My Transliteracy with winter

My “transliteracy” with winter

Let me share one of my Transliteracy adventures. When I came to Canada, I learned all kinds of winter vocabulary and life skills from people around me. The words we use for different forms of water (snow, freezing rain, hoarfrost, hails etc.) were a real transliteracy experience.

  Hoarfrost was totally a new terminology

The frozen rivers and lakes, frozen waterfalls, all gave a profound transliteracy experience.

 I was fascinated by ice fishing and the ability to drive on frozen waters. So one day as I realised it was safe to drive on the nearby lake, I went out for my adventure all by myself. I drove straight onto the frozen lake following the tracks.

What I didn’t know was that, it’s good to have a four wheel drive to do such adventures. I got struck in the middle of the lake.

 (Back home I told my family - Jesus walked on water, I drove.)

Then I spotted some people ‘icefishing’. They lend me their hands to get out.

My first transliteracy adventure with winter gave me the courage to do many other things in the future including a winter drive to Yellowknife.

Transliteracy - crossing borders?

Thank you for sharing these insightful ideas with us. From the day I joined for this course, the word transliteracy caught my attention. It was interesting to read about transliteracy and its meaning in various milieus. What caught my attention was the statement by Bernard Stiegler that past technologies have always involved a change in our phenomenological experience of the world (as cited in Transliteracy crossing divides). My personal experience as a foreign student, in encountering people, food habits, weather, entertainment etc in a way was an authentic introduction to transliteracy in various areas of “cultural and technological, economic, social or organic, cultural, and global” as pointed out by Jenkins.

The blueberry smoothie recipe sharing experience brings about the gist of transliteracy in an amusing way. Some of the video suggestions given are more on the note of participatory culture. I felt that the example of Asheninka tribe and their learning process was more on the note of hands on learning than transliteracy experience. There is obviously the process of sharing and learning from various environments. Can it be called transliteracy?

I found this interesting comparison of learning process in children at the TED website. Is this just literacy or transliteracy?

Guest Lecture: Professor Sue Thomas

Transliteracy: what is it and how can we measure it?

Hello everyone, it’s a pleasure to work with you this week. I’m writing from the heart of England, where I live in a small cottage about 15 miles from the city of Leicester. Spring is about to start here, so the first flowers are starting to appear and the days are getting longer. It’s great that the internet allows us to communicate so easily across the world and I’m very much looking forward to talking about transliteracy with you this week!

Transliteracy is the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. To put it another way, being transliterate involves being open to difference and prioritising what unites us rather than what divides us.

From your point of view, transliteracy is especially important in terms of your learning experiences. A recent UK article said this about my research at De Montfort University:

The media's teenage stereotype is that of a girl watching Hollyoaks on television while simultaneously discussing its plot lines on the social networking site Facebook, listening to music on MySpace and texting her friend to discuss home study. Sue Thomas is exploring the impact that transliteracy is having on higher education and pedagogy. In transliterate terms, many academics are in essence illiterate, which matters if their teaching relationship with hyper-transliterate students is breaking down because of an inability to communicate fully with each other. If academics cannot show themselves to be transliterate, will they lose the respect of their students?

It continues:

Meanwhile, a committee looking at the impact of the "Google generation" on HE (Higher Education) has found that 95% of students are members of an online social network and that more than 50% have a blog or website. These transliterate students arrive at university with a set of assumptions about how they will use these skills in their education, and have difficulty if such assumptions are questioned.

Should tutors be expecting, even demanding, that students communicate with each other electronically? Communication tools such as Second Life, the web-based virtual world, involve creating alternative identities. Should students be expected or required to generate these for themselves? Professor Thomas believes that as transliteracy travels up the HE agenda, academics will be obliged to add new forms of communication to their portfolio of teaching methods. There is a debate to be had with applicants. The evidence is that students still want face-to-face contact, and value that. Some do not see new technology as the core of learning, even though they may spend two or three hours a day on the web. What do they expect? What do they want? What are they prepared for? A transliterate study style incorporates a range of learning modes, combining traditional face-to-face lectures, seminars and tutorials with online classes via the web and mobile media. [ from ‘Getting In Getting On! A Guide to getting into Higher Education’ by Rob Brown & Mike Chant 2010)

Do you agree with their conclusion that young people of today are transliterate? Do you consider yourself to be transliterate? This week I’d like to look at various different approaches to transliteracy and invite you think about how you might measure transliteracy in yourself and others.

