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My Professional Writing Papers

Technical Writing ·  Exposition & Argumentation ·  Non-fiction Creative Essays ·  Grammar and Usage of Standard English ·  The Structure of English ·  Analysis of Shakespeare

Analysis of Literary Language ·  Advanced Professional Papers ·  The History of the English Language ·  First Internship: Tutoring in a Writing Workshop ·  Second Internship: Advanced Instruction: Tutoring Writing

Theories of Communication & Technology (A Second Course in Methodology) ·  Language in Society (A Third Course in Methodology) ·  The Writer's Guild

Journalism

UMBC'S Conservative Newspaper: "The Retriever's Right Eye" ·  UMBC'S University Newspaper: "The Retriever Weekly" ·  Introduction to Journalism ·  Feature Writing ·  Science Writing Papers

Visual Literacy Seminar (A First Course in Methodology)

Visual Literacy Paper 1 ·  Visual Literacy Paper 2 ·  Visual Literacy Paper 3 ·  Visual Literacy Paper 4

Presentation of Lohr Chapter 5 ·  Presentation of LDW's Chapters 7 and 8 ·  Presentation of Kress Chapters 1, 2, and 3

Weekly Web Log Journal ·  Hurricane Katrina Personal Journal

Visual Literacy Weekly Web Log Journals

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to reading chapters 1 through 4 in Literacy in a Digital World, by Kathleen Tyner, (1998), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers Mahwah, New Jersey.

Respond to the following questions and statements:
How do you define literacy?
         I define "literacy" as any information taken in with the five senses that the human mind can process into knowledge. The information may be in the form of a monologue, dialogue, an argument, graphs, charts, tables, diagrams, flow charts, sketches, drawings, sculpture, prototypes, mathematics, formulas, mathematical proofs, logic proofs, sound bites, images... practically anything that may deemed as information then, taking that information and processing it into knowledge.

What is Plato's dilemma and how does it relate to a core understanding of literacy? (Refers to the reading of Chapter 2)
         Plato wrote many arguments and created many dilemmas. When one performs a web search, we find there were many dilemmas in Plato's writings. First let's establish which of his dilemmas we are discussing.

         Plato's literacy dilemma is the question of whether or not the transition from an oral culture to a written culture was more liberating than it was a form of social control.

         According to K. Tyner in her book "Literacy in a Digital World," she cites literary scholar J. P. Gee (1991) who said, "Plato as a student of Socrates, (of course this impossible because Plato and Socrates lived hundreds of years apart, so therefore Plato was studying the arguments of Socrates with the aid of completely different teacher) charged that writing was inferior to speech in the sense that writing is neither immediate, spontaneous, or interactive enough to stand up to the question: 'What do you mean?' Gee (1991) explained:" (Tyner, 21)

"Such a request forces the speaker to 're-say' ... what he or she means. In the process he sees more deeply what he means and responds to the perspective of another voice/viewpoint...writing can only respond to the question, "what do you mean?", by repeating what the text has said."

This is Plato's literary dilemma.

         I disagree with the statement that writing merely repeats itself when responding to the question "What do you mean?" When one reads the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, he will explain a point, in text, so many different ways that one reader may comprehend the premise the first time, another reader may comprehend the premise on the second explanation, yet another reader on the third, and so on. The problem with Sartre's writing style is when the reader finally gets the point, Sartre continues through "n" iterations of the same point in different words creating verbal diarrhea.

         According to Tyner, Gee saw "Plato's Dilemma" as the crossroads where literacy for personal freedom and literacy for social control meet:

"In Plato, we see two sides to literacy: literacy as a liberator and literacy as a weapon. Plato wants to ensure that a voice behind the spoken or written 'text' can dialogically respond, but he also wants to ensure that this voice is not overridden by respondents who are careless, ignorant, lazy, self-interested, or ignoble."

This is the true literary dilemma.

         A literate person can use media (Internet, radio, television, film, sound bites, text, dialogue, monologue...) to manipulate others to agree with their biases and agendas. The illiterate person cannot see through this and takes in the information at face value.

         As an example, a newspaper recently published images of people carrying packages after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. One photograph showed two "white" people walking along with packages with the caption, "Hurricane survivors carrying provisions." The other photograph showed two "black" people walking along with packages with the caption, "Hurricane survivors looting local shops." The purpose was quite obvious to the literate person. The particular newspaper was attempting to fuel "racial hatred." The illiterate person would scan the images and form the opinion that "only blacks are looting."

