondering implications for the future of education.
I fully expect that electronic paper will transform the way that we deal with the written word, but I figured that I would use the development of the Kindle to muse about reading in general. Neil Postman’s Technopoly had a section that recounted The Egyptian myth, The Judgment of Thamus. In it, the God Theuth presented a present to the wise King Thamus, the gift of writing. Rather than accepting the gift openly he expressed several reservations:
““Theuth, my paragon of inventors, the discoverer of an art is not the best judge of the good or harm which will accrue to those who practice it. So it is in this; you, who are the father of writing, have out of fondness for your off-spring attributed to it quite the opposite of its real function. Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources. What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, not for memory. And as for wisdom, your pupils will have the reputation for it without the reality: they will receive a quantity of information without proper instruction, and in consequence be thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant. And because they are filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom they will be a burden to society.”
I add that quote to my blog as I think about the thousands of books on my shelves, in boxes in my garage and basement, and the dozens that I check out from the library monthly. I consider the truth of Thamus’s predictions in my own development and I think about how often I am compelled to finish a book, even more than to understand it, learn from it, grow in knowledge or wisdom from it. I love books. I love the smell and feel of old books. I love the sensation of turning the pages, the joy of highlighting them and the satisfaction of quiet debates that I have with the authors in the margins, sometimes with the thought of a great grandchild coming across it and learning a bit about his deceased relative. In fact, I love books so much that, when I was reading a book about hobbies, I found myself drawn to a web site called http://www.bookcrossing.com/ ,where people leave books at places around the world and post a note on the site for others to find them. I quickly subscribed and, while I’ve yet to pick up or drop off a book, it is on my “to do” list.
Despite my love of the traditional book, the majority of my reading today is done online: emails, blogs, online journals, wikis, research reports and web sites. And I fully embrace the world of digital text, seeing many benefits to it, especially when reading for information, networking, collaborating and in an educational setting. The ability to search, cut, paste, reorganize, share, hyperlink, and mashup affords opportunities impossible with a traditional book. Despite all of those features, there is a flatness to digital text. The 1000 year old book looks just like the 10 day old book in the digital world. Besides that, there is no smell to digital books and spilt coffee risks doing more than leaving a stain or being a nostalgic footprint of your conquest.
I could go on about the differences between digital and paper books, but what I am ultimately describing is a cultural phenomenon. I have the perspective that I describe because of how I grew up, in a world of paper books (although I really didn’t start reading them until college). Books and their creators inspired me to love learning more than any class or school. But the world changed; with many people reading fewer and fewer paper sources, and more digital sources. There are plenty who are inclined to print out articles before reading them, but many more who have adapted to reading on the screen, despite what the research does or doesn’t tell us about the average attention span for reading on a screen. So, if I am right, Amazon is on to something. Despite the warnings of wise King Thamus, writing is here to stay, but the book may be less than a century away from the museums.
Since it is slightly on topic, I’ll finish this post with one of my favorite Youtube videos.
Mark Wolf, a colleague at Concordia University Wisconsin, has contributed yet another excellent resource for those interested in video game culture. The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to PlayStation and Beyond (Greenwood Publishing) provides a rich history of video games, providing a coherent tour of video game culture from its infancy to the full grown multi-billion dollar industry today. It is a readable yet academic work that brings us all the way up to the Wii, XBox 360, and PlayStaion 3.
This is not a dry catalog of video games, but a tour of the culture surrounding these games. It includes wonderfully engaging essays that challenge us to explore a wide variety of ethical and cultural elements surrounding video games. While I appreciated Steven Kent’s Ultimate History of Video Games, Wolf’s work includes important cultural aspects that have emerged since since Kent’s 2001 text was published. Apart from that, Wolf has shaped an altogether different text, pulling together a talented assortment of scholars, each addressing different aspects of the culture in a way that a single author text is unlikely to do.
The content and title of this text perfectly illustrates the variety of ways in which people think and write about digital narrative. In the case of Shilo McClean’s 2006 book Digital Storytelling: The Narrative Power of Visual Effects in Film
You will not be disappointed with this book if you are looking for a well-written, thoughtful explanation of how digital effects can be used to tell a great story. The focus of the book is on film. What McClean writes has great relevance for screenwriters, film students, filmmakers, storytellers, writers, digital storytelling hobbyists, and anyone interested in how the ancient art of storytelling is alive and well in the digital age.
Clark Quinn’s book Engaging Learning: Designing e-Learning Simulation Games
I look at this list and consider the implications for interactive digital narratives and more traditional digital storytelling. If nothing else, consider the principles of engagement.
As I wonder about the future of film and digital storytelling, these ideas also prompt me to consider the extent to which digital storytelling will take on an increasingly interactive element, as already evident in Second Life as well as some of digital stories being crafted as nonlinear collections of images and web pages. Consider the idea of a digital story where the viewer can manipulate parts of the visual experience, experimenting with how the changes impact the mood and message of the story. What an intriguing way to help people develop media literacy skills.
One last random thought on the subject:
I wonder how long before we will be able to watch a movie where we choose the clothing, actors, and setting. 
Jan 2
I am so thankful for the contributions of Howard Gardner. While his work on multiple intelligences is helpful, I am more recently intrigued by the simplicity that he brings to the topic of changing minds. In Changing Minds: The Art And Science of Changing Our Own And Other People’s Minds (Leadership for the Common Good)
My first reaction to the list was concern. These could definitely be used in an unethical manner. They could be used to hide truth as much as to reveal it, for personal gain rather than the common good.
My second reaction was intrigue and acceptance. These are the things that change our minds. As an educator I have long accepted the fact that I am in the business of changing minds. That doesn’t have to mean indoctrination, but it does mean that I have the responsibility to influence the thoughts of others: from a student with no interest in reading to one who is skilled and enjoys reading, from one with limited self-confidence to one who has the courage to set and strive toward high goals, from one who doesn’t see the value of history or science to one who understands the value and nature of thinking like an historian or scientist… This is mind change.
And so it is with film and digital storytelling. We tell our stories for a reason, and we often hope to influence others with our stories. Perhaps the goal is to heighten awareness about a specific issue. Whatever the case, we want at least some who hear our stories to find value in them, to be inspired by them, to be freed by them, to be informed or delighted by them. In these cases, perhaps Gardner’s ideas might serve as a guide, just as they might for a persuasive speech or a political campaign.
I know that there are other reasons to tell stories. We tell them because we can’t keep them inside, for personal healing, and for artistic expression. But, at least sometimes, we tell them to influence others.
You are currently browsing the archives for the books category.
Subscribe to this site's RSS feed.