Wikipedia is Good

Wikipedia: Friend, Not Foe

Darren Crovitz and W. Scott Smoot

The authors of this paper present solid arguments towards acceptance of texts like Wikipedia as a new kind of transitional knowledge that presents strengths that differ from traditional fixed texts and challenges that require a paradigm shift if teachers are to encourage their students to look to the digital environment for information.

The idea that knowledge is not fixed is not new, but the idea that an encyclopedia can reflect this concept and still provide accurate, neutral information is still novel. One of the drawbacks of traditional encyclopedias is that they are bound by a finite number of pages and therefore need to create a hierarchy that, while not necessarily arbitrary, is nevertheless imposed on the information it contains. For example, one author might receive no entry, another a short entry and a last one a long entry, based on no more than the fashions of the time in which consideration is given to their works. Wikipedia democratizes such choices and each entry contains information that is based upon its own merits, or the time that has thus far been given to developing it. This reality was demonstrated by no more than a cursory exploratory comparison of information presented by a traditional encyclopedia and the Wikipedia entry on a fairly obscure post-revolutionary silversmith: the Wikipedia entry was more complete, but the definitive nature of the text was no less authoritative than that of the traditional encyclopedia that presented less information due to space constraints.

The idea that such information contained in an encyclopedia is reached through consensus and negotiation, also does not differ essentially from the process by which all knowledge is processed, confirmed, re-evaluated, presented or published, and in some respects Wikipedia differs from traditional encyclopedias only in the public nature of this processing. Readers did not previously see the process of developing encyclopedia entries, and it can be an unnerving idea to consider that all texts need to be given due process in order to verify the accuracy and neutrality of the information presented. In some respects, the idea that encyclopedias were formerly written by unbiased experts is ludicrous: by definition, an expert must be biased in some manner.

So, game on. The arguments for utilizing Wikipedia as a source of information, foundational for research are sound. The wiki can only grow and improve over time, reflecting, undoubtedly, the acquisition of new information, the ascent of new prejudices, and the interests of those who come after us.

Reading response 3

Scrutinizing the Cybersell: Teen-Targeted Web Sites as Texts

Darren Crovitz

I have gained a new appreciation for the arguments presented by Crovitz in this article, having given consideration to the elements that were chosen to be included in the Greenpeace video advertisement that I am submitting for the Media and Visual Lit 1 assignment.

The choices that Greenpeace made both visually and textually dictate not only the message they are trying to convey but also determine the manner in which the message is consumed, the audiences to whom the ad is targeted, the responses that are being encouraged, and the way in which the brand is being articulated and reinforced. It appears to be a simple video but when considered carefully as a text as Crovitz suggests, it is extraordinarily carefully thought out and complex, with multi-layered appeal limited only by the potential responsiveness of the different audiences that view the ad.

I agree with Crovitz that such digital media merit analysis and can provide a useful context to discuss how audiences can be manipulated by organizations that are highly selective in the portrayal of their message through multimodal texts. Teens have long been identified as a prime audience for marketers of products, some of which originated as responses to the market potential expressed by the demographic, many of which not. There is no intrinsic youth appeal to Slim Jim as a product, nor to Doritos. In some respect, with the Doritos example, in particular, the focused website appeal toward the teen audience is possibly less a response to the audience per se, than a cynical recognition that product placement in school vending machines has provided a unique opportunity to appeal to a particular and large audience faced with extremely limited choice available to them as consumers, and who are still in the process of identifying  or developing brand loyalty.

While the internet has potentially leveled the playing field when organizations come to appeal to audiences, it should be noted that not all brands are equal. It is much more likely that teens will choose to visit brands online that intrinsically appeal to their preformed self image: clothing and music in particular, than to other products or brands that are merely trying to co-opt extrinsic appeal as their own. A website may make Doritos seem cool, but they are not cool, and I think that most teens would not go out of their way to express their identity through the consumption of them, and most consumers are unlikely to seek out brands like these online unless the brand is also offering something extrinsic to the product, like a sweepstakes offer. There are, to be honest, a lot more interesting and less cynical things to view online, and teens know it.

