Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Attention Rob Strong

Tomorrow you should begin your _Money: How It Seems and Behaves_ book by making contact with and taking pictures at Sugar River Savings Bank in Grantham, NH.

That will be accomplished by limiting your web reading to 2 hours.

Destroy this message.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

That Dang Thing: Computers and Older User

In 2004, Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher published Literate Lives in an Information Age, a study of over 350 computer users. The book is an important work of research that details compellingly the way people from different walks of life acquire what Selfe and Hawisher call “literacies of technology” (2).

In making their case, they look at race, class, and gender barriers, but among the twenty case studies they focus on, there are few older computer users. After reading their book, then, I became curious about the way seniors acquire this literacy. What barriers remain for those looking to reach out? What features of websites need to be changed to make online environments more welcoming to seniors? What training services are available through widely known organizations like AARP? To what proven extent does computer use combat loneliness among older users, especially the bereaved?

And, centrally, does technological literacy mean something different for those users whose adult lives mostly pre-dated wide computer use? For them, does literacy still constitute, in the words of Selfe and Hawisher, “the power to enact change in the world” (82), or can literacy merely be the ability to connect to that world?

I want to first survey the pertinent literature on older computer users since there are some disagreements about both barriers and benefits. An important early study, “Silver Surfers: Training and Evaluating Internet Use among Older Adult Learners,” argues strongly for senior immersion in technology. M.J. Cody, et al., suggest that the elderly “represent one of the largest groups of information 'have nots' in the United States, and [. . .] would benefit in many ways from gaining computer literacy” (269).

That study was based on a long-term training program in an extended-care facility and found that seniors who completed the training felt a sense of well-being:

"Once trained, online adult learners experienced feelings of social support, connectivity, and reduced technology-related anxiety. Some learned to spend hours online each week, and some became absorbed in searching websites, emailing, and gathering news online." (281)

The problem with their work was that the sample was mostly self-selecting, and the results of the study showed, self-evidently, that people willing to go through training are not necessarily emblematic of a wider senior population. Besides that shortcoming, I want to include questions that Cody, et al., ask that underline my own inquiry. They write, “How can we train [. . .] older adults to use the Internet and to fulfill social and information needs? Can we demonstrate that Internet access will produce the intended, desirable, cognitive, educational, and social outcomes?” (270)

While they believe they do illustrate that these advances are possible, many studies downplay the effect of Internet use on the well-being of seniors, finding the Cody study overly-optimistic. The authors of the article “Computer Use Has No Demonstrated Impact on the Well-Being of Older Adults” need not be quoted for us to realize their opinion, but others echo less forcefully. Karin Slegers, et al., report,

"[W]e did not find consistent evidence for an impact, either positive or negative, of using computers and the Internet on several aspects of well-being and autonomy of healthy older adults. This implies that [. . .] the benefits of computer and Internet-related activities for personal use are limited." (180)

Kevin Wright, meanwhile, hypothesizing that Internet use could be a locus of social support for grieving people, found that Internet users and non-Internet users proclaimed equal levels of that support. In fact, “low Internet communicators tended to have higher non-Internet support satisfaction scores” (110).

What this tells me is not that the Internet saps real-life support, but that people who don't have attention from their families and friends may use, and need, the Internet differently than those who do. Negative reports, of course, need to be mitigated by the fact that many seniors for whom the Internet might be a help are still excluded from its use.

Writing in the wonderfully titled article “The Information Aged,” Neil Selwyn suggests that “[T]he potential of [information and communications technologies] for empowerment of older adults has been tempered by a succession of reports that technology is proving in practice to be an activity that many older adults are excluded from” (370).

I want to look now at the numerous barriers that keep Internet use more difficult than it should be. Certainly access has to be first in our minds. Economic and other factors contribute to limited technological resources. According to Robert J. Campbell, “In the United States, elderly adults make up 13% of the population, with only 4% using the Internet. Overall, 56% of America is online and out of that percentage, only 15% age 65 and over have direct access to the Internet” (162).

Added to the fact that many people don't have the hardware, others feel a deep anxiety about computers. Slegers notes this and combines it with an argument about education: “It seems that older adults with lower education levels and who need more time for everyday tasks are more prone to lack of technology adoption” (182).

Though many of these gerontology reports seem to make obvious points, it's important to remember that advances in technology have often been understood to widen already stark educational and socioeconomic gaps. Again, it's an irony that those who feel anxious about Internet use might be the very same people who would benefit most from affirming online relationships and the opportunities therein.

We can make the same assumption about those with physical ailments who could benefit from online access to health information. Interestingly, Wright “predicted that those engaging in more social online activity would report more health and mental problems, and more limits to daily life due to health problems, compared to less social users” (39).

There are correlations, then, between physical ailments and increased online activity as well as correlations between physical ailments and inability to engage in that activity. Scholars (and seniors) often cite vision problems and arthritis as common villains.

Three of the biggest barriers can be understood together, I think. First, we should keep in mind the additional time it takes novice computer users to do simple desktop tasks and the fact that that situation will generally be worse for older users. Even the requirement to double-click a mouse can be prohibitive. This frustration adds to the difficulty of learning; plus, older users often feel resentment to new technology that they have always gotten along fine without.

Even my mother, who is only in her late fifties, feels a sense of inferiority (and nostalgia for a pre-computer time) when she comes face-to-face with anything on the computer that thwarts her. Often, we discount what is either hard for us to learn or what seems not to have an application. Selwyn hits on this as he summarizes oral histories he conducted with older people:

As we saw from our interviews with current nonusers of computers, having no need or no interest in using computers is a regularly cited and powerful rationale [for nonuse]. There is a need here to consider the 'relative advantage' and 'situation relevance' of [information and communications technology] use for older adults. (382)

Time issues surrounding learning, and the belief that computers are “just not for me” are symptoms of technological mistrust. These barriers might be remedied with some old-fashioned product placement; those who see the possible benefits of computer use among older users and are seeking to help them become active members of lively computer activity need only to look for ways to package their information in recognizable and useful terms.

Medical professionals, local news sources, church groups, and senior-advocacy organizations can be deliverers of the computer-education goods, thereby combatting computer illiteracy and mistrust. Theirs are the organizations that engender trust, and they can be the proverbial spoon full of sugar that helps the technological medicine go down.

AARP, for instance, has published a number of articles with titles like “Computers Aren't Scary.” That sort of campaign combined with the down-to-earth message that computers can be useful will go a long way toward opening up what Selfe and Hawisher call “technological gateways” (26).

There should be no conclusive study that computer use is either a panacea or a worthless activity for seniors.

My response to the negative studies that show no discernible benefit and my response to those who see computers as merely a hobby is to think of this machine as a hammer. It has its functions if used well and it's undeniable that such a tool can be a benefit. Does a hammer change lives? It certainly can. And while this analogy is admittedly problematic, it comes from a place of frustration about sociological studies that try to measure objectively unmeasurable things like well-being and happiness; those studies' statistical models show no numerical increase in happiness and write off the possible individual social benefits of literacies of technology.

