“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine” – REM, 2006

"[C]ivilization has been dominated at different stages by various media of communication such as clay, papyrus, parchment, and paper produced first from rags and then from wood. Each medium has its significance for the type of monopoly of knowledge which will be built and which will destroy the conditions suited to creative thought and be displaced by a new medium with its peculiar type of monopoly of knowledge."  (Innis, Harold. (1949). The Press: A Neglected Factor in the Economic History of the Twentieth Century. London: Oxford University Press, p. 5).

Do you agree with this statement? Provide examples from the history and current state of

publishing to make your argument.

            While the addition of new mediums of communication does reduce the monopoly the proceeding technology had, it does not destroy the conditions suited to creative thought. Each new communication piece is enabling – it allows more of the masses to access information and to advance knowledge. The advancement of knowledge, both humane and scientific, depends upon the human ability to think about something unexpected – a “new idea” (Crowley & Heyer, p. 57) be it from stoytelling to the telegragh, from the fax to Web 2.0.

The essential here is not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Rather media users must be taught to be discerning. Information is one thing, the knowledge and wisdom that comes from it is another. As is the respect needed toward works created. The challenge resides in the education of the masses to effectively respect, interpret, and work with that which the latest medium produces. 

Below is the video that goes with the blog. Please open your itunes and select your favorite NMN song (or two - 4m50sec) while doing so to add "your own touch of creativity to the process".

Best, 

LJ
References

Ayers, P., C. Matthews, and Yates, B.. (2008). How Wikipedia Works: And How You Can Be a Part of It. San Francisco: No Starch Press.

Brun, Axel (2008). Blogs, Wikipedia, Second life, and Beyond : from production to produsage. Peter Lang Publishing Inc., New York.

Carey, J.W. (1969). ‘Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan’, in Phelan, J, Communications Control: Readings in the Motives and Structures of Censorship, Sheed and Ward, New York, pp. 43 – 77. Retrieved from http://gcalacouris.wordpress.com/2010/06/07/arts2090-research-essay-the-social-factor-in-the-creation-destruction-of-monopolies-of-knowledge/

Coppens, P. (n.d). Corpus Hermeticum. Retrieved from http://www.philipcoppens.com/artmemory.html

Cormode, G., & Krishnamurthy, B. (2008). Key differences between Web 1.0 and Web
2.0. First Monday, 13(6), 1.

Crowley, D. J.& Heyer, P. (2006). Communication in history: technology, culture, society. llyn & Bacon/Pearson, Canada

Dittmar, J. E. (2011). Information Technology and Economic Change: The Impact of the Printing Press. Quarterly Journal Of Economics, 126(3), 1133-1172.

Eisenstein, E. L. (1979). The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and cultural transformations in early modern Europe. In , Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications & cultural transformations in early modern Europe.

Heyer, P. 2003, Harold Innis, Rowman & Littlefield, Maryland. http://seyakalu.wordpress.com/tag/arts2090/ 

MacCulloch, D., Laven, M., & Duffy, E. (2006). Recent Trends in the Study of Christianity in Sixteenth-Century Europe. Renaissance Quarterly, 59(3), 697-731.

Impact of publishing on education

Expanding my transliteracy skills has been a bonus in this class, albeit a frustrating one at times. But as a teacher, it is imperative that I do this - as my assignment clearly concludes in its review of how publishing pre 1900 and post 1960 impacts education. I decided to tackle the podcast and prepared the script based on my research.

It might be the time of academic year, but I began the week with a bad case of laryngitis. My best time in the week to give to this course has been the later part of the week and the weekend - but I was not  speaking above a whisper and had to wait out this week to get my voice to a point where I could talk for five minutes without coughing.

I managed to wrestle Garage Band on my Mac to create one. Emailed it to myself at work and played it successfully there.  But I could not determine how to embed it in the blog, despite a call-out to others who are much more adept at the technical than I.   The final recommendation was to put the podcast into i-movie and create a video. Which is what I did.  But when I got it into i-movie, of course I had to redo the audio.

So, here is my video that reviews how the printing press and the Internet have impacted education; even though I knew Gutenberg's invention was important, it's impact on the classroom was interesting.  Teachers today will tell you how much the Internet is a distraction in class, but I had never considered that text books might have been viewed in a similar light by earlier teachers who had been accustomed to being the only source of knowledge in the classroom.  But I do believe the printing press had a more significant impact on society than the Internet,  because of how it opened the doors to education for everyone.  The Internet has just expanded that.

 The research on retention of material read on the screen versus paper intrigues me and while it is entirely possible that we will adapt and become better at the screen than paper, the value of understanding transliteracy as Bobbi encouraged us to this past week was clear to me in the end.  Teachers... and students, need to be transliterate in both the online and offline worlds.








References

Arthur, Peter (2000). The impact of the printing press. Retrieved March 28, 2012. http://educ.ubc.ca/courses/etec540/Sept04/arthurp/researchtopic/index.htm

Bates, T. (2000).  Managing technological change: Strategies for college and university leaders (1^st ed ed.).  San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Baum, S., Payea, K. (2005). Education pays, The benefits of higher education for individuals and society, Retrieved March 30, 2012. www.collegeboard.com

Dede, C. (May/June 2008). New horizons: A seismic shift in epistemology. Educause Review.

Einstein, E. (1980). The printing press as agent of change. Cambridge  University Press

Nokes, R.S. (2008). Before the printing press. Retrieved March 28, 2012.

http://unlocked-wordhoard.blogspot.ca/2008/03/before-printing-press.html

Kreis, S. (2000). The printing press. The History Guide, Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History.  Retrieved March 28, 2012. http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/press.html

Li, A. (2012). Study finds textbooks outperform e-books, Waterloo Region Record, March 29, 2012. Arts & Life, B7.