Category Archives: Baylor_nmfs_f10

“The Myth of Mindless Addiction”

This semester I continue to reflect on my paper on the Death of the Introduction to The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. This semester it seems clearer to me that a profoundly new, that is new media approach is required for the pedagogy of the introduction. The project of writing a new type of introduction to Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament that embraces the move from Gutenberg’s print to a interactive e-book will requires a new media literacy.

This seminar has also been an introduction to an interesting network of scholars. Sherry Turkle is an academic profiled by the N.Y. Times in a Home & Garden piece “Really Thing About Things.” She has been teaching at MIT since 1976. She is the founder and director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. Sherry Turkle provides an apt follow up to the rubrics created by Brenda Laurel. Rob reminds us in his post Lost in Space the shift from philosophical reflection to a more narrative reflection that there are differences in the tone and texture of the readings.   When Turkle observes “the games as a window onto the culture of computation” she makes a new contribution to the previous readings. What Turkle does so effectively is attend to the way that the culture of computation acts as an environment with its own sort of gravity.

The now defunct television network TechTV created a documentary (in three segments eight, six and eight minute long  segments on Sherry Turkle in their series Big Thinkers.” It is now available through YouTube.com. The first video she discusses  objects and the self. Big Thinkers – Sherry Turkle part 1 The second segment has her describe the computer as a  “mind machine”and virtual reality.  Big Thinkers – Sherry Turkle part 2. The concluding segment  one of the interesting ideas she explores here is the way that nurutring prompts intimacy, even with objects such as a doll Big Thinkers – Sherry Turkle part 3

Sherry Turkle and the post Teach His/Her Own reminds us that video games or running are all expressions of identity and the formation of our selves. So some of what is in play in our various posts is the questions of how our identity choices are shaped in a new media world. James Kendrick in What We Talk About When We Talk explores with Turkle how the discussion of video games in some ways a meta-conversation on other topics. He challenges us that it may be a fear of a technological shift that marks the level of anxiety. He implies that the technological shift intimates a political that is power shift. The resistance may have more to do with the political/power status quo more than the technology itself. He and Turkle point to the possible advantages this technology may hold for intellectual development.

When Engelbart and Nelson talk about books embedded in the Memex or Dynabook they do not seem to understand the profound change that the computational culture will make on the very nature of this new type of book. The book is an object. Sherry Turkle has spent a caeer examining our relationships with objects and the formation of the self.  Her work challenges writers to build in a network context an object that forms a self. What if this new appliance/book would work like a video game. “The emotional power of video games draws heavily on the computer power within that supports a simulated world and a meditative environment, the David called a place of for “recentering.”” (NMR 511)

A major limitation of the print introduction is the fact that it ends like the pinball game that Turkle describes. The reader comes to the end of the page and must wait until the next edition. The new introduction functions in a new digital world. “As a computational object, the video game holds out two promises. The first is a touch of infinity—the promise of a game that never stops. … The games hold out a related promise, also tied to the computer’s presence within them. This is the promise of perfection.” (NMR 511) The challenge for the writer of the digital author is to provide an experience that can be relived and deepened with recurring traffic. This may not be the perfection that Turkle holds out but it is the incremental improvement and the move to excellence for the learner.

It would be interesting to return to Turkle after a session of Second Life or playing Halo.

From Hammerhandz to the Brain Augmenting Electronic Books: Adventures in teaching

Before I can go on to comment on Viola or Laurel I need to think through something about McLuhan. Several weeks ago as the New Media Faculty Seminar at Baylor met to discuss Marshall McLuhan’s articles in The New Media Reader Gardner Campbell told us about a class session that helped students understand McLuhan’s contention that medium is the message. He told the class what happens in out typical language game when I say “pick up a hammer”? Go ahead now think of a hammer in your hand. Now that you have visualized this now describe for me what you have. The student said immediately you have a hammer being grasped by a person. You have a hammer in your hand. Gardner said an emphatic no to this. “What you really have is a hammerhand! The tools becomes an extension of the person in this case the hand!” My words cannot capture Gardner’s verve and enthusiasm.

The appliance as the extension of the person a la Doug Engelbart and McLuhan’s the medium is the massage/message brings us back to a new appreciation of the “appliance.” Sherry notes the dangers of anthropomorphism of our devices. These devices were also mentioned in The 2010 Horizon Report from New Media Consortium and the Educause learning Initiative. The key trends include 1) the proliferation of resources and relationship due to the internet. 2) The idea of on demand has hit the television and bleeds into other aspects of life including technology. 3) End users seem to be warming up to the cloud services such as Google Docs and the around the corner Windows Live. 4) Students treat their education as increasingly a collaborative fashion contrary to the earlier era.