That said, Utopian studies that find Internet use radically bettering lives might need to be a bit more moderate, too. With this paper, then, I want to resist wide declarations either way and focus instead on small steps that can be taken to open technological gateways, literacy gateways.

Being sensitive to the needs of older users is paramount for computer programmers and designers, web writers and advertisers. We should remember that older users might not need so much to be brought up to speed as they need to be considered and included during the generation of web content.

Selwyn writes, “[R]ather than trying to change older adults, older adults should be involved in changing [information and communications technology] to be more of an attractive, interesting, or useful option [. . .]” (382). I want to take a concise look, then, at some websites that are geared toward seniors and at studies on web-design issues as they pertain to senior-user accessibility.

T.A. Hart, et al.'s article “Evaluating Websites for Older Adults [. . .]” lays out a set of guidelines that I use to analyze the “senior-friendliness” (Hart) of aarp.org and seniorpeoplemeet.com. While they write that “more companies have begun to design software and hardware that accommodate the needs of the ageing [sic] user,” their article insists that more should be done, especially in the areas of large text size, clear site maps, and simple hyperlinks.

They find that more than half of sites that are geared toward seniors, not to mention general interest sites, are not compliant in these areas. They also note that tight spacing, inconsistent layout, and pull-down menus cause problems. But how does aarp.org fare when we consider the guidelines Hart cites?

I visited the site a number of times in November 2008. It's relatively clear, but strikes me as a busy site; there are nearly thirty boxes above the fold and the words are relatively small. It uses light text on light backgrounds and employs pull-down menus. The National Institute on Aging's guidelines that Hart cites suggest that websites should use icons as hyperlinks, but aarp.org does not always do this.

I don't include these details to condemn the site, but rather to give us a sense of the small design issues that can keep senior-users at arm's length, even on sites that were born for their use. For instance, aarp.org offers FAQ, help, and site tour options, but none of them are immediately apparent on the home page. A page like this ought to be a technological gateway, and, though it offers useful services, its presentation could improve to allow for easy learning, not only about how to navigate this site, but how to navigate a wider online community.

By typing “computer” into the search bar, though, we do find that aarp.org offers many articles to help the novice user. Their slogan is, after all, “the power to make it better,” which reminds me of Selfe and Hawisher's definition of literacy. And so, in order to improve computer literacy skills of the site's visitors, aarp.org includes articles like “Where to Find Computer Help,” “User Groups Help Solve Computer Problems,” and “Older Americans Turn to Their Children for Computer Support.”

Seniorpeoplemeet.com, a dating site, has an simpler look, but it lacks help pages, too. It's a membership site and so allows only basic contact without payment. The page, though, and other sites like widownet.org., provide possible support systems for single and widowed seniors. One visitor wrote “I love this site!! It's so easy to use!! I'm not so shy anymore.”

Such anecdotal evidence speaks to the connection between ease of use and possibility for social support. It strikes me that this particular comment can refer to both social and technological shyness. The assumption is that if we lessen technological shyness, increase technological literacy, we might see a decrease in social shyness online. In fact, loneliness, both romantic and otherwise, is at the center of my inquiry.

I call for more studies in the Selfe-Hawisher vein so that we can understand better the way loneliness can actually be a catalyst for increased Internet activity, and how that activity can counteract those feelings. Selwyn quotes seniors saying that use “makes you independent” (373) and that it “keeps the brain ticking a bit” (379), but to what extent can it keep the heart ticking, to what extent have loneliness and loss inspired seniors to acquire the literacies of technology?

And how might content generators be more attuned to the needs of these folks? We can generally assume how those in their twenties and thirties acquired their computer skills, but for this older population, new collections of oral histories may reveal whether social necessity compels many seniors to take the leap and double click.

Shima Sum concludes in a study that “greater use of the Internet as a communication tool was associated with a lower level of social loneliness. In contrast, greater use of the Internet to find new people was associated with a higher level of emotional loneliness” (208).

Further research should gather the stories of these people in order to understand how their acquisitions of literacies of technology were connected to loneliness. For younger people, computer use has much to do with education and professional advancement; it's a baseline skill in high school and college courses. Social activity is in many ways an added bonus, an important diversion.

It seems that for many older people, though, social activity on the Internet is the first sign of their increasing computer literacy. Instead of the “power to enact change,” then, literacy for them may be about the power to make friends. In one of the oral histories I conducted, Barbara Duncan reported that “even my husband's mother who's 82 got a computer just a few years ago to be able to email her family.” Certainly, others move beyond family to meet those with common interests and common sufferings.

Of course, this sort of connection is often part and parcel with grief and the loss of a spouse. Seniors who are suddenly thrust into independence sometimes acquire literacy on these terms. Shapira, Barak, and Gal write, “[T]he Internet has created new opportunities for people in distress when traditional resources are unreachable or unattainable or require special effort. These opportunities include online therapy and counseling, online support groups and health-related information” (477).

And Wright rightly writes, “Older adults occasionally may use Internet relationships to cope with major stressful events, but, based on findings from previous research, I suggest [. . .that. . .] [s]eniors will have larger companionship networks than social support networks on the Internet” (105).

Though Wright's study implies that seniors seek informal ties as a sort of distraction from sadness, Jeffrey Noel and Joel Epstein argue that “[i]n this context of aging and loss, even social ties that are otherwise considered 'weak' provide a vital connection to the world, and a feeling of self-worth.” (38). We might consider senior Internet use in similar terms: even so-called 'weak' technological literacy skills can provide a sort of online senior center for those users looking to reach out and actively fill their days with company.

Selfe and Hawisher have paved the way for oral histories on the literacies of technology to be a primary mode of understanding computer use and, again, I call for a collection focusing on the stories of seniors who acquired skills for social reasons, for solace.

If we compare the language of gerontological studies with that of Selfe and Hawisher's contributors, we get a sense of what can be added by such a study. Shapira, Barak, and Gal write “[E]lderly people who began using the Internet felt less depressed and lonely, more satisfied with life [. . .] than did people who were engaged in other activities for the same period of time” (481); but gleaning that from a real person gives us a much better sense of the process of learning, of the quality of progression. Louise Flora, for instance, puts a face on the generalizations:

"It's a wonderful learning experience [. . .] The older you get, the more you need to use your brain power to keep it from atrophying" (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 14 Dec. 2004).

Statistical and sociological studies are one thing, but for those of us in literacy studies, we need to follow Selfe and Hawisher's lead to hear the voices of the subjects, hear their triumphs and frustrations.

With those stories in hand, we'll know better what recommendations to make to content providers and those interested in promoting senior use of the Internet. We'll see, I think, that literacy can be about both “the power to enact change in the world” and the power to type “hello” on a lonely morning.



