This story was on NPR’s “All Things Considered” last night, “Reading Study Shows Remarkable Decline in U.S.” The gist of it is that all kinds of people (kids, adults, etc.) aren’t reading as much as they used to read and the dang internets and other technologies are to blame.
I think the story was compelling and worthy listening and all that. Still, stories like this remind me of the piece that Tom Standage wrote for WIRED a couple of years ago, which, among other things, critiqued the dance “the waltz” as being the fall of civilization:
“The indecent foreign dance called the Waltz was introduced … at the English Court on Friday last … It is quite sufficient to cast one’s eyes on the voluptuous inter�twining of the limbs, and close com�pressure of the bodies … to see that it is far indeed removed from the modest reserve which has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females. So long as this obscene display was con�fined to prostitutes and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is … forced on the respectable classes of society by the evil example of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.”
I mean, I am just old enough to lament the decline of reading of print/”words in the row” books, and I am just enough of a parent to want my 10 year old son to read some “good books” once in a while. But goodness, it is so so easy and so pleasurable to wallow in the failings of the young. Too easy and pleasurable, which gives me pause.
I’m listening to NPR right now and listening to Jeff Bezos talking about the new Kindle, the latest in electronic reading devices. I dunno. Several years ago, I thought this sort of device would replace textbooks. Now, I’m not sure who will want one of these things.
Without actually seeing one, the problems I see with this include:
At $400, way too expensive.
No color.
No browser (at least I think that’s the case).
Suppose I want to buy a book that is not in the kindle store; how would that work?
I’m going to guess that most of the books I would read (particularly academic ones) aren’t going to be in this format anytime soon. I’m also going to guess the same is true for most of the blogs that I read, too.
But hey, what do I know? There might be one under every Christmas tree this year. See their video demo if you’re curious; and this might be something that will fit into ENGL 516….
Nick Carbone passed this article along to the WPA-L mailing list and I’ve been meaning to post a link to it here and possibly for English 516: “Podcasting on a Shoestring: Community college turns to open source and used computers for captured lectures” is a story about how some folks at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College put together some hardware for podcasting for virtually nothing. Besides being a great story about open source software and the value of “being scrappy” (I think the article uses the term “feisty”), I think it is in the vein of articles/materials I want to introduce to suggest that the “technology gap” is more or less meaningless, at least in a general sense.
Yes, I realize not all is perfect with the world. Someone posted the other day on WPA-L (not in response to this thread, I don’t think) about how she still can only get dial-up access to the ‘net in her rural and Appalachian locale, and how the broadband service providers are unlikely to make it out to her area anytime soon. These problems have not gone away. However, as the podcasting story suggests, less than ideal access is not a reason to not try, and the exception to the rule in this country is certainly not a reason to not do technology stuff in writing classrooms at all. If that makes sense.
I stumbled across the popular blog “Dooce” this morning, both as an activity in finding blogs to do research about and as an activity in avoiding other activity (e.g., “work”). I will have to return to the Dooce sooner than later because of the fine finds there. Here are three for now:
“I Has Sweet Potato.” As the owner/caretaker/master of a dog that has been known for her “dietary indiscretions,” I found this hilarious.
“New and Improved Stereotypes,” complete with illustrations. My two favorite this morning were ” Germans can get pregnant from the sound of David Hasslehoff’s voice” and ” Aborigines Believe Photographs Steal Your Wallet.”
This isn’t really my “cup of tea,” as the saying goes, but I stumbled across it on YouTube and I learned that it was filmed in Ames, Iowa. So what the heck.
Here’s a 6:18 video of my trip to New York City and the National Council for Teachers of English conference:
This little video is an unusual project for me because it’s very much a mixture of my “official” and my “unofficial” lives. Of course, conferences tend to be spaces where there is inevitably a blending of serious/scholarly things (giving papers, attending sessions, etc.) and not-so-serious/friendly things (cocktails with colleagues in the field, dinners, travel, touring, etc.). Anyway, since our session was about film/video making and writing, I thought I’d give it a shot.
I had a very mixed experience at the conference, frankly. On the one hand, I thought our panel was fantastic– great people, everyone was super-duper prepared, everyone had really interesting projects, everyone was really really smart and cool and all the rest, etc., etc. As I said in my NCTE prelude post, I went into this panel kind of as an accident and as a result of the CSW movie I made. I mean, I didn’t have that much specific interest in making movies, certainly not as a writing teacher. But I came out of this session really jazzed about the possibilities I saw from my fellow presenters, about diving into FinalCut Pro (or Express) and trying my hand at Garage Band, etc.
And I also had excellent “not-so-serious/friendly” activities at the conference. I got to hang out with my former colleague and still fantastic friend Annette S. a bit, I met a new bunch of people, I had a great dinner and great conversation with folks from the computer and writing world, Doug Eyman, Mike Palmquist, and Nick Carbone. Not to mention tourism in New York.