         The literate person understands how another literate person may use media to sway one towards their opinion thereby manipulating the audience's mind. Therefore, the literate person does not take in the information at face value but interprets the information and creates their own knowledge.

         Scientists are less interested in the text explaining another scientist's findings. Scientists are more interested in the raw data: graphs, charts, tables, etc, because they have the literacy to read such data and prefer the raw data in order to arrive at their own conclusions and their own knowledge.

V. Tasch's 09/09/2005 journal entry:
         In its broadest sense, literacy is knowledge. Most basically, literacy is knowledge of reading and writing-whether it is in the form of pen & paper, sign language, and/or computers. It is, furthermore, the ability to understand and make sense of a given form of communication. After all, one who cannot read or write is quickly labeled illiterate-a major social taboo. Taking it a step further, literacy can also be knowledge in a given field. For example, one who is literate in the sciences will have an entirely different lexicon and means of communication than one who is literate in the arts. Furthermore, literacy, in my opinion, involves much more than the written word; it encompasses the culture of a language. For example, as an Israeli, I wonder if one can achieve true literacy of the Hebrew Language without knowledge of the Israeli culture. In other words, are language and culture mutually exclusive? While I understand that being able to read and to write Hebrew does not technically require cultural knowledge, I believe that true literacy calls for more than phonics and syntax. Language, and thus literacy, cannot be taught or completing understood in a vacuum.

         Plato’s Dilemma refers to Plato’s condemnation of the “technological” shift from speech to writing. According to Plato, written texts lack the authenticity and naturalness of active, unprompted oral discussions. When engaged in a conversation, one has the ability and often faces the need to re-state his/her points, to include additional details, and/or to clarify ideas in order to cater to his/her audience and to ensure that the speaker’s proper message is conveyed. The author of a written text does not have this luxury, as s/he is not privy to the audience’s specific questions and/or misunderstandings. In other words, according to Plato, written texts are like one-sided conversations-ones that lack the richness of real-time reactions and uncensored responses. Another interesting piece to Plato’s Dilemma is that spoken texts enable the author (or the voice) to control his/her audience-to ensure, in his case, that the audience remains privileged and elite, as Plato did not want members of the lower and bourgeoisie classes (those who presumably could not understand his philosophies) to serve as his audience.

         As noted in the textbook, it is interesting that Plato seemed to be ahead of his time, as this similar lack of engagement and even thought was taken to a new extreme with the invention of the television, for example. In fact, with every technological advancement, some aspect of literacy is lost-or at least redefined. Just as Plato feared the loss of personal connection and contact with a shift from speech to writing, even more has been lost (and admittedly gained) as society introduced telephones, computers, fax machines, etc.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to V. Tasch's journal entry:
         I agree that "literacy is knowledge of reading and writing-whether it is in the form of pen & paper, sign language, and/or computers," would be the most basic form of literacy. Further enhancing the definition, "the ability to understand and make sense of a given form of communication." A given form is an excellent choice of words for obviously there are more forms of communication than just reading and writing. Forms that I left out of my definition could be x-rays, MRI scans, CAT scans, spreadsheets, financial sheets, stock reports, or even semaphore flags, the Aldus lamp, telegraph, or even smoke signals. All of which are arcane forms of communication. Obviously there are many forms of literacy and communication.

         Tasch said, "I wonder if one can achieve true literacy of the Hebrew Language without knowledge of the Israeli culture. In other words, are language and culture mutually exclusive?" I would say that they are not mutually exclusive and that the only way one really learns a language, any language is not only to write it and speak it, but immerse themselves into the culture of that particular language. Tasch continued saying, "I believe that true literacy calls for more than phonics and syntax. Language, and thus literacy, cannot be taught or completing understood in a vacuum." I totally agree. One cannot understand the language as a communication tool unless one is exposed to the culture and attempts to carry on dialogues in the language.

         "According to Plato, written texts are like one-sided conversations-ones that lack the richness of real-time reactions and uncensored responses," Tasch said. Which is somewhat true, but also false for in modern writing, especially Philosophy, most writers are aware of this shortcoming of writing. In order to reduce this problem, good writers have a critical voice that they internally dialogue with. As they read what they have written, they place themselves in the position of the reader and begin to ask questions about what they are reading. The writer then goes back and fills in those blanks. In the case of an argument, a good argument not only considers the position being argued for but also considers the opposing viewpoint and writes out the opposing side of the argument. Of course this was not true for Socrates or Plato because they believed that the only way they could arrive at the truth to anything was through the exercise of an oral dialogue.

