Technology and Free Speech?

I was really interested in Bolster's and Grusin's discussion of how "new media, particularly the internet, will bring about a new kind of democracy." (74) While they acknowledge that this is an idea held by "enthusiasts," many theorists also take this idea of technology becoming a means of authorization and democratization. Bolster and Grusin use Howard Rheingold, who states: [computer mediated communication]... challenges the existing political hierarchy's monopoly on powerful media communications and perhaps thus revitalize citizen-based democracy" (74). Yet, I wonder if the internet offers only a mock-freedom? Yes I can make a blog, and a twitter, and I can voice my opinions and political viewpoints on pre-constructed internet forums. Sure I can put up pictures and video clips, but in the end there is always someone at the end of the cord who can close my accounts or remove any inappropriate content; so where is the power? In China the government has controlled the content available on Google; my Google is not the same as theirs. Which comes to a basic question of access: who has access to say what goes on the internet; and in the end it isn’t average Joe, or even an above-average smart person. However, I definitely appreciate the potential implication that the internet allows for some room for free speech, but I’m not too sure if it can lead to a “citizen-based democracy” because the same people who have access and intellect enough to speak opinions and be active in a political (online) forum are the same people who would have had access and intellect enough to participate in politics without internet access. So free speech? No, not necessarily; but what is made available is the chance to become active and opinionated, and isn’t that how all revolutions start?

Media Representation and Reality

Bolster and Grusin bring amazing insight into media and what it presents. I tied their discussion on this innate cultural desire for hypermediacy to Saussure’s sense of the sign and signifier. So in essence, the media presented on the internet is a signified sign, or a constructed representation of the real. Bolster and Grusin continue, stating that “the desire for immediacy leads digital media to borrow avidly from each other as well as from their analog predecessors such as film, television, and photography” (9). So what results is a very purposeful, and rhetorical, organization of media representation. Moreover, despite what exactly is being represented through media “all of them seek to put the viewer in the same space as the objects viewed” (11), which is a terrifying thought in itself. It seems that if reality is emulated through media, then what is real becomes obscured. But Saussure’s argument on the signified and the sign was configured far before the internet and digital media. Yet Bolster and Grusin argue that “new media [is] doing exactly what their predecessors have done: presenting themselves as refashioned and improved versions of other media” (14). Bolster and Grusin even discuss how this hypermediacy can be emulated in oil paintings (36-37), stating “earlier media sought immediacy through the interplay of aesthetic value of transparency with techniques of linear perspective, erasure, and automaticity, all of which are strategies also at work in digital technology” (24). So should anyone really be concerned with how digital representations attempt to mimic the real representation? Isn’t that what all artists have done for centuries? Maybe the real is made so through our representations of it, whether it be filtered through technology or art, or any other type of mimicry. Either way, it’s obvious that humans will continue to create representation of reality, and will do so in a rhetorically strategic way.

Broadband for all?

The news today has been saturated with discussions on this idea of giving ALL people access to high-speed internet... interesting idea...

Here's a link:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/broadband/6949561/Super-fast-broadband-for-the-whole-country-is-vital-to-future-prosperity.html

Visual Essay: Literacy is My Life

My Literacy began with books. As a child I was read to by my parents and older siblings.

We Read Bible Stories for Children

The Bernstein Bears

And pretty much anything else that taught us how to be "good kids"
(I'd learn later that I was read "Didactic" literature)

But then........

I learned to read BY MY SELF!!!!

And the world was in my hands (or at least in my book)

I Started to Read about the Lives of Girls My Age

I would spend hours in the library, forgoing my recess hours so that I could read.

I even got in trouble for reading unasigned literature during classtime.

And then........

We got the first computers in the school.

It Started with One per Classroom.
But Soon Enough...

We had a

computer LAB !!!!

We would get two hours once a week. We would play.....

'Oregon Trail' 'Math Blasters' And ' Where In Time Is

Carmen San Diego?'

Then Elementary was over...

and so was recess.

I entered Junior High School.

I got a pager

(I felt SO cool)

:)

And Computers became a permanent presence in the classroom.We typed our papers Watched Projections Entered Chatrooms Saw News Clips

We were high-tech....



Or so we thought....

By the time I entered High School @ Cajon High there was:
The INTERNET!!!!!

Which meant that Students could

"voice" opinions and complaints.

We also had...

cell phones!!!!
(with text messaging)

And a new discourse emerged
omg lol :)

I had to take "Intro. to Computers" as Juniors

Where I learned the lingo of technolgy:

-We learned Word Processing
-Data Entry
-Power Point

-And a bunch of other things


about computers.








