2014-2015 Academic Catalog

May 14, 2024

2014-2015 Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

EDUC 251 - Orality, Literacy, and Cybercy: New Media and Learning in the Knowledge Age

We are part of a changing world where youth are developing a “cyber” culture centered on digital media. In his classic book on orality and literacy, Walter Ong (1982) describes how people gradually moved from oral cultures to literate cultures and how this transformation had profound effects on the way people came to think and communicate. As Eisenstein (1979) and Postman (1994) have argued, universal schooling was an outgrowth of the invention of the printing press and the subsequent spread of literacy. With the “digital revolution,” a generation raised playing computer games and engaging in participatory cultures learns a non-literate style of interacting with the world, characterized by tinkering, exploration, re-mixing and “going viral” in a manner of minutes.

In this course our inquiry will focus on: What are the implications of orality, literacy, and cybercy for how people think and learn? How are inequities – “participation gaps” – to be addressed? Will we need to rethink an education system centered on literacy in order to reach and support the emerging cyber generation?

Starting from an examination of the societal effects of past innovations, from the alphabet to the printing press, we will explore how the advent of powerful new ways of communicating, interacting, and making things in the world affects both individuals and groups. We will reflect on how these “tools of the intellect” transform the way we construct knowledge and understanding.

We will work together to advance our understanding through critical analysis of readings and case studies, and through individual and group investigations.

Anticipated Terms Offered: Annually or bi-annually in the Fall semester