I have some reading for you, some videos, and a task. I advise you do them in the following order but feel free to pick and mix if that suits you better.

Reading and Watching

1.     Watch my Transliteracy lecture  http://vimeo.com/2831405

2.     Dip into the Transliteracy Research Group blog http://www.transliteracy.com

3.     Librarians are very excited about transliteracy. Find out why from Bobbi Newman’s slideshow Libraries and Transliteracy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk4Cw8vrDuM

4.     Bobbi’s work inspired librarian Brian Hulsey to make an amusing video about making a blueberry smoothie the transliterate way http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h06FZryyQM4

5.     Transliteracy also inspired one of my former students, Mary King, an English journalist living in Japan, to make this very meditative film: Transliteracy - The Spirit of Kanji  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7srRPi5R2Gw

6.     This journal article sums up much of what I say in the video lecture: Transliteracy: Crossing Divides by Sue Thomas, Chris Joseph, Jess Laccetti, Bruce Mason, Simon Mills, Simon Perril, and Kate Pullinger, First Monday, Volume 12 Number 12 - 3 December 2007 http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2060/1908

7.     And you should check out the #transliteracy tag on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/saved-search/transliteracy

Task

Imagine that you have been asked to measure the transliteracy levels of students and teachers at your school. How would you do this? Post your suggestions and we’ll discuss them. I look forward to seeing your ideas.

Week 9: Transliteracy

“The ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks.”

The word “transliteracy” is derived from the verb “to transliterate,” meaning to write or print a letter or word using the closest corresponding letters of a different alphabet or language. 

The idea of transliteracy is really about promoting a unifying ecology. As Thomas explains, 

“The concept of transliteracy calls for a change of perspective away from the battles over print versus digital, and a move instead towards a unifying ecology not just of media, but of all literacies relevant to reading, writing, interaction and culture, both past and present.

 It is an opportunity to cross some hitherto quite difficult divides.” 

Transliteracy asks key questions about communication:

1. How were people remembering and communicating for the thousands of years before writing?
2. Where are the similarities with the way we communicate today?
3. Has our addiction to print made us forget skills we had before?
4. Can digital media reconnect us with those skills again?

Watch “Social Media Revolution” on YouTube:  

Literacy is not linear. ““Part of the confusion about media convergence stems from the fact that when people talk about it, they’re actually describing at least five processes” (Henry Jenkins, 2001). 

• technological
• economic
• social or organic
• cultural
• global
  

MEDIA CONVERGENCE
Another term which has become widely used about these kinds of experiences, especially by the media and gaming worlds, is “convergence.” In 2001 when Henry Jenkins noted the confusion about media convergence actually is because of the various processes that are at play (it is not one single required literacy). For Jenkins, “these multiple forms of media convergence are leading us toward a digital renaissance - a period of transition and transformation that will affect all aspects of our lives” (Jenkins, 2001). 

Sue Thomas often refers to the Asheninka tribe as an example of a transliterate group. For them transliteracy imbues every aspect of their culture:

“Everything we use has a story. Each drawing which is passed from one generation to another is our writing; each little symbol has an immense story. As one learns a drawing, one learns its origin, who taught it, who brought it to us.”




Discussion Questions:

Q1. What is transliteracy? Give examples of how transliteracy appears in your daily life.

Q2. How does Coover’s “The End of Books” (originally written in 1992) align with a contemporary thinking of transliteracy and the development of the web into web 2.0?

Q3. According to Aarseth’s “Nonlinearity and Literary Theory,” “the text...entails a set of powerful metaphysics...the three most important ones are those of reading, writing and stability” (763).  Having read about and discussed the idea of transliteracy, would you suggest adding or changing any of the three elements that Aarseth notes as most important? Must “users” (readers) “learn to accept their position as agents of the text” or might they play a more decisive role (as in Andy Campbell’s works)?

The Changing Face of Journalism

This morning, one of the talking heads on a television news program stated that "Twitter is our main source of information" regarding the earthquake in Japan.

Guest Lecture: Chris Joseph

Chris Joseph is going to be sharing with us some *classified* information about his work. Please access the private post containing his lecture notes here. A password is required which has been e-mailed to you.

