As an aspiring teacher, I constantly read about the importance of learning how to read and write in a child’s early years. Although the structures of reading and writing are perfected slowly as kids get older, the vitality of opening a book is stressed at a young age. Teachers encourage parents to read out loud as early as two years old, and later encourage parents and kids to read together to become accustomed to vocabulary, phonemes, morphemes and the English Language.
My confusion sparks from the idea of reading. If and when the world does get completely digitalized, does this argument towards technology stretch all the way to the education of younger students? Will five year olds have to begin reading their first books on the web? Or are they excluded from this transformation?
With this said, digital technology has transformed our society’s experience of reading and writing. For me, it all started when my family first got a computer in 2001. The first thing my brother and I started fighting over was the use of Instant Message. That was my first interaction with the digital world, other than listening to music or watching T.V. Sooner or later, by the 10th grade (2005) I wanted my own cell phone. These are all experiences that my parents never went through 30 years ago, so I think technology has greatly altered the desires of kids and adolescents.
Is it something we can change? No. Kids as young as 9 years old are beginning to ask for ipods and cell phones. I am all for the convenience of technology, for I make use of these gadgets myself, but when it comes to Carlin Romano’s “Will the Book Survive Generation Text” I have to agree with her concerns towards this digitalization as well. Publishers and different companies are beginning to shorten texts to make it more reader friendly for students. Is this a good thing or bad thing? Is reading a summary of an epic work the same as reading a book in its entirety? The shortening of books is one problem, the digitalization of all books is another. Romano says, ” Reading a book, however, requires concentration, endurance, the ability to disconnect from other connections,” ( Romano 5), which forms some kind of appreciation and discipline for a scholar. With the use of the web and other compressed versions of novels, students will be lacking the development and understanding of texts that prior generations were influenced by. On the other hand, a digital humanist would argue that digitalized books are for those people who do not want to be stuck on just one text and have the opportunity to use hypertexts , networks and links which offer readers different pathways to take as they read on the web.
As I delve into this topic more and more, I’m beginning to see a division in the audience of the digital humanists. I don’t think that books should be digitalized for the high school years, I think it should be a means of research and extra resources for anyone who prefers the web. People are making this digitalization sound like someone is going to put all their books on the web and then books will be burned and banned by the government. I mean if the use and free access of the web is pro choice than the only people that should be concerned about this accessibility are the authors of these books, who should have an agreement with (let’s say google) if google wants to put their books on the web. The authors and writers should have the last word on this decision. Not me.
In Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Library of Babel” he writes about an infinite library: “I say that the library is unending” ( Borges 1). When I think of the word infinite and I read about the labyrinth in his “Garden of Forking Paths” I can’t help but tie it to the unending amount of sources that are available on the internet. The internet is like a maze, with different networks, links and paths. These different hypertexts and networks are like labyrinths leading to new branches and doors of knowledge. When Borges writes, “I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars” ( Borges 4), for me it symbolizes the birth of the hypertext and internet’s ability to hold texts from the past and the future.
I believe our future will be full of new and improved technologies. I think these technologies will take away from the classical approach to learning. I think these technologies will add to a modern approach to learning. I believe in using different pedagogy in the field of education, therefore as a teacher I would aim for a balance of both worlds.
I agree with you Tara. My parent also didn’t have a computer and did not have access to technology like we do now. They had to do all there research and reading and writing through books and notebooks. Nothing was every typed. Professors gave lectures in class and they never had anything called an “online class.” Even when I was growing up, I didn’t have access to a computer until I was maybe 10-11 years old. Now-a-days kids as young as 3 know exactly how to use the computer and even an IPhone. With time, digital technology and is changing our younger generation.
As an aspiring teacher, I constantly read about the importance of learning how to read and write in a child’s early years. Although the structures of reading and writing are perfected slowly as kids get older, the vitality of opening a book is stressed at a young age. Teachers encourage parents to read out loud as early as two years old, and later encourage parents and kids to read together to become accustomed to vocabulary, phonemes, morphemes and the English Language.
My confusion sparks from the idea of reading. If and when the world does get completely digitalized, does this argument towards technology stretch all the way to the education of younger students? Will five year olds have to begin reading their first books on the web? Or are they excluded from this transformation?
With this said, digital technology has transformed our society’s experience of reading and writing. For me, it all started when my family first got a computer in 2001. The first thing my brother and I started fighting over was the use of Instant Message. That was my first interaction with the digital world, other than listening to music or watching T.V. Sooner or later, by the 10th grade (2005) I wanted my own cell phone. These are all experiences that my parents never went through 30 years ago, so I think technology has greatly altered the desires of kids and adolescents.
Is it something we can change? No. Kids as young as 9 years old are beginning to ask for ipods and cell phones. I am all for the convenience of technology, for I make use of these gadgets myself, but when it comes to Carlin Romano’s “Will the Book Survive Generation Text” I have to agree with her concerns towards this digitalization as well. Publishers and different companies are beginning to shorten texts to make it more reader friendly for students. Is this a good thing or bad thing? Is reading a summary of an epic work the same as reading a book in its entirety? The shortening of books is one problem, the digitalization of all books is another. Romano says, ” Reading a book, however, requires concentration, endurance, the ability to disconnect from other connections,” ( Romano 5), which forms some kind of appreciation and discipline for a scholar. With the use of the web and other compressed versions of novels, students will be lacking the development and understanding of texts that prior generations were influenced by. On the other hand, a digital humanist would argue that digitalized books are for those people who do not want to be stuck on just one text and have the opportunity to use hypertexts , networks and links which offer readers different pathways to take as they read on the web.
As I delve into this topic more and more, I’m beginning to see a division in the audience of the digital humanists. I don’t think that books should be digitalized for the high school years, I think it should be a means of research and extra resources for anyone who prefers the web. People are making this digitalization sound like someone is going to put all their books on the web and then books will be burned and banned by the government. I mean if the use and free access of the web is pro choice than the only people that should be concerned about this accessibility are the authors of these books, who should have an agreement with (let’s say google) if google wants to put their books on the web. The authors and writers should have the last word on this decision. Not me.
In Jorge Luis Borges’s “The Library of Babel” he writes about an infinite library: “I say that the library is unending” ( Borges 1). When I think of the word infinite and I read about the labyrinth in his “Garden of Forking Paths” I can’t help but tie it to the unending amount of sources that are available on the internet. The internet is like a maze, with different networks, links and paths. These different hypertexts and networks are like labyrinths leading to new branches and doors of knowledge. When Borges writes, “I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and the future and in some way involve the stars” ( Borges 4), for me it symbolizes the birth of the hypertext and internet’s ability to hold texts from the past and the future.
I believe our future will be full of new and improved technologies. I think these technologies will take away from the classical approach to learning. I think these technologies will add to a modern approach to learning. I believe in using different pedagogy in the field of education, therefore as a teacher I would aim for a balance of both worlds.
I accidentally posted in the wrong section sorry!!
I agree with you Tara. My parent also didn’t have a computer and did not have access to technology like we do now. They had to do all there research and reading and writing through books and notebooks. Nothing was every typed. Professors gave lectures in class and they never had anything called an “online class.” Even when I was growing up, I didn’t have access to a computer until I was maybe 10-11 years old. Now-a-days kids as young as 3 know exactly how to use the computer and even an IPhone. With time, digital technology and is changing our younger generation.