Works Cited:

AARP.org. 19 Nov. 2008.

Cody, Michael J, Deborah Dunn, Shari Hoppin, and Pamela Wendt. “Silver Surfers: Training and Evaluating Internet Use Among Older Adult Learners.” Communication Education 48 (1999): 269-286.

Ellison, Jake. “Seniors Enter Cyberspace through Computer School.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 14 Dec. 2004. 19 Nov. 2008. .

Hart, T.A., B. S. Chaparro, and C. G. Halcomb. “Evaluating Websites for Older Adults: Adherence to 'Senior-Friendly' Guidelines and End-User Performance. Behaviour & Information Technology 27 (2008): 191-199.

Noel, Jeffrey G. and Joel Epstein. “Social Support and Health among Senior Internet Users: Results of an Online Survey. Journal of Technology in Human Services 21 (2003): 35-54.

Selfe, Cynthia L. and Gail E. Hawisher. Literate Lives in an Information Age. Philadelphia: Erlbaum, 2004.

Selwyn, Neil. “The Information Aged: A Qualitative Study of Older Adults' Use of Information and Communications Technology. Journal of Aging Studies 18 (2004): 369-384.

Seniorpeoplemeet.com. 19 Nov. 2008.

Shapira N., A Barak, and I. Gal. “Promoting Older Adults' Well-Being through Internet Training and Use. Aging and Mental Health 11 (2007): 477-484.

Slegers, Karin, Martin P.J. van Boxtel, and Jelle Jolles. “Effects of Computer Training and Internet Usage on the Well-Being and Quality of Life of Older Adults: A Randomized, Controlled Study.” The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 63 (2008): 176-184.

Sum, Shima, R. Mark Matthews, Ian Hughes, and Andrew Campbell. “Internet Use and Loneliness in Older Adults.” Cyberpsychology & Behavior 11 (2008): 208-211.

Wright, Kevin. “Computer-Mediated Social Support, Older Adults, and Coping.” Journal of Communication 50 (100-117).

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Erraticism - Reflection on the Project

Our website, Erratic Poeticomic, dropped today.

It has me thinking tonight about the word "erratic," how it's topically come to mean dangerously unpredictable, how it's typically negative. And, yes, erratic comes from errare, to stray, to err. It connects for me to essai (essay); over in nonfiction, we think of the essay as an attempt. We try to try (to try) something new, to diverge wildly, to wander-err, hoping, of course, that our divergences and errances describe a meaningful orbit around a theme-sun.

I, for one, fail often.

I stumble down the incorrect of two roads. With a different sentence structure, I flail. I make what Dinty Moore calls glorious messes.

To me, our erraticism on this website has been that kind of mess. It's a glorious attempt.

Let me put it another way. I like to mix all the food on my plate. Sometimes ketchup mixes with green bean. OK. Sometimes it's fruit with meat. Not great. But sometimes the combination works out (potato with tomato).

I think Brett, Lydia, and I heaped our work into a delicious casserole. It could use a different spice here or there and some more baking, but this time three cooks in the kitchen was not too many. In some ways, we attempted something not one of us had a solid grasp of. What each of us added, though, brought our project more clearly into focus. We were trying. To have fun. To think about poetry carefully. To joke glibly about anaphora. To see where a new idea might bring us.

So, I want our "erratic" to mean "wandering," "trying."

And trying it was: the lighting in the CSC lab does not make one happy to be considering the lighting in the CSC lab. I have blisters on my fingers. . .from clicking. Today, I saw a font and, still worried about the clarity of emotion in my Applebee's poem, thought pensively, "Oh, could that indicate pensive?"

Ultimately, this project was trying because it was different. I'm a results-driven learner, and dreamweaver, comiclife, and all of our rhetorical inspirations required something new from me: patience. I think I've succeeded (with the group and individually) in learning these unfamiliar programs, but I want to be honest about my limitations. I'm still not much with a mouse. I still reach for the artistic gimmick (be it in image or word). My attempts at revision still resemble the quick fix more than the full detailing.

I cringe when I'm thinking hard. Sometimes, I think I need to cringe a bit harder.

But I would like to echo Lydia in that this project required a certain single-mindedness, a certain irrationality. When, last Wednesday, I was laying on the floor on top of Ashley Good posing as a dead man for Lydia's comic. . .When I felt volcanic stomach pains after my second consecutive supper at Applebee's (usually relatively reliable if you stay away from the profane nachos). . .When I begged over and over to illustrate the three of us with fire shooting out of our heads, I had to wonder if I was pushing it a bit far (or even in the wrong direction).

But we had good, level heads about things. We knew when to be crazy (we started calling that "wazy" for some reason having to do with anticipatory political correctness) and when to be moderate. And during our fast-talking, computer-cursing, Avalanche-pizza-eating moments of malaise, one or another of us perked up (perhaps naively) with a "this'll be great. It'll be great. This'll link to that. Then we'll have some stuff there. And it'll be great."

If I make it sound like we lacked a blue-print, I'm doing a disservice to Lydia (endlessly energetic) and Brett (tenaciously reassuring). From the beginning we had this "ic" trope. We needed to encompass poetic, comic, rhetoric, generic, and serio-ludic. We ended up throwing in filmic, too. With that loose, but catalyt(ic) plan, we converted idea to image and the br(ic)ks began falling into place.

Dave Grover and Rob Strong should be commended for their assistance before it gets too late. Rob changed an article about Saddam Hussein into an article about Nicole Kidman for me for my comic poem. Such a large transition was only matched by the way Dave changed our anxiety about publishing the site into triumph with a few deft key strokes. I owe him a cherry limeade. From Son(ic).

Another friend who helped me with this project was Virginia Woolf. Now, I don't think she'd be too impressed. She tended to be suspicious of the plot-driven and, as much as I like to imagine the epic resonance of my Applebee's trilogy, I'm not sure it explores fully the inner life of the mind. The inner life of a riblet, maybe. Still, V. Woolf was seriously striving for genre-mixing in her new albums.

She said, "I think there ought to be a scrambling together of mediums now. The old are too rigid; but then one must have a terrific technique to explode the old forms and make a new one, to say nothing of a lump of fire in one's brain, or the new form is merely a pose."

I had this in mind during the re-composition of my poem and the construction of our site. I'm not ready to say I had a terrific technique. And we may not have exploded the old form as much as we have jazzed it up. But we're closer to seeing how we might think about a visual poetics; it won't be a classic concentration-esque illustration of the words. It will be associative, contrapuntal, undecidable. Working within such a poetic, we might understand each image as a line. We might create image sonnets or sestinas, constricting ourselves to bring focus on the form. We might consider the place of the lyric-I when that I seems to stare at the audience.

We might keep some embers going in our brains.



