The Digital shift
Walter J. Ong in Orality and Literacy describes a great shift that occurred with the introduction of writing as the latest technology of the time. Writing not only changed how people communicated, but also changed the very nature of human consciousness and has "restructured thought" (Ong 7-8). Now, following the introduction of digital technology, we are seeing a similar shift of consciousness and thought processes. Researchers Zoetewey, Meredith, and Staggers claim that new media texts and computer technologies “change the way students write, read, and think" (np). Although technology has been around for some time now, we are only beginning to understand how it has affected cognitive processes for learning and transfer. Pruchnic and Lacey argue that a rhetorical shift has occurred from the “content-based” focus of memory from the past (memorization of content information, facts) to a “program” focus of memory, where “past experiences and associations are captured and/or strategically leveraged for persuasive effects” via modern technologies (such as in political and advertising campaigns) (475). In other words, what we value about memory has changed. Instead of valuing content or factual knowledge, we are valuing process knowledge or useful bits of information that can help us to effectively use technology to meet some communication end. The question becomes, then, how does this cognitive shift change how we use memory? In "Data-Palace: Modern Memory work in Digital Environments," Derek Van Ittersum shares his research examining how "computer technology changes the activities associated with memory work, and by extension, changes the activity of writing" (np). In his research, Van Ittersum examined how storing and processing text using computer programming and online storage relates to memory aides which trigger recall. Three key concerns for study participants using computer technology for storage were: (1) that the text would need to be "easily located in the future;" (2) the uncertainty involved in constructing storage systems (digital organization of text) "without a clear sense of how they will use that system in the future;" (3) the uncertainty of knowing "what will be important later and in what context they will be searching" (Van Ittersum np). While this study identifies the external shift in the tools and activity systems that students are using for memory work in learning (versus internal neurological storage of content memory), Van Ittersum also reveals that many of the complexities of external storage parallel the challenges inherent in learning transfer using internal memory through long-term storage. Namely that they both are concerned with storing information in a way that can be easily retrieved in future contexts (for transfer). However, external storage activities shift students awareness to storage structures and cues they can remember for accessing the information externally in the future rather than being concerned with remembering the information itself (as in internal neurological storage). This cognitive shift between remembering external structures and cues, instead of content information stored internally, calls attention to the effects of digital technology on transfer in the writing classroom.
Literacy in the Digital Age
With the growing changes of how work is being done in the composition classroom, due to technology and cognitive shifting, former notions of literacy must also be questioned. While I do not intend to engage deeply with that subject here, I would like to acknowledge new definitions of literacy as a parallel and equally significant shift occurring from digital technology. There is a growing trend in English studies to expand the traditional notion of literacy with one that encompasses and accounts for new media and modes of digital communication. In this debate I position myself with Norton and Wiburg that “a redefined notion of literacy and literacy instruction is necessary if today’s students are to navigate the ‘supersymbolic’ world created by the electronic technologies” (155). However, I do not see it necessary to completely replace traditional notions of literacy, as reading and writing are remain important in the digital age. Still, with such significant shifts in cognition and communication advancing into the classroom, it is important to reconsider former definitions of literacy and ask ourselves “what counts as a text?” (Johndan Johnson-Eilola 18).
Eilola's question, "what counts as a text?," prompts us to consider how multimodal access and expression are ultimately reshaping what a “text” is and what it means to truly be literate in the digital age (18). The traditional definition of literacy, “as a matter of competencies in reading and writing grammar, and language” (Jewitt 8), is being expanded in the digital age to include a variety of texts (digital and print), images, design elements, and other forms of media. Carey Jewitt contends that the traditional definition of literacy is problematic because it “fails to address how language is embedded in other modes” (8). Often, in this digital age, text appears in the midst of other modes of communication which offer layers of embedded meaning accompanying the text. These layers of meaning extend beyond former notions of literacy, found in linear reading and writing of text, to include new elements (such as image, sound, motion, color, design, etc.) that expand and push meaning beyond the limits of textual communication. Gunther Kress reminds us that digital literacy is “a multimodal process in which all modes are critically interpreted and their interactions considered a useful one” ("Literacy in the new media age" 8). Multimodal analysis is useful and necessary because it expands meaning and creates novel ways for expression to be communicated. In the 21st Century, meaning is increasingly represented in a multimodal fashion, “with images, sounds, space, and movement, representing and communicating meaning” ("Multimodality a Social Semiotic" np). Much can be lost if multimodal communications are not considered along with the text when searching for meaning. If we are to successfully navigate this unfamiliar terrain, more than our definition of literacy must change; we must also consider the changes in social values reflected by transitions in literacy and what that ultimately means for pedagogy.