As such, I think that the value of examining websites as texts is valuable and I acknowledge that such examination does give them the opportunity to discover how visual language reinforces concepts, and texts, but I would argue that the efficacy of such messages should not be overrated. A viral video for Doritos, for example, might draw a considerable audience to the online presence of the brand but it is more likely to do so for reasons that are not intrinsic to the brand, much like the Old Spice “The man your man could smell like” ads have generated “face time” with the product, not because the product is seen to belong to a particular audience but because the text is clever, funny and novel, while the product is none of these.

Of course, the producers of all consumable brands face difficult choices in how to most effectively reach and increase their market share. I think that the multiplicity of methods utilized to raise brand awareness are possibly the most effective area of study because of the opportunity it would present to students to compare and contrast messages broadcast over a variety of media. Students are most likely, after all, to encounter Doritos marketing in the packaging of the product in the vending machine or though chance encounters on television. Perhaps the efficacy of intensive brand appeals in digital media might one day be established by such a large and comprehensive study.

Reading response 2b

Challenges for Writing Teachers: Evolving Technologies and Standardized Assessment

Herrington & Moran

Following on from Richardson’s fourth chapter on wikis, its kind of interesting that my response to this article should directly address comments made in my previous posting.

In my last posting I questioned the future of printed books because they didn’t have embedded hyperlinks: Herrington and Moran launch right into how this kind of deficit is killing print media with the New York Times itself asking how long it will continue to exist.

Since this article was published the words blogging and texting no longer appear with “squiggly red lines” underneath them, at least not in my word processor, and when I type something like http://www.google.com my software automatically converts that particular text into a hyperlink, which shows that progress is being made. My words are almost ready to fly into the internether, the nether regions of cyberspace, as I type them. With a few clicks this text could be posted online on my blog or in my wiki somewhere. So technology is starting to become seamless with word processing. Things like Google docs (no red lines) could instantly allow me to share and build intertexts and as such technology becomes more prevalent then such connectivity might become the default mode of composition.

But as this article describes, the constraints of classroom assessment are barrier to true integration of media across the digital spectrum. Technology is still not utilized as a tool of writers and writing classrooms because of the backward, formulaic assessment pedagogy. (I was edified to look back over one of my top-scoring exam essays from 1989 and see that my A came from a six, not five, paragraph essay: phew! I dodged a bullet there!)

Calls for technology to be so utilized, as the tool for writers and in writing instruction, speaks directly to blogs and wikis and other collaborative digital writing processes, a tool for writing which already, because of word processing, can “seem always unfinished, always awaiting closure.” The temptation to fiddle or constantly mess with and edit texts is perhaps inevitable, particularly once writing moves onto shared platforms, and the potential loss of a finite art is a concern. Perhaps the place of print media will never completely disappear, especially in this age when a company like Amazon can reach out over WiFi and edit texts en masse after they have already been purchased on the Kindle. The next step is for an author to not only publish electronically but to compose over WiFi, updating installments, responding to the audience as well as his own whim, in a manner not so far removed from Dickens’ serialized installments of his novels, composed from week to week. An interesting idea.

Obviously, classroom and writing assessment has to bend. How it will, whether it will are questions still to be resolved, and it is with these questions hanging in the air, waiting to be downloaded and commented on and blogged and shared and brought to consensus, that I leave this reading. Perhaps the writing teacher is also a potential source of social change too.

Reading response 2b

Reading response 2

Richardson: Ch. 4  Wikis: Easy Collaboration for All

Since I had recently put up two wikis for our class assignments [LINK] [LINK], I found reading this chapter quite difficult. I kept having to put the book down and edit the wiki, adding stuff to help my group get started, every time Richardson made a point. And then I started getting frustrated that his book was in print form—I couldn’t just hit a hyperlink to the wikis he was describing and travel, no, roam is the better word, at will, like wiki-surfing or something. I learned two things from this reading experience:

First, I got my first intimation that the folks who are foretelling the end of books as a printed medium might be right, an idea I have resisted quite ardently; second, I began to realize that the lack of focus I brought to my reading was due, not to the nature of the reading, the subject, or whatever, but because I already understood what Richardson was saying and was ready to begin experimenting straight away. SO, the million dollar question is that if it was this easy for me to get caught up in the wiki world (beyond Wikipedia) how fast are my students going to be as adopters? I thinking they’ll be faster than me, once they understand what it is about.