But on the whole, I’ve got to say that NCTE is not really my conference.
First off, we only had about 10 or so people in the audience. Now, normally, that wouldn’t be that big of a deal to me– I mean, let’s face it, that’s kind of par for the course at most conference presentations. But we were a “Featured Presentation,” we had an ideal time slot, and we had a hot topic– or so we thought. The only guess I have as to why the crowd was so small was because NCTE really is mostly about K-12, and those folks just aren’t interested in things like making movies in writing classes.
Second, the facility where this was being held was a problem. The amenities were, um, incomplete. We did a lot of planning via email before this session, and one of the concerns many in the group had was what sort of sound system we would have– or not have. Pete Vandenberg saved us on that score by bringing along a great system. We had assumed all along that we were covered with a projector to show the movies, but it turned out the projector the NCTE folks were prepared to provide was of the overhead variety. Fortunately, we did not have perform our movies; I brought a projector along from school as a plan B. I could go on, though I think this is whiny enough. All I’m saying is that if conferences like the NCTE (or the CCCCs, for that matter) actually want to give opportunities to presenters to talk about technology, they need to provide some basic technology.
But enough complaining. I had fun, I made it home, I’m ready for this coming week. Sort of.
I’m doing a little web surfing this morning before getting ready for the NCTE– perhaps the last time I’ll be online on this trip since I don’t expect to be back here until later tonight, and since I’d have to pay another $10 for internet access for that time, I think I’ll probably wait to post any thoughts about the conference until Saturday night from home.
In any event, while surfing, I came across this article from the Chicago Tribune, “At the heart of the writers strike, a tangled Web.” It’s interesting stuff to me as a writer and a “technology guy,” and I can imagine that this strike will be something worthy of study in the future. Here’s a quote:
As the screenwriter Phil Alden Robinson (“Field of Dreams”) says in an explanatory video at United Hollywood (unitedhollywood.blogspot.com), a quasi-official strike blog, “This is our generation’s moment.”
The writers union gave in to producers and took a pay cut when royalty rates for home-video sales were being negotiated in the 1980s, he says, and it was a huge mistake to compromise merely because it was an unproven business. Now, the issue is another fledgling business, the Internet, threatening to again change the means by which people get their entertainment.
“I don’t want, 30 years from now, writers looking back at us, saying, ‘What were these clowns thinking about? How could they not know that the digital revolution was everything?’ ” Robinson says.
But now I gotta get ready for the teacher-type gig.
… half of the English classes in Southeast Michigan (K thru college) would have to be canceled. I sat next to two women who I think are elementary education folks and who were drunkenly giddy through much of the trip. I remained quiet, semi-surly, and finished a book.
Well, not quite. But I suspect on average around here, yeah, it is.
NaBloPoMo, aka National Blog Posting Month, more or less asks people to post a blog entry a day through November. It’s an obvious spin-off of National Novel Writing Month and probably an easier accomplishment for most. But I think they ought to pick a different month, personally….
I was in the office doing various quasi-administrator kinds of things all day on Monday, and when I left, I had the satisfying feeling of leaving a note that said I will not be returning until November 26. This warning/promise was somewhat short-lived since I’ve been to my office twice since putting up that sign, but that was/is the plan. I’d like to say I am doing this so I can hole-up and work on the BAWS project, but the main reason is travel of both the conference and family variety.
Tomorrow, I’m off to New York City (I hope the salsa is as good as they suggest in those Pace commercials…) for NCTE, where I am part of a double session/featured session called “Writing, Reading, Composing: The Movie(s).” Here’s a link to my web site for the project, though there isn’t much there other than links to the movies I’ll be chatting about.
It’s been an unusual deal for me. I made the “Celebration of Student Writing” last fall basically because I was the interim writing program administrator and because I could– that is, we had this cool equipment and a desire to use it. I posted a link on the WPA-L mailing list, my EMU friend and colleague Linda Adler-Kassner pulled together a presentation, and I was in. I was debating about going because NCTE isn’t usually my conference and because New York City is way too freakin’ expensive and I knew my wife wasn’t going to be able to go with me. But somewhere along in the process, we became a “featured session” that is going to run all afternoon on Friday.
We’ll see how it turns out. Given the topic and the time, I think we’ll have a big crowd. We have had some interesting discussions about some of the technicalities and, as a “plan b,” one person presenting is bringing a sound system and I’m bringing a mini projector from school. I’m also planning on making a sort of “movie of the movie session” with my Flip video camera, along with a little “traveling with Steve” video log. Stay tuned….
Oh, and next week I’m not going to school because it’s Thanksgiving. Duh.