         Tasch said, “with every technological advancement, some aspect of literacy is lost-or at least redefined.” Interesting to note that Tasch caught himself, as literacy is not necessarily lost but simply changes form much like that of energy. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, but merely changes form. In every change there is a loss, but in the change we also stand to gain in another form of energy or literacy. “Just as Plato feared the loss of personal connection and contact with a shift from speech to writing, even more has been lost (and admittedly gained) as society introduced telephones, computers, fax machines…” said Tasch. The telephone is an interesting piece of technology that enforces the fact that there will always be a need for two-way dialogue because it is instantaneous. Case in point is trying to set up a schedule for two people to meet. This is something that is more easily done by telephone than by email because the responses are immediate.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to reading chapters 1 through 6 in Literacy in a Digital World, by Kathleen Tyner, (1998), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers Mahwah, New Jersey.

Respond to the following questions and statements:
Compare and contrast Cloister Academy and Relevant Academy
         I did not find the terms Cloister Academy or Relevant Academy defined anywhere in the reading. I am intend to form my own definitions of these terms from what I have read and from life experience in order to compare and contrast and then synthesize the knowledge into how it relates to different approaches to learning.

         The word cloistered or cloister conjures images of monasteries of the Middle Ages. A cloister is an architectural structure surrounding a cathedral or abbey. Holy men and women referred to as monks and nuns respectively led a cloisteral life. Cloisters were self-contained and self-sufficient. They were isolated islands. The monks and nuns grew their own food, made their own clothes, and performed all the duties necessary for substance for the entire cloister or community; themselves. When not observing religious rituals or praying, monks read and transcribed books.

         During the Middle Ages monks were the gatekeepers of knowledge. Monks were the only people in society who could read and write. Being able to read and write are the abilities we hold as being traditional literacy. Cloisters were Churches of Reason.

         In our modern concept of the University the concept of the cloister carries over. The university itself is a self-contained system that has many colleges or cloisters. Each college is an island of knowledge upon itself and self-contained in the knowledge it contains and generates. As an example, the science and discipline of biology is only concerned with the science of living things. The science of physics is only concerned with how the physical world works. Biology doesn’t consult physics in it’s findings and physics does not consult biology in its findings. The problem is that biological things live in a physical world and the physical world contains biological things. This subtle fact is ignored. It becomes an isolated way of thinking and learning. This approach of learning and analysis has been dictated from western science and western philosophy.

         Western science believes the answer may be found by taking something like a dog and drilling down further and further, breaking down the dog into logical components; the skeletal system, the nervous system, organs, cells, genes, DNA, amino acids, atoms, electrons, neutrons, protons, down to quarks and beyond. Western science and education drills down to smaller and smaller components until the fact that we were analyzing a dog is completely forgotten. The cloistered academy holds dear the philosophy that the root to the construction of knowledge is the ability to read (input) the written word, absorb it, comprehend it (process through the electrical synapses of the brain), then demonstrate the information was understood by applying it. The way one demonstrates that the information was understood is through the use of language, by writing out how that information (output) and applying it to new phenomenon (knowledge). This is the most basic form of literacy and only applies two of the human senses; sight and touch. We apply sight in order to input the information presented in the written word (reading) and then output new information on paper with a writing instrument or computer screen through vision and keyboarding (touch).

         The word relevant is defined as bearing reference to the matter at hand. The matter at hand usually encompasses of more than just one human sense, say vision. Other senses that must be considered in perceiving would be touch or feeling, hearing, or smells associated with the matter and interaction with the matter (stimuli). The relevant academy crosses over the approach of western science and utilizes the philosophy of eastern science. Eastern science sees the dog as a whole that interacts with the rest of its environment and that the environment interacts with the dog. The dog is not an island upon itself but part of an entire system and acts accordingly to the system within it resides.

         The relevant academy is interdisciplinary and crosses over into and considers interaction with other disciplines. Technology is a poor example to use because of its constant change but is the best way to explain interdisciplinary.

