In my previous post on our class titled "Memory and the emergence of the modern out of the medieval mind" (taken from our online syllabus), I spoke out against losing perspective against a new set of communication tools, e.g., Web 2.0 and The Cloud in current discourse, and the danger of claiming that they can inherently help solve issues that continue to plague us. Clearly the readings for last week on the invention of printing and changes in social, cultural, and political forms were set up to mock that blog post!
Needless to say, reading Eisenstein's chapter "An Unacknowledged Revolution" helped me see the bigger picture in understanding the dissemination of the printing press and the rippling effects it had on trades, culture, and society as a whole. I related particularly strongly with her discussion of "new kind of shop structure":
The advent of printing led to the creation of a new kind of shop structure; to a regrouping which entailed closer contacts among diversely skilled workers and encouraged new forms of cross-cultural exchange." - Eisenstein, pg 23
As someone who has worked in the Web 2.0 area for almost four years, I've seen a parallel collision of forces take place between website developers (those who create and manage where the content is stored), subject matter experts (those who drive the content), organizational leadership (those who say what goes), clients, stakeholders, etc. Everyone is intrigued by the prospect of new products that can help carry out a mission, but folks are not sure how to best accomplish it. It's an exciting process but confusing and frustrating at the same time.
Eisenstein also touched on the fact that the printed book allowed new forms of interplay between text, tables, graphics, and drawings. I realized that I had been taking for granted a lot of the visual representations that we are currently afforded with the communication tools we have at our disposal.
To close: I'm not taking back my previous comments because I do believe we have to tread carefully and realize that most of the Web 2.0 strategies that are part of the discourse in many industries (in public health specifically for me) involve the same common sense, cultural competency, and collaboration concepts that have been around for decades. So the tools may provide a wealth of opportunities, but if we don't apply them properly they are just gadgets (see Eisenstein's discussion of the publishing of vernacular manuals that were useless to most practicioners to understand what I mean).
P.S. I didn't comment on the Cochran reading here but found several of his points equally interesting, including:
- His argument and struggle to organize printed knowledge (which I think has happened organically more or less, no?)
- The ability to institutionalize history which helped to create the sense of national identities
- The major difference between printed books and the domains of architecture, sculpture, painting in that the latter are not reproducible in mass and can only be experienced at one point in space and concretely.
I must admit I'm not entirely sure where you think the conflict is between the Eisentein reading and your previous post, in fact he seems to support your argument. With technological change comes societal and organizational changes as well--sometimes foreeable and sometimes unpredictable. Some applications are purposeful, some are frivolous. At least when I read the Eisenstein, I hear some of the same kinds of statements that you described in your post: a sort of meta-analysis to determine whether new technologies are helpful in all cases, in some--or in none.
ReplyDeleteYour post reminds me a lot of the backlash that I feel towards Mark Prensky's Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants theories. Too many educators that I know use the idea that today's learners are inherently technological (users, savvy, interested in, etc.) to justify any application of technology in the classroom, no matter how banal or appropriate. Instead of thinking of the "glorious ways" technology can revolutionize learning for our students--why not focus on one or two ways that technology can be leveraged to improve something that already exists?