The fourth poem titled "At an Applebee's in Greenfield, Mass." that I "wrote" consisted of the lyrics to the Electric Light Orchestra song "Strange Magic." In some ways this was a joke, in some ways not. I always think of it as the archetypal Applebee's song, with its synthesized surreality. It occurs to me, though, that it could play in the Slimeball Bowl-A-Rama as a haunting soundtrack, or in The China Diner as a muted underscoring of spare-ribbed, falsetto depressiveness. So I want to end with it in a last gesture of erratic magic. Goodnight.

Comments on Comments: A Very Bloggy Reflection

The night before I presented on Adam Banks and Samantha Blackmon, I sat on my red futon with an Orange Crush trying to respond generously to the generous comments that had been offered on my blog post. After half an hour or so, I attempted to send, but discovered another commenter (this was at after 1 in the morning, mind you: “Thanks for posting everyone [. . .] Mel, you just appeared before I posted. . .”). I revised to include a response, tried to send again, and the same thing happened (“Goodnight. Julie. You just appeared when I was going to publish this. If Lydia pops up after you, I'm going to scream!”).

An hour later, I'd responded to three insomniac rhetoricians, screamed, and polished off a second Orange Crush.

A little frazzled, but with the pleasant feeling of having been frantically engaged, I muttered to myself, “I'm never out of class.” The Blog, then, taught me a great lesson about keeping the dialogue of a course going in a more casual atmosphere; having just finished teaching a free-wheeling writing workshop, I'm understanding even more the potential of such a forum: that it can be a continuation and a redefinition of a classroom community. Next quarter, I'm requiring that weekly responses to the reading be posted on Wanczyblog (still to be established).

At the beginning of class, the content of most of my posts was standardly dry, but I began to feel comfortable cracking jokes and writing with a more provocative tone after I read about Crots. Posting a Crot made me feel a little bit guilty because I was having too much fun; I was worried my lack of citations and/or discussion questions left something to be desired. But I'd taken time, I'd thought about the material, I'd confused (and, I hope, brightened fleetingly) the days of my clasmates, so all was well:

“Play breaks the rules. Play gets sent to the corner. Play wears a dunce cap. 'What a great play!' Play wears a mask and shits on roles (play ignores decorum).”

And play, of course, allows us to say what we might not otherwise. Because I had space and time, I didn't feel like I needed to make my points in the thirty seconds alloted in a classroom situation. I felt like I could reference wider culture (Tim Gunn, The Simpsons, David Foster Wallace, Bob Schieffer, Chicken Wings) without harming the professionalism of class.

And I began to say to myself things like “So-and-so is smart as a whip” after reading blog comments. I was glad to find out I was in such thoughtful company; that ups the ante for in-class discussion and projects.

After a bit of play made me more comfortable posting on blogs (and this is the first I've done of this sort of communicating), I got back into the interpretive groove. It's my M.O. to bring it to the text, and I did that in response to Brett, Craig, Mel, and Russ. I feel like the blog comment is a way to focus what's about to come up in class, to put a bit of text in front of everybody so that there's a coalescity (I also make up words on blogs: see, “crottify” and “homo-distancia”).

Speaking of “homo-distancia” (see Brett's post), I was able to articulate thoughts on controversial topics because of this forum. In many cases, my discussions turned to essentialism: “Essentialism comes up for me again. Is an identity to be celebrated or downplayed? Are some of our pop-cultural novelty-izings celebrations or shortcuts?” (Brett's Post); “I think I need to be less ethically rigid (meaning, I need to see that there is a middle ground between cumbaya-we-love-each-other (in other words, I deny your culture by claiming our sameness) vs You've-got-your-thing-I've-got-mine ignorance/tolerance/multiculturalism)” (comments on my own post).

Whether on race or sexuality, I tried to be honest. On some level, at least, this comes from an essayist's instinct to challenge assumptions and get at bigger social problems through personal experience. I think that instinct (and I saw this working especially for Rebecca) has a space on our—and I can assume on other—blogs.

Can I talk about how much I (vainly) appreciated comments on my posts and my comments? It's a different feeling to get immediate feedback than to wait for a writing workshop or a professor's traditional responses and, besides the feeling of community, it incited me to get more stuff out in public if only so that I could get more feedback. This sense of community invigorated me (when it wasn't making me think about how technological communication sometimes precludes face-to-face communication). I loved thinking about all the issues that came up from the comfort of my grandfather's recliner, the color of which can only be described as cozy-cardboard.

Additionally, Lydia's, Brett's, Craig's, and Albert's responses to my conference proposal were instrumental in my fashioning of what I eventually sent to the conference on literacies at OSU.

I do believe, though, that there is the possibility to misconstrue tone, especially when considering comments from peers about assignments they are also working on. I also questioned the tone of a few responses to my own post on Banks and Blackmon. I suppose that's one of the pitfalls of the informality/honesty positive. Regardless, different registers of criticism suggest different avenues for progression.

I hope that my responses to Lydia and Todd were helpful on their proposals. I tried to synthesize what others had already offered and provide encouragement. The same goes for my post on Rebecca's book review. Having published a

(one-hand-clapping-in-the-forest)

project myself, I was worried that her efforts would go unpraised (I wonder if, in the future, professional blog-commenting will emerge as an occupation akin to professional mourning). Again, the opportunity the blog gives for that sort of fellow-feeling is welcome (Todd, you're a co0l guy). I feel like I got to know my classmates' minds better (Russ, that means you. Yep, I'm in your head. Good job on the IMovie) because I had access to work that usually stays in the darkened tunnel between teacher and student.

In keeping with the anti-traditional space of RouzieBlog, I want to conclude not with a restatement of some jargonistic thesis or a lift of sentimentality; I want to conclude by reminding us of Mel's dystopic conception, Big Androgynous Sibling — the ungendered presence keeping us all aware of our RL identities. The blog has allowed such ideas free reign and has allowed me to be aware constantly of the (sometimes troubling) difference between online persona and offline persona (lift of sentimentality coming: perhaps unavoidable?). I love such challenges. I love Big Androgynous Sibling.

Friday, October 24, 2008

I just closed my eyes again. . .

Lydia McDermott, my good ole poetry friend, and I have started a project to turn a few of our poems into an interactive, hypertexty comic-book website, complete with pertinent scholarship from the good ole field of visual rhetoric. We're learning Dreamweaver, a program of website generation, and scouting locations for complementary videos/photo-essays.




I'll be writing a handful of posts to log our progress and to share ideas with the class and a wider audience (Rob Strong).

Yesterday, I was helped by three separate, incredibly eager employees of Ohio University (not counting my GAship-toting, wonderful fiancee, Megan, who brought me a bag of pretzels while I watched Hardball). First, I reaped (rept sounds better here) the benefits of the Shangri-La that is the Faculty Commons.

Pounding free coffee and beginning to shake, with excitement over the project of course, I sought the services of one Mike Roy, whom I'd once seen spend over an hour teaching an interior design professor a program on one of the 58-inch screens in what is truly God's library.


