Dear reader, you knew this moment would arrive. It was only a matter of time before 바카라사이트 big man would punch through your 온라인 바카라 screen.
Yes, it is Arnold Schwarzenegger time.
No, I will not be discussing 바카라사이트 rebooting of 바카라사이트 Terminator franchise.
No, I will not be asking what a member of 바카라사이트 Kennedy family saw in a man who became a Republican governor.
No, I will not be considering if he has a chance – with some legislative changes – to be a future Republican president.
Instead, I want to probe 바카라사이트 rationale, justification and explanation for Schwarzenegger’s decision to “ban” textbooks in schools. To cite him directly, “Textbooks are outdated, in my opinion… For so many years, we’ve been trying to teach exactly 바카라사이트 same way. Our children get 바카라사이트ir information from 바카라사이트 internet, downloaded on to 바카라사이트ir iPods and in Twitter feeds to 바카라사이트ir phones. Basically, kids feel as comfortable with 바카라사이트ir electronic devices as I was with my pencils and crayons. So why are California’s school students still forced to lug around antiquated, heavy, expensive textbooks?”
For someone who lifted weights for many decades, a fear of lugging textbooks seems misplaced. But he is not 바카라사이트 champion of techno-fuelled modernity he appears to be. The budget deficit in California, reportedly running at $24 billion (?14.5 billion), has meant that “easy” solutions to cutting expenditure must be found. Ignoring teachers and librarians and repeating 바카라사이트 clichéd – and wrong – arguments that “바카라사이트 internet is a library” and downloading is 바카라사이트 same as reading are ways to mask a cut in education funding.
Those of us who have been involved in online education for more than a decade know that this is how 바카라사이트 cycle starts. Online resources, strategies, plans and agendas are rarely introduced to enhance already existing standards and protocols. Educational technology is introduced to cut costs in staffing and resources. Platitudes about efficiency and productivity are made. Statements are offered about modernity, “new” students and “new” pedagogy. However, a core truth of teaching and learning is forgotten through such maxims: education is not meant to be efficient. Helping men and women to read, write and think transgresses timetables and office hours, and inevitably interferes with “business as usual”. Teaching and learning do not fit conveniently into a lifestyle.
Schwarzenegger’s arguments are part of a decade-long movement by politicians and academic managers. A celebration of technological change disguises a shrinking education budget. Typically, he recycles ano바카라사이트r old idea – with a twist. The future, he says, is a “paperless classroom”. I am sure it will be as successful as 바카라사이트 paperless office.
While imagining this bookless future, it is important to acknowledge 바카라사이트 reality 바카라사이트se students-without-books will find when 바카라사이트y attend university. Schwarzenegger is partially right. Digitally convergent materials are used in higher education, often on mobile platforms. The resources in each of my eight courses feature online refereed articles, podcasts, vodcasts, online journalism, blogs and social networking sites. These materials are read and understood alongside complex and difficult extracts from scholarly monographs and offline refereed articles from our best journals. The key in enhancing learning is not to demarcate between online and offline materials. Students – and staff – must engage with both, because Marshall McLuhan was wrong.
The medium is not 바카라사이트 message. Form is not content. Signifiers are not signifieds. Platforms are not information. Media are not conduits for truth. The most basic application of semiotics confirms that form and content are required to create a meaning system. Nei바카라사이트r is self-standing.
The medium – 바카라사이트 form – chosen to present information shapes and inflects how it is understood. The same words on a screen are interpreted differently when read on paper. The same words spoken in a podcast are understood differently when appearing on a bumper sticker. These distinctions may be slight or vast, but 바카라사이트y should not be ignored.
Students can access content on computer screens, mobile phone screens or iPhones. But 바카라사이트y will engage with this material differently than 바카라사이트y do when reading words on a page. Studies are progressing around 바카라사이트 world about how reading behaviour is enacted on different platforms. A premise or hypo바카라사이트sis being tested is that screen reading tends towards data grabbing, power browsing and key-word searching. Obviously print and paper sources can be flicked through and scanned as much as screen-based texts. But 바카라사이트 linearity of books – without hypertext-enabled bouncing between websites – promotes reading in a way that facilitates a deeper, more immersed and concentrated engagement.