Chris will be answering questions about his lecture which you can post here so the class discussion remains in this centralised area.

Week 8: Live Chat

Just a reminder that we're aiming for a live chat this Sunday the 13th of March at 16:00 Mountain Time.

I've e-mailed everyone with a Zoho invitation so that we can try out group chat with another web 2.0 application.

In the meantime, feel free to try the chat application I've embedded below.

Week 8: A Million Penguins Report

Although it seems that we can no longer *read* A Million Penguins wiki novel, we still have access to the presentation by Bruce Mason detailing the interesting report written by Bruce Mason and Sue Thomas.

Exploring A Million Penguins

View more presentations from Bruce Mason

Week 8: Born Digital Fictions

UPDATE: It seems that A Million Penguins (the wiki novel), one of our required readings for this week, has been taken offline...


How are web platforms leveraged for the telling of compelling narratives? Jeremy Ettinghausen wonders what will happen to the novel: “is the novel immune from being swept up into the fashion for collaborative activity? Well, this is what we are going to try and discover with A Million Penguins, a collaborative, wiki-based creative writing exercise.”

Some key ideas to consider this week:

Real time
twitter stories
flickr stories
rss feeds and narrative
Inanimate Alice
episodic fiction
how to maintain readerly interest

This Week: Blog question and answer with digital creator Chris Joseph!

"You will see--very, very soon--authors become publishers. You will see publishers become booksellers. You will see booksellers become publishers, and you will see authors become booksellers." ~ Stephen Riggio

According to Kate Pullinger, there are seven aspects that we (readers, writers and creators of new media texts) MUST acknowledge:

1. Writers need to talk about money
2. Writers, publishers and teachers need to get their heads out of the sand: the digital future is already here
3. E-books are boring.
4. We better keep talking about e-books.
5. Be afraid of e-books.
6. Always remember that human culture is highly visual.
7. Good writing.

Read Pullinger’s entire manifesto here: http://toc.oreilly.com/2010/04/seven-paranoid-provocations-on.html.

We'll also be exploring the wiki-novel A Million Penguins.

Bruce Mason says this about the project:

"The final product itself, now frozen in time, is more akin to something produced by the wild, untrammelled creativity of the folk imagination. The contributors to ―A Million Penguins, like the ordinary folk of Bakhtin‘s carnivals, have produced something excessive. It is rude, chaotic, grotesque, sporadically brilliant, anti-authoritarian and, in places, devastatingly funny. As a cultural text it is unique, and it demonstrates the tremendous potential of this form to provide a stimulating social setting for writing, editing and publishing. The contributors may not have written one single novel but they did create something quite remarkable, an outstanding body of work that can be found both in the main sections as well as through the dramas and conversations lacing the ―backstage pages. And they had a damned good time while doing so. As the user Crtrue writes.

Hi hi hi hi hi! Seriously. This is going to fail horribly. It's still fun."

Read the Million Penguins' Report here.


Discussion Questions:
Q1. Although publishing might seem easier in some senses, what about copyright issues? Think of Apple’s DRM movement.
Q2. Read “A Million Penguins.” How different from a traditional book is this wikinovel? How would you describe it (is it really a “novel”)?
Q3. Digital publishing is in a constant state of evolution. In August 2010, Oxford University Press has decided to relaunch the online version of the OED. They have chosen iFactory as the online
publishing platform. What changes in functionality, access and personalisation do you think might occur from such a shift (offline & static to online & evolving)? Read and article on the change here:
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/OxfordUniversity-Press-ChoosesPubFactory-to-Develop-OxfordEnglishDictionary-1299800.htm

Assignment 2: Book of Sand – A Hypertext in Print

Assignment 2: Book of Sand – A Hypertext in Print

Title: Book of Sand   

Author Surname: Borges

Author First Name: Jorge Luis

Translated by:   Andrew Hurley 

Publication Date: 1977 

Website: http://www.annecoale.com/web4pics/bookofsand.pdf      

Publisher: Andrew Hurley      

URL for a Hypertext version: http://artificeeternity.com/bookofsand/   

Tags & Keywords: hypertext; infinite, newmedia      

Summary:

Book of Sand

Hypertext environment on the web gave opportunity of expression to the thought of the infinite for many writers and artists. Before the era of internet and computers, authors like Jorge Borges gave expression to their thought in writing. Now with the possibility of the web, many authors have translated this ètextualè experience into “hypertextual” realm.