         Computer science is concerned with the computer box or CPU (central processing unit). Computer scientists are more concerned with the optimization of how the software and hardware are used and less with how the humans will utilize the computer in deriving knowledge. Typically a computer scientist will write a program that is very efficient in utilizing the resources of the computer hardware. The computer scientist looses sight that the computer is used by a human being, say a sociologist who has no understanding of the intricacies of the computer and only wants to use the computer as an efficient tool to manipulate data in order to produce knowledge. Typically the computer scientist develops a GUI (graphical user interface) or buffer between the computer and the user that only he or she alone understands.

         The information technologist understand how the computer functions within the box but also understands how to communicate with users (people) to design systems that allow the user to interact with the computer and obtain results. The information technologist has to take into account that there are more than one way to input and output data in order to arrive at knowledge. The information technologist has to understand how people want to use the system and how they want to receive that information. In order to do this, information technologists have to be able to interact with people and cross over into other disciplines of knowledge.

         The computer scientist is a specialist as with the biologist, the physicist, the sociologist and others. The information technologist is the generalist and must be able to see the whole or the big picture (the dog) and also comprehend the specialists (the DNA).

         The relevant academy is a modern approach to learning combining two totally different and opposing views of science and knowledge as a whole. The relevant academy melds the philosophies of western science and eastern science integrating them as a whole. Both sciences are correct in their approach but must be merged in order to generate a fuller understanding of the whole, i.e. the DNA resides in a universe. Therefore the relevant academy is a holistic approach.

         An excellent comparison to the approach to learning through the cloistered academy and the relevant academy is to examine the instruction of say ENGL303 The Art of the Creative Nonfiction Essay and ENGL383 Science Writing and ENGL488 Visual Literacy.

         ENGL303 uses the traditional approach to learning. The student reads (input) and writes (output). Instructions are delegated through language, either handouts, chalkboard, or the assigned text. The student then creates essays from the mind in written language and conveys knowledge by writing out thoughts. It’s a traditional approach to learning and one that most students are familiar with.

         ENGL383 and ENGL488 become more difficult because the approach is that of the relevant academy. This is not to say that the approach is wrong or a bad thing, it’s just a different approach. As with all new things, being accustomed to learning one way, the cloistered academy approach to learning, there is an associated leaning curve with learning a new and different approach to learning integrating modern technologies available. The adult learner is accustomed to a cloistered approach to learning, which makes accepting the relevant approach to learning difficult to become accustomed to. It means that the adult learner must come to accept input and output in different forms. The adult learner perceives the approach as information overload because they are not accustomed to taking in so much information in so many various forms.

         The new learner, K-12, especially in the lower grades, has a more pliable mind and will readily accept the relevant academy approach to learning because they have no familiarity with any particular learning philosophy. Therefore they will more readily accept information through more than the senses of vision and touch. In other words, they are more accepting of the idea of multitasking; writing on a computer screen, listening to a lecture, researching on the Internet, and consulting with their neighbor as to what they are doing (knowledge by consulting a warm body.) or collaborating (interdisciplinary because the consular’s experiences and knowledge will not be the same as the experiences and knowledge of the consultee)

         Which is a better approach to learning? Neither, both have their own intrinsic value in their own right. As more data is collected as to which approach works best for leaning a particular body of information will determine which approach will be used for the subject matter at hand.

         Mathematics typically is taught through the use of textbooks, reading, writing, practice, pencil and paper and chalk and the chalkboard. Computer programs become useful in areas such a numerical analysis and statistics where tremendous amounts of data must be analyzed that by hand become tedious and with the nature of tedious tasks comes the problem of error. The computer also becomes helpful in mathematics in trying to visualize information in three dimensions and beyond. In other words, because mathematics is inherently symbolic it becomes difficult for the untrained mind to visualize the meaning of an equation or function. Case in point is the visualization of functions in calculus one and three.

         The concept that an equation creates a washer or disk rotated about the x or y-axis is an abstract concept that only becomes concrete when one is shown how the equation translates into a graphical image. Dr. Murray, Ph.D. in Mathematics once said, “It has been said ‘A picture is worth a thousand words.’ Well maybe not a ‘thousand’ but at least a couple of hundred!” More difficult to visualize are equations that create “maps” usually something that looks like a mountain range or the geological surface of the earth. Who would think that equations in thermodynamics and internal combustion engine theory are best understood by using a computer to convert the equation into a graphical image (a visual). We didn’t and we don’t, that is, until the invention of the computer with a GUI. Before only people who could think abstractly and visualize in their minds could “see” such visions. Now, with the computer, computer scientists and their explorations into the field of algorithms anyone can input an equation into a math software package like Matlab and receive a visual image as to what the mathematical equation represents.