(Before I go overboard with OU love, I have to include my disdain for a particular salary-sucker in the registrar's office who continually points out the error of my bureaucracy-bypassing ways without glancing up from her game of Minesweeper. She is NO Mike Roy).

So, Mr. Roy navigated me through the OU website in search of a tutorial for aforementioned Dreamweaver. My roommate Dave had suggested that such tutorials were so badly attended by the intellectually-curious student body that the administration had begun offering custom, individual training.

Boon!

While we were searching (and finding), Barb Duncan, formerly of the English department, brought us Nestle's Crunches. I felt like Seinfeld in First Class while all the Elaines toiled in the 80 degree heat of Coach library.

"More anything?" "More everything!"

Eventually, Mike found me the correct course, and my webship set sail.

Later, I would be helped by a zealous reference librarian who instructed me in the Byzantine art of Boolean searches. He was wearing the same yellow IZod polo I sport in late Augusts, and he had my cowlick. This doppeldaver was emblematic of every reference librarian with whom I've ever come in contact (comparable even to the incomparable Lorraine Wochna, whose very name has become synecdochic for zest).

After getting what I'd wanted from the man, I attempted to scurry three or four times, only to be given one more delightful hint about archives and microfiche. Trained trouble-shooters, reference librarians lust for the chase of a challenge; having shot the intellectual buck, they bludgeon it with "one more thing."

But neither Mike nor Phillip was the real star of the day. That honor goes to Sarah in the CSC lab (and her imaginary friend, Garrick, but we'll get to that). To make a protracted story petite, said Sarah somehow moved two meetings she had in order to properly instruct us in the ways of Dreamweaver. She set us up in a private lab, gave us Kit Kats (my headache today is thanks to such repeated generosities), and briefly, before we objected, wrote us into her will.

Now, Dreamweaver is a $150 program, and the University has limited licenses to offer Her students; but Sarah basically gave us unlimited access to the ten-hour tutorial (Lydia and I brilliantly shortcutted through about a third of it in an hour or so).

This computer opera is hosted by a man I'm deeply in love with--Garrick Chow.


I've strained my Roget's seeking synonyms for "dulcet" to describe Garrick's voice. Honeyed. Euphonious. Golden. Even Dream-weaving. He let me into his web-designing life, sharing his personal way of arranging folders, his easy sense of cyber-humor, his almost maniacal love of high-end teapots.

Oh Garrick, take away my worries of today.
And leave tomorrow be-hi-ind.

In an hour, Lydia and I have another rendezvous with Garrick (sigh), followed by meetings at both Rollerbowl and our local neighborhood Applebee's.

My next post may shed light on such things and will not spare the details of my Mesquite Grilled Chicken Supreme Pepper Jack Nachos Con Carne Deluxe, hold the onions, and how they relate to Gunther Kress and Scott McCloud.

I look forward to seeing you again with my text.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Is Literate Lives Readable?

Literate Lives in the Information Age: Narratives of Literacy from the United States by Cynthia L. Selfe and Gail E. Hawisher (Erlbaum, 259p.) is a strange kind of history book with a strange way of arguing.

Ostensibly, its project is to catalogue the oral histories of twenty computer users, analyze their different paths to proficiency, and come to some conclusions about the importance of what Selfe and Hawisher call “literacies of technology” (2). The authors’ stated goal is to “[trace] technological literacy as it has emerged over the last few decades within the United States” with a focus on “reading, writing, and [the exchange of] information in online environments, as well as the values associated with such practices—cultural, social, political, and educational” (2).


As they lay out their case studies in each chapter, however, they include general histories of the time periods in which their participants came of age, and targeted histories of computer technology, as well (they detail, in a typical chapter, Watergate, the emergence of Atari, and a particular person’s path through graduate school in the ’70s).

Selfe and Hawisher write, “[W]e hope to emphasize the importance of context—how particular historical periods, cultural milieus, and material conditions affected people’s acquisition of the literacies of technology” (7).



This braided structure, though, has the unintended effect of taking attention away from the subjects. And, the self-evident nature of the above quotation is indicative of the book’s mostly unchallenging way of arguing; the authors’ claim that circumstances affect the way people learn is as obvious as it is reiterated.

That said, many of the oral histories Selfe and Hawisher include are compelling. They attempt to give us a cross-section of computer users, including the stories of people from different generational, gender, race, and socioeconomic backgrounds.

The group of 20, though, are mostly writing instructors; their experiences attaining literacies of technology are almost uniformly positive, so the authors admit that their sample should not be seen as representative: “we quickly realized that only a limited number of people were willing to share detailed, and revealing, life-history narratives—especially in connection with technology use” (24).

The book, then, lingers on specific stories, but its arguments seem hamstrung by the fact that the oral histories are not emblematic. Selfe and Hawisher discount their own evidence and so can only argue what has already been proven.

The authors are involved in a very intriguing project, though, and should be forgiven for its necessary complications. The innovative feature of the book, for instance—its attempt at co-authorship with its own subjects—is both a pleasant surprise and a limitation.

They write, “[W]e also slowly came to the realization that the project we had undertaken was no longer our own. It belonged, as well, to the people we interviewed and surveyed—their words and their stories were continual reminders that they had claimed the intellectual ground of the project as their own” (13).

This allegiance to the subjects is admirable, but it reins in authorial voice, leaving some ideas uncommented on. Midway through the book, a woman tells that her daughters were harassed by someone they met in a chat room (103-104); the authors move on. Later, a woman mentions how her computer mentor died of AIDS; the authors move on:

“‘He was my best friend and he did die of AIDS a few years later.’ Thus, for Janice, her friend’s computer expertise in building a 386, ‘with a tiny hard drive,’ literally enabled her to own a working computer during this time” (176).

I asked myself during these moments if the collaborative process kept the authors from responding to what their participants were saying. Does collaborative writing dull personal response? Relatedly, does it keep our most provocative arguments at bay?





Clearly, the voices of the participants, and not the authors, are strongest here. But, despite the methodology, Selfe Hawisher do offer some welcome analysis and prescription.

In Chapter One, for instance, which “defines and exemplifies the definition of a cultural ecology and the role such a concept assumes in relation to people’s lives and their acquisition of digital literacies,” Selfe and Hawisher include stories that challenge our notions of contemporary literacy. The oral history of Damon Davis, a student who struggled in class but excelled at designing websites, gives us a taste of what they value. They write, “Damon chose not to subscribe [. . .] to the conventional print literacy values and practices” (54).

As I’ll detail later, subsequent chapters also draw a distinction between print literacy and literacies of technology; Selfe and Hawisher argue for an increased focus on the latter.

I should mention that Chapter One includes a particularly good capsule review of the 1980s as it seeks to contextualize the school experiences of those born in the late ’70s. In fact, most of the history included in the book is well-rendered, and the short inclusions of the history of computers read nicely and sometimes shock. Selfe and Hawisher write, “[S]ales in [the computer] industry went from $750 million in 1977 to $475 billion in 1983” (39).