The Horizon Report list includes critical challenges 1) the changing role of the academy including 2) new and emerging scholarly forms of authoring, publishing, and research lags behind the technology. 3) Digital media literacy continues to find new importance in every field. Finally 4) a contracting economy has given rise to more focus on key goals often absent advancing new media research.

The Horizon 2010 reports the technologies to watch. The report names two near term technologies, that is to say, within the next twelve months, mobile computing and open content. Baylor has worked to position itself well in terms of mobile computing. Baylor is a Microsoft campus. Therefore open source software cannot get a substantial hold here. There is an open standards conference here every year.

The second adoption horizon, that is to say two to three years out that the Horizon Reports mentions are electronic books and simple augmented reality. I want to use Brenda Laurel to explore the electronic book. The Baylor library has started a collection of electronic books. However there has been no substantial rethinking of the concept of the e-books. What if we take Laurel’s reading of Aristotle (Poetics).

When so many of the writers we have read this semester have imagined the books would reside in the Memex machine and the Dynabook but they did not speculate on how that shift of books from artifacts of the Guttenberg era to an entity out of the movie Tron. The introductions to Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and as a course and as a books continue to be written with a Guttenberg model. However, Brenda Laurel in her article “Six Elements and Causal Relations Among Them.” Brenda Laurel brings and interesting reading of Aristotle’s Poetics to a new media aesthetics.  These six elements can provide a helpful dashboard or rubric to assess what a new and fundamentally different introduction to the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible.

The next blog post will review in more detail Brenda Laurel’s treatment Six Elements.

My Early Life with Computers

“Personal Dynamic Media “ Alan Kay and Adele Goldberg   appeared in Computer magazine in 1977. This article adds to the conversation of Engelbart and Nelson. First the idea of Dynabook makes the computer personal not institutional. Personal for Kay and Goldberg becomes a matter of scale, that is to say size.

Reading Dwight Russell’s reminiscences emboldened me to remember my beginnings with computers.  A student got me into computers. I went to an early computer show in San Francisco. When a salesman invited me to buy a computer I tried to brush him off by saying my credit card limit was not enough to buy it. He said let me run your credit card. Much to my chagrin it was approved and I had bought my first computer. Luckily I had a church meeting after the conference and I sent my new computer home by the student and only later would I have to explain this to my wife. When colleagues were purchasing the larger Radio Shack model I was drawn to the Kaypro, so-called portable computer. The Kaypro was not as much a portable as a lug-able. The Kaypro was built by Andrew Kay, no relation to Alan Kay.

No wonder that many see this as the first imaginings of the notebook computer. I remember how excited I was when I purchased my TR S-80 Model 100 from Radio Shack.  I thought of the computer as an institutional asset that one had access to through an institutional that is college relationship that is tuition.  But once the size came down then it became personal.  The picture of the dynabook and the TR S80 Model 100 illustrate that eh early personal computer notebooks were more notebooks that dynamic media. Lance Grigsby provided the link to the end of the article.  The final paragraphs indicate a sensibility of the ethos of Nelson’s computer lib.  “The burden of system design…is transferred to the user.” This transfer tot eh user. This embodiment of computer lib is a crucial aspect of what makes  this a personal dynamic media instead of mass produced static media.

Our design strategy, then, divides the problem. The burden

of system design and specification is transferred to the user.

This approach will only work if we do a very careful and

comprehensive job of providing a general medium of communication

which will allow ordinary users to casually and

easily describe their desires for a specific tool. We must also

provide enough already-written general tools so that a user

need not start from scratch for most things she or he may

wish to do.

We have stated several specific goals. In summary, they are:

•to provide coherent, powerful examples of the use of the

Dynabook in and across subject areas;

•to study how the Dynabook can be used to help expand a

person’s visual and auditory skills;

•provide exceptional freedom of access so kids can spend a lot

of time probing for details, searching for a personal key to

understanding processes they use daily; and

•to study the unanticipated use of the Dynabook and

Smalltalk by children in all age groups.

The promise of the Dynabook is the way it anticipates not just the size of the computer, making it more personal, on a personal scale but Rob Rogers points out that Kay and Goldberg’s the end user as designer fall short.   Nonetheless, what I think provides the biggest challenge to educators is the way the Memex, Xanadu and the Dynabook transform books by putting them into these appliances. These appliance  can facilitate learning of the student designed education. Kay and Goldberg write “For educators, the Dynabook could be a new world limited only by their imagination and ingenuity.” (NMR p. 403)

Hillary Blakely describes how last week as we struggled with Nelson the idea of student, read user, designed education was a hot topic. She pointed out that Nelson worked well with motivated learners but sometimes in order to get to the motivated learner stage one must go through preliminary less joyous steps, biochem and calculus.

