OU blog

Personal Blogs

Design Museum

Research Question: by comparing history essays written in 1979 on British and European History 1450 to 1660 with the same or similar essays written in 2012/2013 is the impact of digital technologies recognisable?

Visible to anyone in the world

 

Reading through the remarks on the Crook and Dymott paper (H809) in relation to different ways of writing whether pen to paper or fingertips to screen, I noticed a couple of fellow students wondering out loud if there are differences between what and how a student writes today compared to 20 years ago.

In a box in a lock-up garge, filed as they were written 32 years ago I have sets of essays on both British and European History. I have nothing to be proud of - grades range from D to B. And as we never had a word limit some essays go on and on and on and on ... to no avail. There might even be an F in there.

Are these subjects taught anymore?

1450 to 1660 or some such, Henry VII to the Restoration with 'Europe' another country ...

My daughter, an A' Level history student,  is studying World War 1 and Chinese History, so that's no good.

Surely the feeding tactics of the teachers will be the same? Short spells around Secondary Schools suggest to me that neither Geography, History nor English teaching has changed at all at A' Level in the last 30 years.

Read stuff, take notes, write essays, sit exams becomes read stuff (sometimes online), take notes (sometimes typed into a computer), write essays (often typed up and emailed), sit exams ... where you have to handwrite on paper.

Sounds to me like a serious mismatch of inputs and testing.

The kit may help or hinder. What matters is the quality of the memories laid down in the brain and the thoughts that can arise from getting enough of the right stuff in there.

My limited understanding of neuroscience would suggest that those parts of the brain used for communication and comprehension haven't changed a jot since Gates and Jobs and Tim Berners-Lee came along. Rather there is the possibility of a good deal more 'noise' - so on the one hand even more garbage 'polluting' the young scholar's mind whilst on the other easy and swift access to the very highest quality content - which in the past your teacher would supply with those slippery chemical smelling copies - what are they called?

The task then is to have a process so that this conent 'binds' - and whatever process or processes or tactics are exploited by teacher and pupil one thing has not changed a jot in 30 or 100 years. Time, effort, guidance, persistence ... recognising when you don't understand and having that fixed ...

Of similar interest might be a box of letters written by teenagers to each other at the time. These could end up in a museum one day - but are these asynchronous missives very different to postings to social media, particular as blogs? Very, I would have thought. The immediacy of the technology favours Twitter over the essay like letter sent by snail mail - slow to compose and equally slow to deliver.



 

Permalink
Share post
Design Museum

Does it work? Have I learnt anything? Have behavious been changed?

Visible to anyone in the world
Two things that might have been measured three years ago that show change: the speed at which I type, touchtypye with both hands or with my left only holding an iPad fighting back the desire to fall asleep. And reading. I used to be a slow and clumsy reader, know it can be done at a sprint. I dropped into our library and have some actual books. I have no interest in taking notes on either. The first 'The Salient' on the Western Font around Ypres, the second 'A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare'. This isn't why I took the MAODE - these are side effects, like the digitsl literacies I have gained from forums to wikis.
Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Design Museum

Typing French Accents

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 18 Aug 2012, 21:53
http://french.typeit.org/
Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Design Museum

Printing of and pasting up

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 31 Aug 2011, 04:23

I would title a talk on writing for the web, 'There's nothing new about new media' in 2011 as I did in 1999. Or I might say 'It changes nothing.'

The web, via this QWERTY keyboard is merely the final expression of something that has been going on somewhere else, mostly in your head. For me I have to get it out on paper.

As it is pelting down with rain I cannot peg my EVIDENCE for the ECA to the washing line as I plannes, so instead (to my wife's delight) I have Sellotaped some Wallpaper Backing paper to the bedroom wall. I have laid across the bed individual piles from each unit and I am selecting my evidence.

My favourite is a report on eportfolios which opens with the line '500 words on eportfolios. I need only one. Don't.'

You see it is why I wrote that, not what I wrote that matters.

How many authors write longhand on paper then move to the computer for some Word Processing?

I love the fact that I've printed off diddley-squat these last few months; I can handle reading it on a laptop as I have at least upgraded my computer so that it will handle the software.

So, a washing line DRAWN on this paper around the bedroom wall, sheets of paper stuck to it ... then I'll dwell on it. I may make notes into a digital recorded.

The issue I have is with the context for my thinking as this now splits three ways: sports, leadership and movie production. I am currently moving from one, to the other.

And I wonder why four hours sleep is good going?

I'll catnap during the day, but once I'm conscious I have to get to work. That's me.

 

Permalink Add your comment
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 13159278