These sections remind us of one of the goals of the book, stated in the introduction: “Before our cultural memory of this important time faded entirely, we wanted to document the period during which these machines first wove their way into, and altered, the fabric of our culture” (6). Certainly that statistic and the others they include force the reader to remember how recently computers were not at all ubiquitous.

In Chapter Two, Selfe and Hawisher include the stories of three women—Mary, Paula, and Karen—born in the 1960s, and remind us again of the radical changes that computers have made:

“We suspect that with this generation, for the first time in our history, literacy practices became inextricably and irrevocably tied to computers and one’s ability to make them work” In their words, “This chapter analyzes the importance of gender and class in shaping literacy values but also considers the critical choices people make in departing from common cultural expectations” (26).

The chapter explores the barriers the three women had to face in coming to the technologies of literacy. There is a focus on the fact that computers were not often used in schools, and Selfe and Hawisher highlight how even those whose educations preceded wide use of computers need to be trained: “If we define literacy as the power to enact change in the world, we cannot—must not—ignore the women, and men, who struggle to come to literacy in the information age” (82).

This provocative moment defines literacy differently than anywhere else in the book but gives us insight into the agenda of the authors. Literacy is activism, here. Technologies of literacy, certainly valued, are about agency outside of traditional ways of learning and communicating.

Chapter Three follows this agenda, introducing the idea of “technological gateways” (26). For the authors, these are progressive “sites and occasions for acquiring digital literacies but vary across people’s experiences and the times and circumstances in which they grew up” (26). The story of Carmen Vincent, a Native American woman whose long employment history brought her to increased computer literacy, allows Selfe and Hawisher to exhibit the ways in which “technological gateways” open unexpectedly.

They focus on barriers and, perhaps too easily, triumphs, writing, “[this case study] demonstrate[s] how racism and poverty, literacy and illiteracy, money and access to technology are linked in the complex cultural ecology that characterizes the United States of America—and how inventive individual people can be in shaping the conditions under which their access to technology can work most effectively” (107).

Chapter Four holds much of the same but does include a debate about the ways computers unify us versus the way they divide us. In one of the rare checks on the “computers are great” parade in this book, the authors include the skepticism of Tom Lugo, who says, “I hate—this is one reason why I don’t think I’ll ever use the Web for a lot of research—I hate just staring at the screen. I want to have something in my hands” (123).

Selfe and Hawisher, though, compare Tom to another woman, Melissa, writing, “Whereas Tom’s use of computers often signals to him that he is apart from people, Melissa participates enthusiastically in online worlds, constructing community and meaningful relations through written, online exchanges” (128). The authors seem to side with Melissa.

Later, they write of “the narrow bandwidth of the alphabetical” (208), indicting not only traditional print literacy, but words themselves (as opposed to the visual rhetoric Kress highlights). During this indictment, they champion online communication.

I see their point, but I’ve never experienced a webpage that has more cultural “bandwidth” than, say, Hamlet. To me, their argument that print literacy no longer appeals to students makes me wonder about shallow students not “narrow” words.



In the most interesting set of oral histories, three black women from the same family but of different generations describe their experiences with computers. Like in chapter four, things in the world of Chapter Five are not all rosy. The authors write, “Although these stories should, in an ideal world, outline a narrative of promise, of steadily improving conditions for the practice of literacy in general, and digital literacy, more specifically, they do not” (133).

The eldest relative never finished high school, and while her niece succeeded brilliantly in computer learning, he niece's daughter, Yolanda, attends a technologically unsatisfactory school in South Carolina. That fact allows the authors to foreshadow the following (tame) conclusion from Chapter Seven:

“[E]ducators, certainly those who teach English composition only in its more conventional forms, will need to change their attitudes about literacy in general, and they will need additional technology resources so that they can work more closely with students to learn about the new [. . .] media literacies [. . .]” (209).

The authors do well to include pertinent statistics about the struggles of rural schools, and the lack of training that many teachers suffer from. And they stress that the availability of computers does not cure a technology gap: “One reason that Yolanda’s English and language arts teachers have failed to provide her instruction in digital literacy could have to do with their own lack of professional development” (157).

The theme of Chapter Six is that, in Deboarah Brandt’s words, “Literacy is always in flux” (181). To illustrate this, Selfe and Hawisher include the stories of three women who came of age in the sixties. These stories help them to draw a parallel between movements of social change and revolutionary movements of literacy.

I need to mention that Brandt, Gunther Kress, and Paulo Freire (even though he is mentioned only once) are the dominant critical voices underneath the text. Brandt’s own oral histories—especially Literacy in American Lives—are models for this work; Kress’s focus on visual rhetoric strengthens the authors' ideas about the value of new media as compared to print literacy; and Freire’s philosophy of a decentralized classroom influences Chapter Seven: The Future of Literacy.

Selfe and Hawisher (let's call them Hawisher and Selfe for once) finally ask the big questions near the end of the book. Where are we going and How do we get there?:

“In the next decade what will the term literacy mean, especially within online environments? What new kinds of literacy practices will characterize those students now preparing to enter and graduate from our nation’s schools? How will these graduates communicate over the globally extended computer networks now distinguishing 21st century workplaces? And how will these networks continue to transform, or not, these graduates’ ordinary everyday literacy practices?” (183).

To answer these questions, the authors include the reflections of two writing instructors with advanced degrees and two incredibly gifted teenagers. Needless to say, these oral histories are not representative of common computer users; the fifteen-year old, Brittney, reports that she takes Spanish online, checks her stock portfolio, looks up word derivations, updates her school's website, and, on a slow day, writes a hagiography or two (194).

Clearly, Selfe and Hawisher want to show us the best of what can be done on the Internet if young people have the appropriate training. Their extreme examples of people with vast technological literacy in this final chapter help them foreground a kind of Utopia in which over-achievers plug their massive, pubescent brains into 34-inch Macs and shame the rest of us book-learners:

“[I]t is clear that [the participants of this chapter] consider the reading and composing skills they acquired informally in electronic environments—literacies marked by the kinesthetic, the visual, the navigational, the intercultural; by a robust combination of code, image, sound, animation, and words—to be far more compelling, far more germane to their future success than the more traditional literacy instruction they have received in school” (205).

This is the book's strongest point. But it troubles me. It undervalues a literacy—reading--marked by the imaginative. It suggests that without all stimulation, there is no stimulation. And it unrealistically relies on the example of an astoundingly bright student who has already mastered baseline literacies.

Certainly we have to value literacies of technology, but their valuation seems a bit wide-eyed, a bit reactionary. I, for one, jaundiced as I am, still find germane the jaundiced page of an old paper-back.

And that's why I need to learn, as Selfe and Hawisher suggest that all teachers need to learn from their technologically-adept students. They quote Freire to emphasize that point that writing instruction needs to stretch:

“[T]he teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-students with students-teachers. . .They become jointly responsible for a process in which all grow” (210).