Then I graduated High School and entered College;

I took some on-line courses

And when I graduated
I filled out ALL of my applications on-line...

Even for school loans

At CSUSB I was introduced to Blackboard... essentially their online class community.

And in one class I started a

wiki space.













Then, I earned a B.A. in English Literature

But it wasn't until Graduate School that I began to think about computers beyound the classroom.

And then I began to think about technology and gender

I started looking into CYBORG VOICE and

LAURIE ANDERSON

And I questioned technology in the classroom


and Who gets ACCESS?

And now for the first time, I'm doing a visual essay on computer literacy.

I think its obvious that computer literacy in my life will forever evolve and grow

And with every new invention A New Discourse emerges

and My ideas and interpretations of computer literacy mold and morph.

I am a cyborg

And Literacy is my life.

Kids and Computers

Is technology in the classroom feasible?

It seems that there is much discussion on the future and the modern student. In addition, the books I'm reading in the course are setting us up for a world that requires techno-literacy and one that engages in techno-efficiency with students at a younger age. But is technology in the classroom really feasible? It seems that if educators want to create functionally literate students on a massive level, there needs to be some type of government assistance, or some type of collective agreement with what students need to know. Without the "big brother" involvement, and if techno-literacy is left for various districts to decipher over, there is an extra risk that the education given is not equal for all. It seems to me what happens is that if techo-literacy is left up to be defined by various districts, that we wind up furthering the gap between the rich and the poor, because the rich will have more access to the best technology, and the poor will continue to scramble over and share the few school computers available in comparison. Which would be why Selfe, and others who share in her push for techno-literacy, push for political action in equalizing the technology available for all students.

Technology in the Classroom

Selber, Stuart “Multiliteracies for a Digital Age.” Southern Illinois UP, 2004.

Students are entering a world that has only been attainable for that past few decades; they are living in a techno-world. Stuart Selber, in “Multiliteracies for a Digital Age,” Which means that educators should not only keep up with the technology their students will be expected to work with, but that they should know MORE than those students, not only speaking on technological know-how, but on the cultural and social issues that surround the emerging techno-society. In order to do this, Selber calls for a “postcritical stance,” where “one locates computer literacy in the domain of English Studies while operating under the assumption that no theories or positions should be immune to critical assessment” (3). Which means that I, as a future teacher of English , will one day have to prepare students to analyze using technology. And while at first I found this near impossible, as I’ve engaged in the discussions, blogs, and tweets of my fellow classmen, I realize that through the technology I was first apprehensive about I myself have gained literacy in technology, and have discovered that it can indeed be beneficial to education. While I am still a little slow at the blogs, and the tweets, and I find the chatrooms quite difficult to keep up with, like an abstract painting, I can appreciate the beauty technology offers in a world of education that is increasingly growing dim. Maybe by advancing our students using technology, and by incorporating blogs, tweets, and what have you, students can actually gain understanding of the world they are in

Techno-literacy and State Standards

"paying attention" refers to the instructor, not the student, for Selfe. As instructors, and thus pivaltal leaders in the education of students, it is our job to note the literary and cultural changes occuring within our society. If we educate studebts without having the goal of "paying attention" to things such as techno-literacy, we risk leaving our students inadequately able to succeed in a world that is now techno-literate. This means redefining curriculem and standards in order to promote critical thinking amoung students. Selfe states that our obligations as instructors is to {"read and analyze the texts and lives of our students" (160). Yet I only wonder how this goal is attainable for highschool and grade school instructors who are burden with the uneasy task of maintaining ridiculous state standards. Perhaps before we set the stage for techno-literacy we should first do away with the state standards that fill up the academic calender leaving little to no room to educate students on what is actually useful.

how to make a solar powered computer

Computer Literacy and the University

It seems to be that there is an on going discussion in academia centered on computer literacy and the needs of the modern student. The results of these discussions seem to lead to the fact that citizens and instructors alike can no longer ignore the computer literacy issue; computer literacy is here to stay. So now what? What does that mean for me as a future educator? It means that as an instructor the pressure is placed on me tp introduce students to these modern advancements. Yet, had each of those students taken a placement exam for computer literacy, and had the students, if lacking in computer skills, been placed in computer courses, classes I could run more efficiently. Therefore I feel it is the job of the university to ensure that students are adequately placed in and prepared for classes that require the use of computers.