Kress’s assertion, that we have entered into a “new landscape of communication” reminds us that it is not only the communication that has changed, but the landscape surrounding it too ("Literacy in the New Media" 183). A new digital landscape encompasses underlying social and cultural practices and meanings. In Stuff Digital Humanists Like Tom Scheinfeldt emphasizes that “Digital Humanities takes more than tools from the internet. It works like the internet. It takes its values from the internet” (Tom Scheinfeldt, “Stuff Digital Humanists Like”). Similarly, new practices in multimodal literacy reshape social values in education from “what” to know, to “how” to know. This is a transition from propositional knowledge to performance knowledge, or “knowing how to find, gather, use, communicate, and imagine new ways of envisioning assemblages of knowledge” (Miller and McVee 3). Shifting from propositional knowledge to performance knowledge, by extension, creates a new set of values for working digitally professionally or pedagogically.
Scholars working in digital humanities fields have noted new values emerging including collaboration (Bailey 45, Reid 356, Spiro 24), openness, collegiality, connectedness, transparency, diversity, and experimentation (Spiro 24). These are the same values emerging in multimodal forms of literacy and for technology engaged students. Nancy Bailey asserts that teachers must work within these new values by incorporating pedagogical strategies in the classroom that highlight “dialogic and collaborative construction of knowledge, inquiry-based learning, and guided participation as well as multimodal consumption and production of all types of texts” (45). These changes in multimodality have illustrated that “through producing and interpreting print, nonprint, and print-mixed representations in the digital world, people have developed new social literacy practices” (Miller and McVee 1). However, I might argue that it is not the technology that has passed on some inherent qualities of socialization to its users, rather it is the users who have designed these technologies with social values in mind. Or, in other words, as a sort of external reflection of self. Norton and Wiburg write, "many of the functions of these technologies resemble human cognitive processes. Both the mind and these technologies accept information, manipulate symbols, process that information, and then arrive at an output" (Norton and Wiburg 110). I believe that computer technology has been made as a reflection of human cognition. Of course it is not difficult to assume that humans created computer technology in a way that makes sense to humans. It could be argued that humans are unable to do otherwise. The Human Connectome Project, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is working to map connections of the human brain. This project, as reported by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel, has found that the images of the fiber architecture of the brain bear "an uncanny resemblance to the massive wiring harnesses inside 1970's super-computers" (170). Whether humans have changed because of technology or technology has changed over time as a reflection of human design, we cannot know for sure. However, what we can know is that as digital technology has provided people the means to shift notions of communication and cognition, new cultural shifts have occurred which are reflected in the ever changing technological advances. As such, new communication forms found online have tremendous value as cultural representations of communicatory shifts that alter personal, professional, and educational practices. The external shifting of memory storage is one result of technological communicatory changes which are accompanied by new barriers and opportunities for transfer of learning.
Literacy in the Digital Age
With the growing changes of how work is being done in the composition classroom, due to technology and cognitive shifting, former notions of literacy must also be questioned. While I do not intend to engage deeply with that subject here, I would like to acknowledge new definitions of literacy as a parallel and equally significant shift occurring from digital technology. There is a growing trend in English studies to expand the traditional notion of literacy with one that encompasses and accounts for new media and modes of digital communication. In this debate I position myself with Norton and Wiburg that “a redefined notion of literacy and literacy instruction is necessary if today’s students are to navigate the ‘supersymbolic’ world created by the electronic technologies” (155). However, I do not see it necessary to completely replace traditional notions of literacy, as reading and writing are remain important in the digital age. Still, with such significant shifts in cognition and communication advancing into the classroom, it is important to reconsider former definitions of literacy and ask ourselves “what counts as a text?” (Johndan Johnson-Eilola 18).