         Instruction such as the critical analysis of the news media will have to be taught through the use of many forms of input and output that will be less traditional. Science is not concerned with how something will be used. The concern of science is why something occurs. Therefore there are many fields of mathematics which remain as islands of theory. As an example, Poincare’s development of chaos theory between 1900 and 1910 which had no value until the advent of computers is being carefully explored and expanded with the use of computers to determine if technology can eventually apply it. It is the job of technology to take the discoveries of science and apply it. Technology changes within itself and changes with science. As science matures, technology matures and as technology matures, science matures. Hence education theory will mature with the maturation of technology and technology will mature education theory.

N. Cosentino's journal entry response to the same readings:
         There are major differences between the cloistered academy and relevant university theories, the differences I have in fact witnessed first hand. I believe that it was in my generation that the transition from traditional learning/teaching approaches began to take new shape. Without making this too personal a response, let me just say that in my early years of schooling information was presented differently than it has been the past eight years. The main difference to me is that traditional teaching methods, cloistered academy, presented information and held the student accountable for interpretation. I remember being asked more often “what I thought” of a particular subject, how the discussion of the topic was flawed, etc. Meyrowitz says that traditional education does not expect students to “emerge with uniform information, but with sharpened reasoning, critical skills, and the knowledge of how to develop new knowledge.” In addition to this, the cloistered academy focuses o the quality of information being sent and received from students rather than quality. I believe that this is something that we have steered away from with modern education and needs to be re-implemented.

         The relevant university theory on the other hand does not engage students the way traditional education does. This form of teaching does not develop students analytical abilities by requiring them to interpret the information presented to them. Instead the information presented is the interpretation and there is no room for debate. The reading says it more effectively by saying “teachers become anonymous and authoritative “experts,” so do students become passive receivers of approved information.” The book also describes relevant university as offering “access to packaged education to vast numbers of people…” Moreover, modern teaching methods also focus on quantity rather than quality. The faster information in transmitted to students the better, which I find very problematic from experience. Overall I think that the idea of relevant university teaching methods are problematic. Students are not taught to comprehend and analyze information for themselves, which is an important skill which traditional teaching methods address. In addition, education should be entirely about quality, not quantity. Throughout my schooling I have always been in accelerated learning programs. Much like relevant university methods, these programs did not offer improvements in the quality of my education but instead focused primarily on the quantity of work completed. I think that traditional teaching methods could be infused with modern methods to create an innovative teaching style that would be beneficial to students. With the creation of new technologies, teaching methods must change anyway.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to N. Costellino's journal entry:
         From a personal account I have had some nontraditional experiences in my high school education. Most of my education from kindergarten to twelfth grade was of the cloistered method of teaching. On occasion we watched slide presentations or 8mm films in history and in health education. On the nontraditional portion in health class we were left to our own devises to generate educational instruction for the purpose of creating visual media as a form of teaching and to increase our presentation skills, not that I knew this was the exercise at the time.

         I was a part of the suburban drug culture influence at the time (1974). Within my group two of us, myself and a friend were photographers. We created visual scenes of drug culture and drugs themselves creating a pre-MTV presentation with archaic methods of visual and audio (multimedia) with a Kodachrome film slide projector and the cassette tape recorder. We utilized the drug culture music (White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane, Purple Haze by Jimmi Hendrix, All Along the Watch Tower by Jimmi Hendrix, etc.) of the time placed on the tape and voice clips of interactions and conversations of the people on the film while also orally filling in on narration. Our presentation contained an anti-drug message.

         My other experience with nontraditional learning at this early time period was in seventh grade math class (1970). Mr. Bergen was a mathematician and computer scientist. He was considered brilliant other instructors. At the time we could not see the method to the madness. Once a month or something like that a group of us were placed in cubicles with a tape recorder and a plastic football with a portion of it cut out, connected to a microphone. Okay it’s already out there but hang on. We would turn on the recorder and speak into the microphone, which was meant to mask out audio interference from the other students who were also dictating into the recorders. We were instructed to take our textbooks turn to an assigned page and then character by character dictate lines of mathematical proofs into the recorder.