The seminar anxiously awaits Ivan Illich who will open up the idea of networks through the concept of learning webs more than Bush, Engelbart, Kay and Goldberg. Rob Rogers post on the missing equation as the human one anticipates some of what e will see in Illich.

The Future at the Brink: Asynchronicity in the Classroom and Pop Culture

David Pogue comedian and technology contributor to the New York Times and CNBC presents a short video “debating the Future of Television”. The video is a little more even handed than his article in the NY Times TV’s Future Has Arrived (Almost). Pogue continues to prefer Apple products so his article focuses more on the new AppleTV than the new capability of the Roku set top box. But I digress. The real issue in terms of new media is sychronicity and asynchronicity.

Growing up in a black family in Dayton Ohio we did not stop for the Beatles appearance on Ed Sullivan. But I do remember when Atlanta stopped and watched the television miniseries Roots. The last episode of MASH was a social occasion.  Network executives orchestrated television events as the ritual behavior. The family or other social entities gathered around an icon to watch. Pogue observes, in passing, that the possibility that such events will be rarer. The set top box allows a person or group to watch on demand.  The gadgets like TIVO and Slingbox allow persons to schedule what they watch. Will students expect classes to work around their schedule like their television?

The Educause Learning Initiative online conference Blended Learning: The 21st-Century Learning Environment, September 15 and 16 2010 explored the combination synchronous and asynchrononus environments. The shift from broadcast television to on demand television does put pressure for on demand education but Educause views blended learning as much as an opportunity as a threat.

Let’s take a moment and nuance our topic a little. Synchronous and asynchronous is a matter of time; it brackets the question of space. Synchronous can happen in Second Life as easily as it does in a classroom on campus. So one question is the value added of synchronous learning environments.  Theodor Nelson could be construed as a strong proponent of asynchronous learning but without an orchestrated dialog.  The face-to-face synchronous learning environment has clear benefits but the new world of television there will be increasing need for educators to make a case for face-to-face synchronous learning environments.

Religious communities are not immune from this time shifting pressure. The on demand television is the next step to tele-evangelism. I do not know whether television audiences outstrip the numbers in the pews. But I know it would be nice if church met according to my schedule.

Today’s Information Technology Literacy is Nelson’s Computer Lib put into Action

Early in my teaching career I required student in the basic class to display competence in how to use the library. Over the years this has become a requirement for students in the basic Scriptures course demonstrate information literacy including how to navigate the technology in today’s research theological library. This semester Michael Skinner has put this in a form that student can gain access to theological bibliography online.

Most students are too polite to ask why I am making this a requirement in a Bible course.  Well the syllabus says that information and technology skills are meta-professional skills necessary in the area of ministry and biblical studies. Theodor Nelson’s book Computer Lib/Dream Machine abridged in the New Media Reader as a long chapter provides a backdrop for my intuitions. “Any nitwit can understand computers and many do…. Everybody should understand computers.” (Nelson, NMR  p 303) This literacy is necessary so the religious professional not be held captive by what Nelson calls the “computer priesthood.”  Literacy is the key to liberation. Nelson’s computer lib depends on information and technology. The “Do priests dream of electric sheep” post encouraged us to envision a time when the computer priesthood gives way with the “unbridled creativity – our children.

Much of Nelson’s essay portends our exploration of Ivan Illich and the Deschooling of Society.  Rob Rogers points to the psychic work that this exploration on the nature of learning requires. I would want to re-consider Nelson’s attack on “subjects” in education in light of Parker Palmer’s apology for subject centered instruction. The seminar session also pointed to the way that Nelson’s presentation reflects his passion and emotion about education and thereby sometimes hijacks our emotion and passion about that subject. Ashley pushed us to lean into the radicality of the piece.

Nelson calls for a fundamental change in education. This includes even our textbooks. The typical introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament uses old media book. The old media book still does not take advantage of hypertext , “…forms of writing which branch or perform on request; they are best presented on computer display screens.” (Nelson, NMR p. 314)  Jim helped us understand what Nelson was getting at with the concept of hypermedia. Jim asked us to think about the Matrix and Star Wars experience where a narrative universe is created through film, games, novels and short stories.  Of Anti-Westerns and Fish Bowls one gets a glimpse of how hypermedia reflects the cultural interchanges in a global media village. Ellen introduced us to the term transmedia literacy as an expression of the ongoing interpretation of hypermedia.

The concept of hypertext combines with his notion of fantics, the visual-musical-linguistic memes used in communication. The e-reader makes it possible for a reader to experience a fantic

space. I am still a little confused about the concept of fantics. I am not at all clear how one teaches students to create fantic space.

