Week 4 - Is Books Making Us Stupid? (Feb 4-Feb 11)
Our connective technologies are, as many have said, a return to orality. It gives us the opportunity to connect our thoughts with others without them being finished, stale and objective. The medium of print, while practically useful for many reasons (particularly historically) encourages the opposite. Is books making us stupid?
Week 4 Challenge
Is books making us stupid? Have they always? What has the medium of print done to learning? What are the implications of this objective distance? How does it impact what we believe is valid in our society both inside learning and outside of it? In the words of Walter Ong - Orality is "empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced".
BONUS - focus on a project that your building as part of the course. Tell us about it.
Week 4 Live event
SAME time as last week - THURSDAY 4:30pm Atlantic Time. We'll invite people in and argue about stuff. http://davecormier.com/edblog/2014/01/16/rhizo14-live-session-unhangout/ I enjoyed the conversation last time, this time we'll do more live building.
Ong quote from -> http://homepages.bw.edu/~rfowler/pubs/secondoral/oral.html
Title a play on - Is Google Making Us Stupid? http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/