         My other experience with nontraditional learning at this early time period was in seventh grade math class (1970). Mr. Bergen was a mathematician and computer scientist. He was considered brilliant other instructors. At the time we could not see the method to the madness. Once a month or something like that a group of us were placed in cubicles with a tape recorder and a plastic football with a portion of it cut out, connected to a microphone. Okay it’s already out there but hang on. We would turn on the recorder and speak into the microphone, which was meant to mask out audio interference from the other students who were also dictating into the recorders. We were instructed to take our textbooks turn to an assigned page and then character by character dictate lines of mathematical proofs into the recorder.

         Of course we thought Bergen, who was a old, white-haired man was insane. You probably think what I’m now telling you is insane. This instruction led to two things. First by forcing us to dictate mathematics into the recorder it forced us to read line by line character by character, symbol by symbol the language of mathematics much as we do when we learn a second language. Bergen understood that mathematics was a language and that the only way to be literate in a language is to read it, write it and speak it.

         The dictation went like this: 6x(7y + 8z)^2 literally was translated into the recorder and read as “six x open parentheses seven y plus eight z close parentheses raised to the power of two."

         This did two things, first it forced us to slow down and actually read and interpret the symbols strewn across the page. Secondly, not that we understood this at the time, he was preparing us to learn how to verbally input information and converse with a computer. Remember my education was at the height of the “Cold War.” What was of utmost importance was not grammar, and spelling but science, mathematics and technology. We needed to beat the Russians in Science and Technology as a matter of survival so we couldn’t allow them to get an edge in the race. Those who were brilliant would be forced up to scientific research, not so brilliant would become engineers, less brilliant would become technicians doing the grunt work for the engineers and lowest would be vocational doing the nuts and bolts stuff for the technicians.

         In the East Meadow school system my school was the only school to have a computer that was only used by those students who were hand selected by the math teachers to join the math club. The computer was an old IBM 370 but at the time was state of the art and programming was done through IBM punch cards kept in boxes. A program could consist of literally hundreds of punch cards in order to create say a 1,000 line program which is by today’s standards a baby program. The one thing you didn’t want to do was drop the box of punch cards because you would have to physically sort them back into their original order in order to run the program. The hard drive was dedicated to the operating system and input was stored in RAM memory so the cards would always have to be put into the card reader in order to use the program one created. The programming language was Fortran. This was way out there. The rest of my instruction was the traditional way, reading, lecture, recitation, practice, and written exams.

         N. Costellino said, “I remember being asked more often ‘what I thought’ of a particular subject, how the discussion of the topic was flawed, etc. Meyrowitz says that traditional education does not expect students to ‘emerge with uniform information, but with sharpened reasoning, critical skills, and the knowledge of how to develop new knowledge.’” This experience was used in my health instruction, the sciences; Physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and literacy analysis. I was one of the few students who was in a dual program of vocational studies and regents studies; mathematics from algebra to first year calculus and the sciences soft and hard. Vocational training and even training in the sciences is very different in that it is “hands on” learning with visuals, touching, feeling and doing. Experiments consist of set up, measuring, collecting data, interpreting data, showing results drawing conclusions and tearing down experiments.

         My experience was that of quantity and quality. I was trained as a scientist so it’s all analytical. In contrast quantity was highly stressed because of the driving needs to “beat the Russians at their own game.”

         My educational experience was different in Automotive Technology where audio/ visuals were the very objects we were learning about in automotive design. Much of it was reading and writing but also practical labs, taking things apart, recording how they functioned and putting them back together. Instruction was sometimes performed with overhead projection slides in order to allow the instructor to take complex forms of information without having to spend hours drawing them on the chalk board and then suing magic markers to add in vectors or arrows of motion or other explanations.

         Engineering in the early stages consisted of reading and working problems out by pencil and paper. My first encounter with information overload came at Drexel University (1995) in the computer sciences. I had already had several in Nassau Community college where the instructor had projection equipment to write code on the computer and project it on an overhead screen. We would just watch and he would interpret the code for us and show us the output. The code was handed out on floppies and we copied the code to our floppies for enhancing the code for projects. In Drexel they didn’t have these methods in their programs. In the Community school programming was taught right on the computers in a computing lab In Drexel we were back to the Engineering Science and Automotive Technology method of overhear screens, pencil and paper. The instructor would place sheets and sheets of computer code on the projector, explain them then rip them of the machine. Of course students balked that we couldn’t copy down the code at that speed. His response was “Why do you have to copy the code, you didn’t absorb it?” After two weeks of this students put their foot down and requested printouts (hard copies) of the code. The professor’s response was, “I can’t afford to make thirty copies of the slides, you’ll just have to copy faster.” Needless to say I dropped the course and took it with someone else. By 1999, we were doing all the work either at home on our own computers or on a computer in the lab and the professor would walk around from machine to machine troubleshooting code. The instruction wasn’t any different when I transferred into the Computer Science program here at UMBC and was magnified by having to turn around fully functional programs within a two-week period. The philosophy was, “If you can’t write a program that compiles, works and does what I instructed to do in two weeks, you’re not a programmer. There’s the front door. As a matter of fact, transfer into IFSM, it means “I Failed Math and Science.”