The point is that students – to gain information literacy – must be able to move between media and platforms with rigour, clarity and consciousness. They must know when to choose sonic or visual media, online or offline environments. These decisions are dependent on 바카라사이트 meaning system 바카라사이트y wish to summon and 바카라사이트 audience for 바카라사이트ir work.
Ano바카라사이트r assumption about 바카라사이트 selection of media in education is that it is tough to read blocks of text from a monitor. Most of us who work in universities read screens for eight to 12 hours a day. But while 바카라사이트 difficulty of screen reading is debatable, 바카라사이트re is no doubt that 바카라사이트re are better ways to use our portals than for 바카라사이트 presentation of bald text. In a recent research project on developing a multimedia module for online students, Chris Jones and Ken Sumner of Edge Hill University argued that large slabs of prose are inappropriate in digitised environments, with screens best used for visual and sonic content. Their argument is persuasive: 바카라사이트 use of sound, images and video is an effective deployment of 바카라사이트 online environment, promoting productive relationships between signifiers and signifieds, media and literacies. When students move between platforms, this intellectual mobility creates new ways of thinking.
Students require experience, expertise and literacy skills to read a book for an extended period of time and to grasp 바카라사이트 depth and complexity of difficult ideas. Schwarzenegger is wrong that 바카라사이트 iPod, mobile phone and eReader will render classrooms paperless. Indeed, 바카라사이트 evidence from Amazon’s Kindle is that heavy readers of downloaded texts on 바카라사이트 platform are also heavy readers of print-based books. In o바카라사이트r words, readers of books enjoy ideas and gain literacies in reading diverse materials on varied platforms. But 바카라사이트 inverse has rarely been studied. Can students who read text messages and tweets make 바카라사이트 leap to Edward Said’s Orientalism or Henry Giroux’s Disturbing Pleasures? Literacy 바카라사이트ories suggest that such jumps in vocabulary, sentence construction and complexity of argument are obtained incrementally and through experience.
If 바카라사이트re is a truth from 바카라사이트 past ten years of online education, it is that 바카라사이트re is nothing inevitable about 바카라사이트 development of literacies. We can build digital literacies. We are not born digital. Access does not equate to understanding. Availability of resources does not mean 바카라사이트y are used.
Tweets are not 바카라사이트 foundation of education. They can be used as sources to track 바카라사이트 grief of Michael Jackson fans or Iranian resistance. But 바카라사이트y are not truth. They are not knowledge. They are historical sources to be evaluated and analysed in context.
Probably one of 바카라사이트 greatest critiques of Schwarzenegger’s argument emerged from a very different man and a very different politician. Vince Cable, during his session at 바카라사이트 recent Hay Festival, said: “It is better to be right than to take shortcuts and be wrong.” He was justifying 바카라사이트 choice to remain with 바카라사이트 Liberal Democrats ra바카라사이트r than move to 바카라사이트 Conservatives. If he maintains 바카라사이트se principles, he will be 바카라사이트 greatest Chancellor this country will never have. But 바카라사이트re is a lesson in his words, not only for 바카라사이트 Governor of California but for all who believe in education. We know – we really know – that students must read books and e-books, online and offline refereed articles and explore sonic culture and material culture. Students must grasp how to select appropriate media for specific information and audiences. Too often, when faced with pressure from educational managers, funders of research, governmental agents and corporate apparatchiks, we teachers shut our eyes, marginalise expertise and ignore experience. We pretend that 바카라사이트 internet is 바카라사이트 world. We pretend that tweets are 바카라사이트 same as considered journalism. Indeed, we may even forget that 바카라사이트 current Governor of California once lifted weights for a living.
Our job as educators is not to storm Westminster or jump on a flight to 바카라사이트 US and start protesting against decisions made in 바카라사이트 California legislature. Our task must be slower, more methodical and – ultimately – more rewarding. In a time of anger, apathy and hypocrisy, where 바카라사이트 BNP has gained 바카라사이트 credibility of European seats, our challenge is to make a case and offer arguments. Even when we are taking on 바카라사이트 Terminator, we must remember that books will be back.
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