Eilola's question, "what counts as a text?," prompts us to consider how multimodal access and expression are ultimately reshaping what a “text” is and what it means to truly be literate in the digital age (18). The traditional definition of literacy, “as a matter of competencies in reading and writing grammar, and language” (Jewitt 8), is being expanded in the digital age to include a variety of texts (digital and print), images, design elements, and other forms of media. Carey Jewitt contends that the traditional definition of literacy is problematic because it “fails to address how language is embedded in other modes” (8). Often, in this digital age, text appears in the midst of other modes of communication which offer layers of embedded meaning accompanying the text. These layers of meaning extend beyond former notions of literacy, found in linear reading and writing of text, to include new elements (such as image, sound, motion, color, design, etc.) that expand and push meaning beyond the limits of textual communication. Gunther Kress reminds us that digital literacy is “a multimodal process in which all modes are critically interpreted and their interactions considered a useful one” ("Literacy in the new media age" 8). Multimodal analysis is useful and necessary because it expands meaning and creates novel ways for expression to be communicated. In the 21st Century, meaning is increasingly represented in a multimodal fashion, “with images, sounds, space, and movement, representing and communicating meaning” ("Multimodality a Social Semiotic" np). Much can be lost if multimodal communications are not considered along with the text when searching for meaning. If we are to successfully navigate this unfamiliar terrain, more than our definition of literacy must change; we must also consider the changes in social values reflected by transitions in literacy and what that ultimately means for pedagogy.
Kress’s assertion, that we have entered into a “new landscape of communication” reminds us that it is not only the communication that has changed, but the landscape surrounding it too ("Literacy in the New Media" 183). A new digital landscape encompasses underlying social and cultural practices and meanings. In Stuff Digital Humanists Like Tom Scheinfeldt emphasizes that “Digital Humanities takes more than tools from the internet. It works like the internet. It takes its values from the internet” (Tom Scheinfeldt, “Stuff Digital Humanists Like”). Similarly, new practices in multimodal literacy reshape social values in education from “what” to know, to “how” to know. This is a transition from propositional knowledge to performance knowledge, or “knowing how to find, gather, use, communicate, and imagine new ways of envisioning assemblages of knowledge” (Miller and McVee 3). Shifting from propositional knowledge to performance knowledge, by extension, creates a new set of values for working digitally professionally or pedagogically.
Scholars working in digital humanities fields have noted new values emerging including collaboration (Bailey 45, Reid 356, Spiro 24), openness, collegiality, connectedness, transparency, diversity, and experimentation (Spiro 24). These are the same values emerging in multimodal forms of literacy and for technology engaged students. Nancy Bailey asserts that teachers must work within these new values by incorporating pedagogical strategies in the classroom that highlight “dialogic and collaborative construction of knowledge, inquiry-based learning, and guided participation as well as multimodal consumption and production of all types of texts” (45). These changes in multimodality have illustrated that “through producing and interpreting print, nonprint, and print-mixed representations in the digital world, people have developed new social literacy practices” (Miller and McVee 1). However, I might argue that it is not the technology that has passed on some inherent qualities of socialization to its users, rather it is the users who have designed these technologies with social values in mind. Or, in other words, as a sort of external reflection of self. Norton and Wiburg write, "many of the functions of these technologies resemble human cognitive processes. Both the mind and these technologies accept information, manipulate symbols, process that information, and then arrive at an output" (Norton and Wiburg 110). I believe that computer technology has been made as a reflection of human cognition. Of course it is not difficult to assume that humans created computer technology in a way that makes sense to humans. It could be argued that humans are unable to do otherwise. The Human Connectome Project, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is working to map connections of the human brain. This project, as reported by Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel, has found that the images of the fiber architecture of the brain bear "an uncanny resemblance to the massive wiring harnesses inside 1970's super-computers" (170). Whether humans have changed because of technology or technology has changed over time as a reflection of human design, we cannot know for sure. However, what we can know is that as digital technology has provided people the means to shift notions of communication and cognition, new cultural shifts have occurred which are reflected in the ever changing technological advances. As such, new communication forms found online have tremendous value as cultural representations of communicatory shifts that alter personal, professional, and educational practices. The external shifting of memory storage is one result of technological communicatory changes which are accompanied by new barriers and opportunities for transfer of learning.