tahirmeo773@gmail.com over in my work is that folks say technology in ways that don’t really cohere don’t have a kind of common philosophical underpinning typically they mean things that have an on off switch that doesn’t get us very far or they’ll mean things that have to do with computer mediated communication but they’re not able to think about it in ways that get the real complexity or wonder of it.
The Misinterpretation of Technology
uh typically in my work I found that faculty and students unfortunately can often use the word technology when what they really mean is the way we communicate and collaborate as human beings via this electronic mediation.
Teaching Technology Concepts
I taught a class at Virginia Tech last spring it’s the seminar I keep iterating on the latest version of it is called from MX to YouTube cognition learning and the internet what I really think the secret title is is this is your brain on brain.
Engaging Students in Technological Practices
so I enjoy getting in there and thinking with students about their communicative practices online using the kinds of rich media people just enjoy tinkering.
Doug Engelbart’s Influence on Modern Technology
with so one day we were looking at Doug engelbart’s mother of all Demos in this class last spring and made a shopping list so um it’s got quite a few items on it and if I want want to I can see that yes those are numbers numbered statements and I can say there are ways I can scan down it like I can point to 10 and say put it at the top and I scan up point to 23 and I got quite a few and there’s Doug engelbart doing what we’re all very used to now he’s making the words move across a computer screen.
The Evolution of Writing and Text Processing
we don’t think anything about it we copy we paste we find and replace you can take your word processing document and you can move the words around it doesn’t work exactly that way if you’re writing it out with a pen even if you’re using a printing press it’s movable type but once the thing has been printed the words don’t move I guess unless you’re making a kidnapping Ransom note and you cut things out and rearrange them.
Student Realization: The Movement of Words
so I said to my students so look what do you notice about the words on this screen and I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing I didn’t really know what they were going to say and one of my students said the words move I said yeah that’s right that’s kind of interesting isn’t it they’re animated what happens when language in a physical representation in an electronic medium.
The Connection Between Animated GIFs and Written Language
is animated and then suddenly I went what do you do that’s animated in your communication and the student said well um hm we animate gifs and the more we talk talked about it the more we began to understand that there was a direct link between animated gifs and the words moving on Doug engelbart’s screen something about the way an animated gif was kind of the next step in the evolution of the word.
The Evolution of Symbolic Representation
and when we made that connection they began to understand oh this is like what I do when I speak or when I WR but now it’s an animated gif a compact repeatable movable symbolic representation of this idea this pointing that I’m doing and their eyes lit up it was great they could understand oh this isn’t just a new trick you do with Photoshop this is the next thing related to our habitual practices with the technology of written.