I'm a big fan of Lanham, because even I am old enough to remember the era of After Dark, and the flying toasters were my favorite screen saver.
Even though I never knew how to modify anything about After Dark, I see how it is a metaphor for the modern ability to modify pretty much everything you come into contact with. If "the critic can become a creator" (159) in every situation, what happens to professional creators? If everybody wants to do things their way, that means some things are not being done the best way, and the best way does not get the respect it deserves. This definitely relates to the Kohl et. al article—if everybody can update Wikipedia, how do we know what is accurate or trustworthy? I personally try not to use Wikipedia for important purposes (professors don't like it), but I don't think that just avoiding it is a good enough answer.
At first I was afraid I'd lost Lanham when he started talking about how technology is endangering the development of human reason (on 160), but luckily I think that was just an attention-grabber to keep us reading (it worked for me).
"Might scholarly communication become iconic in ways never seen before? It is fun to think about." (161)
Lanham is talking about this in 1994, and I think that some scholarly communication has become iconic, but not nearly as iconic as communication in general. Again, we see how the institutions in our society actively resist new ways. Lanham says that "I myself don't think that literature will die, but clearly it will change as it moves from page to screen. Graduate programs in English ought to be considering that movement." (162)
It's 2011, and I'm not sure that graduate programs in English are considering that movement as much as they should be. Feel free to shoot me down on this one—I hope they are, but it's not something you hear about often (and I don't know much about graduate programs myself). But it seems to me that individual classes do take multimodal technologies seriously and incorporate them in very meaningful ways, but in classes like the US101 freshman seminar, students are still laboring away reading paper texts with nothing but words and writing papers in MLA format for 80% of their grades. Personal rant: I'm a peer leader in US101 and I had to argue with my professor that instead of assigning another writing assignment alongside an upcoming paper, we should have the students draw concept maps of their papers to enable them to write better papers. You can't make a better writer by telling them to write more. You can't make a better communicator by giving them the same communication tools. It's common sense!
So my main concern coming away from the Lanham article is that teachers who do push the envelope and incorporate more innovative technologies and ways of communication will not get taken seriously. Students might love it, but what about their parents? What about other teachers? What about all of the old people who make important decisions? If they don't like it, how are we going to effectively incorporate it into something as important as graduate school?
Lanham says that "digital technology democratizes the art and letters," (162) and maybe that is what is so scary when it comes to incorporating it into the educational institution. But really, it should be the most exciting thing about it. As Emerson would agree, we always have to push the envelope; we always have to develop more as thinkers and innovators, and technology is what enables that. So maybe we should redefine "scholarly communication" to include multimodal texts, not just text-only journal articles.
Nothing academic except I agree with your points. Did your teacher agree with your idea for the concept map? Awesome of you to stand up for those freshies! Two papers together for a class is NOT fun.
ReplyDeleteAs a scholar who is going into a graduate English program, I really agree about the need to consider the move from page to screen. Hence my critical analysis topic of the need for visual literacy.
ReplyDeleteWill the parents and teachers ever take these ideas seriously?
Eventually the people in charge will BE the young folk who insist on getting with the 21st century.
Karen, I want to comment on this piece of your text, "So my main concern coming away from the Lanham article is that teachers who do push the envelope and incorporate more innovative technologies and ways of communication will not get taken seriously. Students might love it, but what about their parents? What about other teachers? What about all of the old people who make important decisions? If they don't like it, how are we going to effectively incorporate it into something as important as graduate school?"
ReplyDeleteThis is not just a challenge in education, it is a fundamental challenge of life, isn't it? There is always progression and it is frustrating to be part of a minority that embrace it, and wonder what change is possible.
If we look at this problem you so well describe,in a way that makes it genuinely *ours*--not just people out there somewhere--I wonder what our options for involvement really are, and which ones might be most effective.
I return to a word we've spoken much of in this class: human interaction. I wonder how much could be changed by those of us who value this change making it known--in respectful tones--in our classes of those teachers who do not endorse these ideas we seem to agree on. How much can a very small, concerned conversation on the reasons behind our desire for more go--both to parents, teachers and even administrators? Each voice might seem small, but what else do we have, really?
I'm reminded here of one of my most favorite quotes. It is Sir Ken Robinson quoting Abraham Lincoln (and somehow I never heard the quote till Sir Ken was on TED Talks...) I think it fits our situation well:
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present; the occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves. And then we shall save our country." (Sir Ken, quoting Abraham Lincoln)