From Bootstrapping Innovation to a Dashboard for Change

Last week in the New Media Faculty Seminar at Baylor University we discussed Doug Engelbart’s  1962 report Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework abridged in the New Media Reader. This week we examine the outgrowth of this work in the report on the Mother of All Demos (1968). Christina Engelbart joined us via Skype. She also posted to the seminar blog.  For me the most captivating part of the conversation was the idea of bootstrapping innovation. The Doug Engelbart institute has produced a guide to bootstrapping innovation.

I hope you will investigate in more detail than I will present here but the five elements include:

  1. Focus on Capability: Especially collective IQ/Innovation
  2. Engage your innovators: Innovation networks
  3. Leverage your collective IQ: This is enhancing the dynamic knowledge/innovation ecosystem (the DKE)
  4. Walk your talk: Bootstrapping leverage
  5. Push the frontier: Accelerating co-evolution

When I think of technology and new media augmenting human intellect I think of Gina Trapani. She was the founding editor of Lifehacker.com and now she blogs at smarterware.org. These five principles of bootstrapping innovation pioneered by Engelbart and his team have continued to inspire. The New Media Consortium has done more than just pick up on these ideas they have taken them and transformed them into a type of dashboard for the organization.Bootstrapping Innovation: NMC

What the NMC has done can be done by schools such as Baylor University or George W. Truett Theological Seminary, accrediting agencies (most relevant to my life Southern Association of Colleges and Universities, Association of Theological Schools) and scholarly communities (Society of Biblical Literature an Catholic Biblical Association) to assess how they are doing bootstrapping innovation. I will explore in coming posts the ways these organizations have been bootstrapping innovation.

Curating Conversations

We learned last week in the new media faculty seminar at Baylor the importance of linking blog posts. This transforms a blog from a loud megaphone that no one attends other than the writer to a conversation. But like most learning it comes with a cost. The cost and the benefit are curating the conversation. If Web 2.0 is the read write Web then the blogger who makes a difference is one who reads and curates good material for others. Without this value added the traffic to a blog should dry up fairly quickly.
Last week’s reading introduced us to Bush’s imagining of a memex machine but a number of posts this week have accented the network of memex machines. Gardner describes the context of the network phenomenon as outlined in the New Media Reader in his post The Network Emerges. The machines changed the world but also the networking of the machines provided remarkable leverage for that change. Ellen Filgo’s Britannica on Microfilm vs. Wikipedia on the Web explores the network effect of hordes of memex machines. The business world may have a better handle on this than the academic world. An interesting book to look at again is Shel Israel and Robert Scoble’s Naked Conversations: How Blogs are changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.
What I wonder is how can I develop new strategies for discovery. Yes there is are the RSS feeds but what escapes me if the best way to curate the rich resources. I begin my day by going to about favorite six websites form the NY Times, Washington Post, USA Today, the Huffington Post, the Daily Beast and Christian Century. However, after last week’s session I am going to have to re-think my orientation to the day and week with new conversations to curate.
Whether it is Twitter, Facebook, or blog post one must devise a strategy of scanning for interesting material. However such a commitment must be put in the ongoing workflow of a mind worker.
I was just listening to Gardner talk about the participants with Alan Levine of New Media Consortium. He referred to the participants as “seminarians.” I had never thought of seminarians as members of a seminar not just a seminarian as one who matriculates at a seminary. I will have to continue to think about that as a key to help me think about the nature of a seminary.

This week I began to be frustrated about  moving from the word processing to the blog post. The Word 7 publish to blog was more than I could get to work.

The Memex Machine

This week’s reading for the new media faculty seminar at Baylor is “As We May Think” by Vannevar Bush. The article published in 1945 in Life and Atlantic Monthly imagines a machine that has similarities to what would become the computer. He called it a memex machine. The name memex was short for memory extension. Leibnitz invented a calculating machine and Bush wants to push out the implications of a new machine that displaces the calculator by memory extension. While he raises the possibility of life with a memex machine his article also indicates the core assumptions and questions.
Two questions that require further exploration. 1) If one has constant access, or ubiquitous access to the memes machine then what does one have to remember unaugmented? 2) Bush says on page 44 of the New media Reader “The human mind does not work that way. It operates by association.” While I agree and generally like the affirmation I wonder if the plasticity of the brain is such that it can remap itself as new tools become available. If so can we still say how the brain works as if that is a independent reality form the context of technology?
If we can talk about the intellectual history of new media in terms of form Memex to Hypertext then we might think about how the memex machine that was to be a memory extender has through new media become a meme machine sharing cultural ideas, practices and the like. The move form extending memory to shaping the interpretation of memory is not a very far walk.
Speaking more practically are Evernote and LiveNote examples of the memex at work?