Literate Lives, though badly bogged down by truisms, concludes thankfully with something more akin to Freire. Selfe and Hawisher move beyond their (oft-repeated) suggestions that race, class, and gender play a part in who we are to argue instead for nuanced teaching. Reminiscent of Dickie Selfe, they remind us that access to computers is not a cure-all, that “[t]he specific conditions of access have a substantial effect on the acquisition and development of digital literacy” (227).

And, drawing on their admittedly limited sampling of oral histories, they call passionately for teacherly awareness of digital literacies and, more importantly, awareness of “the increasingly complex global contexts within which these [. . .] literacies function” (232).

This is by no means a great book, but Selfe and Hawisher valuably ask us to remember how quickly computer technology has developed, how thrillingly it opens its gateways, and how, chillingly, those opportunities remain out of reach for so many.

Friday, October 17, 2008

Awesome

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Updated Proposal and Abstract.

That Dang Thing: Computer Literacy and the Elderly

Things have changed since, in 1999, M.J. Cody published “Silver Surfers: Training and Evaluating Internet Use among Older Adult Learners.” Recent figures suggest that computer use has risen to 25% among older populations; new discourse communities like seniorpeoplemeet.com have emerged; and Microsoft and other companies have launched programs to help seniors become technologically savvy.

My presentation will focus on these new developments, and on computer literacy among the elderly in the 21st Century, particularly among widows and widowers. As we might expect, research has shown that computer literacy can counteract loneliness and depression, and aid in the bereavement process. As Gatto and Tak write in their article “Computer, Internet, and E-mail Use Among Older Adults: Benefits and Barriers,” online activity often leads to “connectedness, satisfaction, utility, and positive learning experiences.” These feelings must be preceded by computer literacy, however, and despite advances the barriers to such literacy for elderly people are still numerous.

These barriers—“frustration, physical and mental limitations, mistrust, and time issues” (Gatto and Tak)—might be remedied, I argue, with some old-fashioned product placement; those seeking to help older users—especially widowed users—become active members of lively Internet exchange need only to look for ways to package their information in recognizable terms. I argue that medical professionals, local news sources, and church groups can be conduits of computer-education services, thereby combating computer illiteracy and mistrust of technology. Theirs are the organizations that engender trust, and they can be the proverbial spoons full of sugar that help the technological medicine go down.

To anchor my study of computer literacy—and to define what that term means for my particular context—I survey the scholarship of Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher as well as numerous works on senior studies and technology. I also explore websites geared toward helping the widowed. Analysis of sites like widowsorwidowers.com and the aforementioned seniorpeoplemeet.com provides an understanding of how seniors engage with the Internet. The benefit of such communities is apparent upon first glance; one user of seniorpeoplemeet.com reports, “I love this site!! It's so easy to use!! I'm not so shy anymore!” Accessibility of the kind noticed by that user should be repeated in browsers and applications, and those modifications will aid in the spread of computer literacy. On top of suggestions to combat mistrust, then, my presentation argues that practical changes will help seniors and the widowed to feel more comfortable on the Internet.
Many elders achieve computer literacy by ginger steps; the leaps I outline in my presentation, though, are integral to a feeling of connectedness that can bring folks toward a sense of solace, independence, and achievement.


This presentation focuses on developments in computer literacy among the elderly and the hindrances to that development, particularly among widows and widowers. Research has shown that computer literacy counteracts loneliness and depression, and aids in the bereavement process, but barriers for elderly people are still numerous. In this presentation I survey the work of literacy scholars Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher as well as numerous articles on senior studies to provide context for my assertions that supportive communities and web-design changes are necessary to encourage Internet use among a wider group of seniors. I look to sites like widowsorwidowers.com and seniorpeoplemeet.com as models for these design changes. Such discourse communities also provide an invaluable understanding of how seniors engage with the Internet and develop a feeling of connectedness online.

Abstract

This presentation focuses on developments in computer literacy among the elderly and the hindrances to that development, particularly among widows and widowers. Research has shown that computer literacy counteracts loneliness and depression, and aids in the bereavement process, but barriers for elderly people are still numerous. In this presentation I survey the work of literacy scholars Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher as well as numerous articles on senior studies to provide context for my assertions that supportive communities and web-design changes are necessary to encourage Internet use among a wider group of seniors. I look to sites like widowsorwidowers.com and seniorpeoplemeet.com as models for these design changes. Such discourse communities also provide an invaluable understanding of how seniors engage with the Internet and develop a feeling of connectedness online.

Monday, October 13, 2008

That Dang Thing: Computer Literacy and the Elderly

Things have changed since, in 1999, M.J. Cody published “Silver Surfers: Training and Evaluating Internet Use among Older Adult Learners.” Recent figures suggest that computer use has risen to 25% among older populations; new discourse communities like seniorpeoplemeet.com have emerged; and Microsoft and other companies have launched programs to help seniors become technologically savvy.
My presentation will focus on these new developments, and on computer literacy among the elderly in the 21st Century, particularly among widows and widowers. As we might expect, research has shown that computer literacy can counteract loneliness and depression, and aid in the bereavement process. As Gatto and Tak write in their article “Computer, Internet, and E-mail Use Among Older Adults: Benefits and Barriers,” online activity often leads to “connectedness, satisfaction, utility, and positive learning experiences.” These feelings must be preceded by computer literacy, however, and despite advances the barriers to such literacy for elderly people are still numerous.
These barriers—“frustration, physical and mental limitations, mistrust, and time issues” (Gatto and Tak)—might be remedied, I argue, with some old-fashioned product placement; those seeking to help older users—especially widowed users—become active members of lively Internet exchange need only to look for ways to package their information in recognizable terms. I argue that medical professionals, local news sources, and churches can be conduits of computer-education services, thereby combatting computer illiteracy and mistrust of technology. Theirs are the organizations that engender trust, and they can be the proverbial spoon full of sugar that helps the technological medicine go down.
To anchor my study of computer literacy, I survey the scholarship of Cynthia Selfe and Gail Hawisher as well as numerous works on senior studies and technology. I also explore websites geared toward helping the widowed. Analysis of sites like widowsorwidowers.com and the aforementioned seniorpeoplemeet.com provides an understanding of how seniors engage with the internet. The benefit of such communities is apparent upon first glance; one user of seniorpeoplemeet.com reports, “I love this site!! It's so easy to use!! I'm not so shy anymore!” Accessibility of the kind noticed by that user should be repeated in browsers and applications, and those modifications will inspire senior use. On top of suggestions to combat mistrust, then, my presentation argues that practical changes will help seniors and the widowed to feel more comfortable on the Internet.
Many elders achieve computer literacy by ginger steps; the leaps I outline in my presentation, though, are integral to a feeling of connectedness that can bring folks toward a sense of solace, independence, and achievement.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Paper Proposal Draft

