Mini Visual Essay

Technological Power Moves

I wanted to touch on the two reactions that Selber calls “power moves” that users have when dealing with technology.  The two stages that he suggests in terms of technology are adjustment and reconstitution, the first I think is the most common in terms of how students actually react to the technology most often.  It almost seems to me to be a misunderstanding, or misperception on the part of students regarding what they see as affecting change.  What I mean by this is that by simply making surface level, or visible and easily recognized adjustments to technology they are essentially acting out a temporary solution to a larger issue.  If the technology does not allow for certain acts or function to a user’s needs then there are definitely larger issues of control, power, and access that should be addressed to gain any long term solution.

Why is knowing just enough ok?

Is this really necessary?

Think about the reading levels of most local newspapers (not the big major ones) and then think about how that is supposed to represent the most literate nation in the world. There seems to be a similar phenomenon with regards to the technology of the print newspaper and the technology of the internet and computer technology in general. Is being able to read an average newspaper an adequate measure of literacy? And if so, what are the consequences of accepting such low standard in our society? If we adopt a similar standard in terms of our newer digital technologies (which are increasingly intertwined with traditional notions of literacy), then we run the risk of not being able to obtain and master a functioning and critical literacy. Our interaction with the digital technologies in our day to day lives is becoming increasingly formulaic and idiot proofed (online templates, obvious code with cut and paste directions, software that accomplishes the simplest of connectivity tasks, etc.). It seems the more we use technology and the more it does for us, the less we actually understand about how that technology functions at a basic level.

Ideology

Selfe proposes 3 related belief systems for our continued need to advance our various technologies (probably most obvious being digital ones), however, I wonder which is the most realistic reason in terms of our society and culture.

#1. Science+Technology=Progress

Now this sounds fairly straight forward, but is this just because we are good people and wish to advance the human condition? Maybe, but this seems to neglect the question of access.

#2. Technolgy+Democracy+Capitalism=Progress

This sounds more like it. Government and money seem to be key here. We don’t necessarily want to advance the human condition, but rather the humans who benefit from a capitalist democracy. I see.

#3. Technology+Education=Progress

Here’s the access, but isn’t this what we want to believe? That through technological education can come some substantial progress for the human condition. This is about the broader citizenry only because it sounds good and ignores some of the less palatable factors of education in America (we have the illusion of access, but not equal access).

Which do you think is the most probable for our continued progress? Which equation do we actually fall under?

The Machine is Us/ing Us

Here is a video that I really, really like. I watch it every now and then, but haven’t posted it to my blog. I think it is an appropriate follow up to my previous post regarding Cynthia Selfe’s contention that technological literacy (I’m still a fan of techno-literacy) is “complex set of socially and culturally situated values, practices, and skills involved in operating linguistically within the context of electronic environments, including reading, writing, and communicating.” The video was created by Professor Michael Wesch at Kansas State University. It is interesting that he is a Cultural Anthropologist concerned with Digital Ethnography; to me this just seems to demonstrate further how important digital technologies have become in defining all areas of (post)human existence

Techno-Literacy

The distinction between being computer literate and possessing technological literacy that Selfe proposes is interesting because of the correlation between the complexity of our digital technology and the complexity of the relationship between ourselves and said digital technology. What I mean is that as technology advances the more complex our interaction with it becomes. Selfe claims that computer literacy consists of basic “functional understanding of what computers are and how they are used” and a “basic familiarity with the mechanical skills of keyboarding, storing information, and retrieving it” (11). With technological literacy (techno-literacy sounds better to me, but I didn’t write the book)comes a “complex set of socially and culturally situated values, practices, and skills involved in operating linguistically within the context of electronic environments, including reading, writing, and communicating” (11). I find this fascinating due to the push in the fields of biological and computer science for an even more intimate connection to our technology with advances in AI and cyborg technology. If our interaction with technology now is a social and cultural endeavor that affects the way we act, how long before that interaction becomes more of a physical and mental connection that affects who we are in a more tangible way?

After the Revolution

Faigley asks an important question related to my interests in
computers, technology, and composition studies: “Can we use technology
to lessen rather than widen social divisions?” What is interesting
about this question is that in the initial technological boom
technology seemed to be a much more divisive tool. The emphasis on
income vs. access is still relevant even today. High speed internet
access, online library/journal subscriptions, access to various media
depending on processing power and current software all affect what is
available to who. There has been, however, a push to provide free
technology on the world wide web with the development of web 2.0 and
an increasing library of free open source software (I’m composing this
post in OpenOffice.org’s writing program, one program of many of an
entirely free software suite that rivals Microsoft Office). So in a
sense the answer to Faigley’s 1997 question seems to be yes, yes we
can use technology to lessen the social divide and begin to allow
everyone to exist on an even, or more even playing field.