This participatory nature of the web with its ability for collective intelligence is very well brought out by David Beer (2009) who, points out that, “ it is perhaps not surprising that Web 2.0 – which has been defined as the shift toward user-generated content and the move from desktop storage to web top access has become associated in popular depictions with empowerment and liberation as ‘the people’ apparently reclaim the internet and exercise their ‘collective intelligence’ ” (Beer, 2009, p. 986).

Borges depicts himself as the one who encounters this special treasure; the Book of all Books. The story is about how he came to know and see this book and how it came into his possession and how he ultimately disposed of it . “When he opens to a page with an illustration, the bookseller advises a close look, since the page will never be found, or seen, again. It proves impossible to find the first or last page. This Book of Sand has no beginning or end: its pages are infinite. Each page is numbered, apparently uniquely but in no discernible pattern” (wikipedia).

We experience the foretaste of infinity, when we enter into the virtual world. There is a mystery and powerlessness in the very milieu of the net. Borges brings these ideological characters of the virtual world into a textual form. As Haynes writes, “vast information sources will be generated, where any item, thing or person can have its own unique identity tags. Relational databases feed on and become informed by the data generated from these tags and are able then to create inferences that will enable ‘new correlations’ to ‘emerge’ and ‘create genuinely new knowledge’” (Haynes, as cited in Beer, 2009, p.989).

Hypertext creators like Maximus Clarke (2001), gave a virtual expression to this textual infinity. As per him, “the Book of Sand site is a hypertext, with a nonlinear structure and dynamic images. This story is well-suited for such a presentation, since it deals with a supernatural book whose many pages are in no discernible order. And the story's spare, haunting atmosphere comes through clearly, if not more strongly, when it is read in short, random fragments” (Maximus Clarke, 2001).

“If space is infinite, we were anywhere, at any point in space.

If time is infinite, we are at any point in time.” (Jorge Borges, 1974)

References

Beer, D (2009). Power through the algorithm? Participatory web cultures and the technological unconscious.  New Media & Society 11(6), 985–1002.

Borges, J.L. (1977). The Book of Sand, (Hurley, A, Trans), Retrieved from:  http://www.annecoale.com/web4pics/bookofsand.pdf

Borges, J.L. (1977). The Book of Sand. (Giovanni, N. T. Di, Trans). New York: Dutton. ISBN:0525069925.

Clarke, M (2001). Book of Sand: A Hypertext Puzzle. Retrieved from: http://artificeeternity.com/bookofsand/

Lash, S. (2007). Power after Hegemony Cultural Studies in Mutation?; Theory, Culture & Society, 24(3), 55–78.

Pavlopoulose, T. (Feb 27, 2010). The Book of Sand in Peacockès Tail, (Weblog comment), Retrieved from: http://pavlopoulos.wordpress.com/2010/02/27/the-book-of-sand/

Wikipedia. (June, 2004). The Book of Sand. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Sand

Assignment 2 – Social media = + or -

Article: How Social Media is Having a Positive Impact On Our Culture

Much has been said about the impact the virtual world has on our ‘real’ world. Quite often the use of smart phones and the internet is seen as a way for many to become distant from the people and the things around them in their physical world. In this article Josh Rose looks at the paradox that the use of social media has created. In some ways it allows us to have a closeness and a connection with people because the technology allows us to do so – texting our family members, sharing pictures on Facebook, tweeting our latest what are we doing facts. In the same breath people attribute a sense of coldness, and lack of a real connection through the use of social media. Yes they may stay in touch more often, but perhaps the quality and the emotional attachment of staying in touch is lost when done through technology versus in person. The article notes that perhaps there is a way of categorizing the outlook we have on the effect of social media – we either think it’s good, bad or normal.

Perhaps a key component of how we see the effect is how we use social media and if we use social media. Talk to the generations that have never lived without it and they will see that it is as natural to text someone as it is to call them or talk to them in person. Palfrey and Gasser assign three characteristics to these Digital Natives: born after 1980, have access to networked digital technologies and the skill set to use them (2008, p. 1). These children are identified both by their real time identity and the one they create online, both existing synchronously. They are bonded together by “the amount of time they spend using digital technologies, their tendency to multitask, their tendency to express themselves and relate to one another in ways mediated by digital technologies, and their pattern of using the technologies to access and use information and create new knowledge and art forms” (2008, page 4). To these people, the effects of social media are definitely a plus versus a negative.