That Dang Thing: Computer Literacy and the Elderly

My paper studies computer literacy among the elderly, especially among widows. Drawing on the book Older Americans and Computers by Bonny Bhattacharjee and the article “Older Computer-Literate Women: Their Motivations, Obstacles, and Paths to Success” by Rita L. Rosenthal, I question the motivations of some programs that seek to bring computer literacy to the elderly and offer suggestions that focus on familial, medical, local, and religious uses of the Internet for older users.
Recent figures suggest that computer use has risen to 25% among older populations (Gatto and Tak, “Computer, Internet, and E-mail Use Among Older Adults: Benefits and Barriers”); women are now using computers as much as men if not more, and confidence is on the rise. However, the poor, minorities, and widowers and widows often have little or no access, and little or no help attaining the skills they need. I focus on that last group because less research has been done on bereavement (loss of social grounding) as a barrier to computer literacy than on class and race concerns; I also have two widowed grandmothers who are sporadic computer users, and I wanted to better understand their particular connections to the Internet.
As we might expect, studies have shown that computer use can counteract loneliness and depression, aid in the bereavement process, and help elders attain health information. As Gatto and Tak write, use often leads to a feeling of “connectedness, satisfaction, utility, and positive learning experiences.” These feelings must be preceded by computer literacy, however, and the barriers to such literacy for elderly people are numerous.
What my paper focuses on primarily are those barriers Gatto and Tak identify: “frustration, physical and mental limitations, mistrust, and time issues.” Mistrust is of particular interest here because it points to an education problem, a problem, for widows and widowers, that is exacerbated by newfound individuality. It might be remedied, I argue, with creativity, patience, and some old-fashioned product placement; those seeking to help older users become active members of lively Internet exchange need only to look for ways to package their information in recognizable terms. I argue that families of the elderly, medical professionals, local news sources, and churches should promote computer-education services to combat computer illiteracy and mistrust of technology. These are the organizations that engender trust and can be the proverbial spoon full of sugar that helps the medicine of computer lessons go down.
Using S. Fox's Older Americans and the Internet and M. Hilt's and H.J. Lipschultz's “Elderly
Americans and the Internet: Email, TV, Information and Entertainment Websites,” I offer user-friend solutions to the frustration problem, as well. Perhaps most importantly, though, I lobby for computer applications that cater directly to the needs of those who are easily alienated by information overload.
Many elders achieve computer literacy by ginger steps; these steps, though, are integral to a feeling of connectedness and can bring folks toward a sense of independence and achievement.

Additional Banks/DMAC question

Banks writes the following which I think connects to the DMAC video: “The construction of Black people and other people of color as non-technological and therefore irrelevant in the design and construction of technological tools continues even into the era of the Internet, even as those selling new technologies are quick to market a world of multicultural possibility”

“If things like the authentic trope can be disrupted resisted or remixed into demi-humorous animated arguments or quasi-academic pieces of new media that remixes those terribly sneaky and tacit racist tropes easily by relying on the very foundation of new parataxis like structures and the importance of delivery and remixing, great ok I’m all onboard Macs and flip cameras for everybody.
If on the other hand new media is used to replicate the same racist tropes in new dynamic ways, well bollocks to that. If we use new media to replicate old designs of oppression and undervalue what people bring to the table by opening up institutional space just wide enough to get new toys but do not go about actively sharing those toys or reproduce racist tropes like the ones described here then I have had enough of authentic to last the rest of my life. I don’t need a new way to see it and I can resist those things like I’ve always resisted and other racist technologies that were rammed down my throat, like graduate admission forms that made me put down only one ethnicity or English-only education.”

I think both of these points are argued with strong rhetoric, but I need more convincing examples of technological racism than graduate admission forms in order to really see their points. Can anyone help?

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Further Discussion of Banks and Blackmon

I want to draw our attention to some key passages in the articles we read for today. I didn't much discuss the main thrust of Blackmon's article in my post, but her argument about technology in the classroom and finding a comfortable space online connects directly to my thoughts.

She writes that her students have often reported feeling a “virtual loss of cultural affiliation” (96) when using technology. She continues:
"The course that I have described here originated from my reaction to a student survey which revealed to me that African-American students in one of my classes felt alienated by technology and cyberspace. Even more important than their fear of technology, some of them seemed to feel that there is some kind of conspiracy that keeps them in their marginalized positions in cyberspace in much the same way that minorities have traditionally and historically been oppressed [. . .]" (100).


Though her narrative of classroom success seems a bit rosy, she details ways in which “students shared stories about online comfort zones as places where they could discuss those things that they were too afraid or ashamed to discuss in the real world” (95). I see this as a 99% positive thing, but 1% of myself wonders if the problems identified online are being addressed in the real world that often ignores them?

I've long felt that InstantMessaging communication, for instance, allows people to say things they would never say in real life. Users thereby (sometimes) create disingenuous, cyberally-inebriated personas that don't always translate in face-to-face (skin-to-skin) relationships. Thoughts?

Speaking honestly of honesty, I need to include a bit of Banks's thought on censorship. He uses the term in a broad way, meaning in the following that entire languages are censored and devalued. He sees Blackplanet working against that (capital C) censorship:
“Black participation on the Website also begins to show the ways cyberspace can serve as a cultural underground that counters the surveillance and censorship that always seem to accompany the presence of African Americans speaking, writing, and designing in more public spaces—spaces that seem to consistently say to them that no matter what traditions they might bring to the classroom, the workplace, or to technologies—these spaces (and the written English that accompanies them) are, and will continue to be White by definition” (69).

Curiously, Blackplanet is itself heavily censored. If my experience on the website tells me anything, it's that a big part of orality--cursing--is certaily curbed on BP. Many, many users write "a ss," "shyt," et al. to get around this. That said, Banks's point about censorship writ large is still well taken.

He also writes that "[t]here are no parts of the planet that are inaccessible because they are too far from home, or reachable only by way of endless rides on convoluted, barrier-maintaining bus systems." This use of a recognizable city-planing metaphor suggests that the internet helps us transcend physical limitations (Blackmon, though, goes so far as to question whether the internet reinscribes "ghettos" (95-96)).

Banks, too, has his cynicism about technology. He writes, “The construction of Black people and other people of color as non-technological and therefore irrelevant in the design and construction of technological tools continues even into the era of the Internet, even as those selling new technologies are quick to market a world of multicultural possibility” (72).

While Blackmon identifies the problem that constructing oneself as technological often means implicitly constructing a white persona, Banks points out the above problem and calls for internet spaces that foster oft-devalued expression. Authentic expression.

Of course, the DMAC video questions the whole concept of authenticity. We'll watch it in class and formulate a collective response, dig?

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

I Emerge! I am. Primordial goo. . .

drips off my limbs, and out the stew I rise toward beach and branch and blogosphere. More to come perhaps. First, shelter, roasted meats, and a code of laws.