I agree with Richardson that Wikipedia id fast becoming the most reliable online source for neutral information, at least in a one-stop-shop. I go there first myself and then use what I learn to proceed further into a subject. I have experienced first hand the dangers of vandalism: once, clicking in the Wikipedia search result for “moon” I came across a most unfortunate photograph that had been put in place of that of an image the celestial body. So I understand that the open source nature of wikis does require a reasonable sense of caution.

But as a collaborative learning tool, for students to “evolve” content and then to possibly publish to other wikis, the idea of using wikis in the classroom is, like blogs, compelling. So compelling that I, myself, became a distracted reader and had to keep updating our nascent class assignment wiki. I guess the only real danger presented by this experience is that students might be too easily distracted from creating meaningful content in the first instance, in their own rush to collaborate online. Digesting information, not publication online, is still their primary goal. Now, if only publishers could figure out how to embed hyperlinks on the printed page, then books might have a more certain future.

Reading response 1

Okay. Now to the important stuff. Reading logs for my MAT in Secondary English. This thread is for my class:

Digital Media and Technology in English/ Language Arts

First up: my response to the first three chapters of Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. 

I am new to digital technology in education. It seems like scary challenging stuff until I start to think about practical applications. I currently teach ESOL ninth grade literature and because a lot of my students are relative newcomers, I already rely on technology to help me give them opportunities for independent learning in the classroom, so I can focus on areas and students of greatest need, as needed, or create opportunities for them to develop independence from me. Always a good thing, when I step out of the play and the students have to tools and the means to get on with learning and learning how to learn in English!

I hadn't thought about digital technology as a tool that I could easily employ to motivate my students and create opportunities for them to learn to write in their new language. Because they are limited English proficient, I thought that they might balk at the idea of sharing their "mistakes." But I liked what Richardson had to say about the process of blogging as a means to create a dialogue between my students and various interested and encouraging audiences. The idea that my role is to help prepare my students "for life online" is very compelling; in itself it is reason enough to engage students in this kind of learning experience.

I never thought of the web as a place that could be used to actively engage ESOL students in learning, to create content and language that was completely meaningful to them as opposed to their passively receiving information they didn't understand well. Perhaps weblogs are the most appropriate platform for students to respond to the world they find online. It's a new idea for me and an exciting one. And Richardson does make it sound so very easy!

I am not a digital native. Nor am I a Luddite. But prior to this posting I have had experience with following only two blogs; one the ESOL blog for my school district, and the other a cancer blog for a friend I made in Japan. The latter just ended one day.... I felt that blogging was not something frivolous and never was tempted to start myself. But teaching is all about assuming roles, right, and this is a new one for me to consider: the digital guide for publishing writing and engaging with an audience.

I think Richardson makes an important distinction between journaling and blogging. Being able to distinguish the two will help me keep the focus on where it should be: interacting with content, ideas and meaning for a serious purpose: learning English and learning to respond to literature in a new language. Richardson also made some good contrasts between writing and blogging which are nice for me: I'm also a writer as well as a teacher and sometimes I bring the wrong kind of expectations to school. Writing is about me and my audience. Teaching is about my students and their audiences. Not. About. Me.

Richardson makes some links between blogging and standards that are so useful that it is almost like having my homework done for me. And as I was getting set to figure out how to post my first reading responses, I read chapter three of his book which is why I'm here blogging on Google. I decided I didn't want to deal with potential advertising if I blogged for free on Wordpress, or at least, not yet anyway.

I also had to read an article by Nancy Allen, called Seeing Rhetoric. I read it. I understood it. Gosh! What else can I say. A lot of my writing experience has involved writing and producing things like capital campaign brochures and targeted "marketing" to potential or prospective donors and stakeholders and use of visual rhetoric was integral to how my clients appealed successfully for gifts. Layout, heading choice, pull quote position, imagery, color, fonts and integrated content were all things that had to be considered. I'm not saying that Allen's article was something I didn't need to read: I'm just glad that for my next class I have something cool to share when we discuss our reading responses. I think it would be valuable to share a couple of really cool pieces.... We'll see.