Perhaps the most positive aspect of social media is the ability it allows for people to come together and create. Traditional barriers to working together as a group are taken away through the use of technology. In Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody (2008), he highlights the case that most barriers to group action have been eliminated, and without these barriers there exists an ability to find new ways of gathering together and getting things done Groups that before were dispersed and difficult to bring together are now benefiting from the social tools that exist online.

Rhiengold takes this one step further showing that now that the barriers are removed, the group action can lead to a population in which people wear the title of creator and consumer. With these titles, “they are far more likely to generate freedom and wealth for more people than one in which a small portion of the population produces culture that the majority passively consume”

Sources

Gasser, U., & Palfrey, J. Born Digital. New York. Basic Books.

Rose, J. (2011, February 24). How Social Media is Having a Positive Impact On Our Culture. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2011/02/23/social-media-culture/

Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Massachusetts: Perseus Books.

Shirky, C. (2008). Here Comes Everybody: New York. Penguin Press.

Assignment 2: Project hope: A hypertext tribute to Hope

Assignment 2 : Project hope: A hypertext tribute to Hope

Title: Project Hope

Author Surname: Strasser

Author First Name: Reiner

Additional Authors: Annie Abrahams, Alan Sondheim

Publication Date : Web Publication, n.d.     

Website:  http://nonfinito.de/hope/

URL: http://nonfinito.de/hope/project_hope.html

Tags & Keywords: new media; webart, cyberpoetry.      

Summary

Project hope: A Hypertext Tribute to Hope

            The Internet is increasingly being defined by new digital technologies that empower

users to develop, create, rate, and distribute Internet content and applications (O’Reilly

as cited in Hermida & Thurman, 2008). Project Hope is a collaborative attempt by many artists through the expression of hypertext, webart, cyberpoems etc to give voice to their expectation of hope. Authors like Reiner Strasser along with Annie Abrahams, Alan Sondheim others took the initiation for this website.



Image 1: Tree of Hope

            This is a website with thirty five artistic web creations placed under one window. Each point click leads you to an unexpected experience of participatory creation. This is a page for hope, co created by many artists. This is, as the website call page defines, “a step one for: new media, net art, cyber poetry works”.

There are stories, net art, poetry, flash works etc in this collection of hypertext collection.

Image 2: Road Trip - Start the tour

            Road trip by Starla Stensaas will take you through the road from Nebraska to South Dakota. The sights and thoughts of the driver, the story is presented through the clicks of the map. Some other works are just web art. Some are flash messages of hope. Bliss and other stories are also placed within the frame work. This train is a cyber poem set in an interactive media.

I will – I Can’t bring about the struggle of hope within every individual.

Image 3: I will I can't

 The monologue # 16: Shalom Alcheme seems to point out the ongoing struggle of war and peace.

Image 4: Illusion of Hope

            New media theorist Scott Lash (as cited in Beer, 2009) has recently spoken of what he describes as a ‘new new media ontology’. This is a term designed to capture a shift toward forms of living in which information becomes active in shaping lifestyles and environments (Beer, 2009, p.987). This website and various artistic expressions in it can be seen as tangible evidence for media and technology filtering into everyday lives of our lives and becoming part of our ontological expressions.

References

Lash, S. (2007). Power after Hegemony Cultural Studies in Mutation?; Theory, Culture &             Society, 24(3), 55–78.

 Beer, D (2009). Power through the algorithm? Participatory web cultures and the technological unconscious.  New Media & Society 11(6), 985–1002.

Hermida, A., & Thurman, N.  (2008). A Clash of Cultures: The integration of user-generated content within professional journalistic frameworks at British newspaper websites; Journalism Practice, 2(3), 343-356.

Images:

            Image 1: Retrieved from: http://nonfinito.de/hope/works/jorge.html

            Image 2: Retrieved from: http://www.starlastensaas.net/hope/index.html

            Image 3: Retrieved from: http://nonfinito.de/hope/works/yes_beckett.html

            Image 4: retrieved from: http://www.ducthuan.com/Monologue/Mono16/mono1601.htm