Hi Luiz,
Lots of ideas in your post to think about! Picking up on your discussion
of cutting and pasting recorded melodies, speech, and moving pictures, we
of course have been cutting and splicing audio tape, film and video tape
since the beginning of these technologies.
Your focus on the whole notion of editing brings to mind an interesting
point about all forms of recording - that the very nature of any kind of
recording, including even memorizing a verbal story, implies editing. The
very nature of replication is itself a form of editing, because it cannot
be identical. Compromises are necessary in any technology, so even the
most earnest attempt at identical reproduction is necessarily a kind of
editing.
Editing is part any reproduction, and everyone is very conscious of
it. And if mass publishing, photocopy technology, film and audio
technology weren't already enough, the new digital age has ushered in a
level of reproduction - and therefore editing - unheard of in human history.
In general, of course, "logotechnical" (digital) or not, the medium
mediates the message. And today, what messages do not have technology to
enhance and mediate them? When you really start to look, where - anywhere
- is to be found an authentic original that is unaffected by mediational
devices? Performances usually use sound equipment. Museums usually use
the best possible lighting. When we vacation in wonderful places, we bring
cameras, binoculars.
We humans edit and enhance incessantly - wherever we can. Why shouldn't
we? And speaking of editing, we are all now sitting in front of the
greatest editing device ever developed - the computer, where, as Luiz aptly
points out, we can cut and paste virtually anything that can be digitized.
To bring this back to Carol's article and Luiz's question: "For instance,
can we really believe that computer-based tools for literature classes do
not affect the way in which people will read and interpret books?" we can
all probably agree, of course such devices will affect how people will read
and interpret. But so does the design and structure of the physical books
themselves. And the verbal hype - the words of the teacher, and whoever -
doesn't this also affect people? No cultural object stands alone - it is
mediated in every way.
In Carol's article, what I think she is most essentially driving at is that
students need to be communicated with - even if the topic is classical
literature - in terms of their own cultures. From the familiar, they can
build windows into the lesser known. Carol is explaining that these
windows can be built from any culture, not just American white middle class
culture. Any culture, any vernacular, any discourse style, can be a
touchstone to all the others. Cultures are not learned in terms of
themselves, but in terms of each other, and we learn about other cultures
by starting with our own. This essential concept seems to me to be at the
basis of Carol's reasoning, and is what I see as the essence of her
Cultural Modeling Framework.
The software she was reporting on, the Collaboratory Notebook (CBN),
provided one way of doing this kind of cultural modeling. She had positive
results, and she reported them. I liked her upbeat appraisal of the
experience.
In my opinion, every school should have a computer for every student. But
computers alone are just operating systems. Carol shows us a way computers
can be used to teach culture, and teach it in terms of any particular
culture, such as that of African-American youth in the Chicago area, where
Carol did the research her article was based on. Programming such software
is itself a cultural headache, and designing effective culturally-sensitive
course material on computer-based learning tools is no easy task, but the
essential solution to all these problems, in my thinking, seems to be
well-articulated in Carol's cultural-historical approach.
Best,
- Steve
At 04:33 PM 11/9/03 +0000, you wrote:
>Steve, I think cut-and-paste is a good example. We can use scissors and glue
>if we want to cut and paste text and pictures; but not if we want to "cut
>and paste", say, melodies, moving pictures or speech. That is, the tools
>constrain (in this example, we are limited to paper or whatever can be cut
>by scissors) and at the same time enable (scissors and glue allow us to cut
>and paste pieces of paper; indeed, the very idea of cutting and pasting
>"comes to mind", so to speak, once we have those tools at hand).
>
>There is an interesting point to be made regarding the cut-and-paste
>metaphor in computer-based scenarios. Everybody "cuts and pastes" *while
>writing* on a screen - we are not limited, then, to what is alredy written
>in pieces of paper (as is the case with scissors and glue). We could say
>that cutting-and-pasting are "incorporated" into the process of text
>production.
>
>Now if we move beyond word processing to the more general "logotechnical"
>(here I go again) character of computing, since every form of representation
>can be translated into binary code, there is the possibility of editing
>(that is, cutting, copying, and pasting) features such as digitized voice,
>melodies, moving pictures, etc. - and doing that while producing those
>forms.
>
>What we have then is a technology that enables us to edit everything we can
>conceive of as "editable". And what are its constraints? Maybe they have to
>do with what *cannot* be so edited and tends to be relegated to the shadows.
>For instance, can we really believe that computer-based tools for literature
>classes do not affect the way in which people will read and interpret books?
>
>I leave it at that - for now.
>
>Luiz Carlos Baptista
>lucabaptista@sapo.pt
>lucabaptista@hotmail.com
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Steve Gabosch" <bebop101@comcast.net>
>To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>Sent: domingo, 9 de Novembro de 2003 7:22
>Subject: Re: first brief remarks on Carol Lee's article
>
>
> > Very interesting point, Luiz. If we draw a parallel between programming
> > the kind of computer-based tools Carol is speaking of with cutting and
> > pasting text and pictures from magazines, then the challenge for the
> > teacher is not just the technical (and hardly culturally neutral) aspects
> > of the scissors and glue, but also the choice of magazines in the first
> > place - the range of possible screens. But I think your point goes even
> > deeper when you speak of the range of possible designs, and enabling and
> > constraining cognitive processes. What examples do you have in mind?
> >
> > - Steve
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