         The difference between the two programs is that IFSM takes into account the humanistics of computing after all who uses computers. Computer Science is a matter of flexing mental capabilities and who can brow beat who in coding. So when it comes to teaching Computer Science and Information Systems the relevance academy is far superior. For mathematics the cloister academy is still best. Which method to use depends on what you’re teaching.

         I noted that N. Costellino said, “I was in an accelerated learning program.” My education was not labeled as such. I was tested in the third grade to be placed in such a program where the students accepted would graduate two years ahead of the rest of the pack. I wasn’t accepted probably because they found through the testing that I had accelerated reading abilities from “home schooling,” but lacked the critical analysis tools to be pushed ahead. Our educational experiences seem similar in that quantity and quality was the imperative but probably for different political reasons.

         Where we disagree is on the argument of cloister academy philosophy versus relevant academy philosophy methods of teaching and learning. Nic6 states that relevant academy instruction is harmful because “quantity is stressed over quality.” I say that both have their place in learning and in instruction. Which philosophy of education should be used I think should be left to the individual instructor. The instructor is the professional in the subject matter and will learn through life experience which method is best to use and why. (Who knows the feel of a car best other than the driver…) I think it depends on the subject matter being taught and the maturity of the learners. A humanistic teacher (all of my college math professors) will receive feedback from the students in the form of dialogue whether publicly, on the classroom floor, or in private in a one-to-one discussion, when they are uncomfortable with the method of teaching. The “authoritarian” teacher (all of my high school math teachers) will receive the feedback through the results of exams or what I refer to as “teaching through intimidation.”

         I had one math teacher who broke the crystal of his watch slamming his hand into the board because a female classmate didn’t know the answer. He deliberately chose certain girls in the class because he knew that they didn’t understand the coursework, so when he wanted to illustrate a point he’d pick them. Remember in my grade school it’s the “Cold War” period and the philosophy that “Women don’t need to know mathematics or science and can’t DO mathematics (yes you do mathematics, you’re an active participant not a passive observer as we were taught in the TV generation) or science, their place is barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.” My ninth and tenth grade teacher Van Brink also taught mathematics by intimidation. The answer was, “It is because it is!” In the middle of the tenth year he was enlightened by a young lady in the class, who was twenty years old, had been left back twice in all academics and was graduating because of age and not academic accomplishment. He asked her why we didn’t get it and she responded with, “I’m not afraid of you. I’m graduating one way or the other. I’m four years older than they are. I’m not afraid of you. They are afraid of you. That’s why they don’t ask questions.” His teaching method changed for about two weeks. After the two weeks were over, so was the honeymoon. He was back to his old teaching methods of intimidation. My last two years of mathematics instruction were with Edward Cotch who said it was a “communist plot” that we didn’t do the homework. Actually the plot was that our math books did not have answers in the back like they do today, so you don’t know if the work you do is right or wrong. After a few weeks, we gave up. By not doing the homework it would force Mr. Cotch to write out the solutions to the homework. We would gather together these solutions for test time and just mechanically reproduce them by writing them over and over. Learning by practice.

         This method hasn’t changed much in engineering or mathematics. Some problems you can do easily, some you can’t see what the solution is. In recitation the instructor shows you the solution and you copy it. Studying for tests consists of taking a blank piece of paper covering up the solution and writing it out, figuring out the solution as best as memory will serve. You do it wrong you do it again until you know it my memorization. For further practice you usually do the problems without the answers to apply what you’ve learned. Learning by wrote.

         This method hasn’t changed much in engineering or mathematics. Some problems you can do easily, some you can’t see what the solution is. In recitation the instructor shows you the solution and you copy it. Studying for tests consists of taking a blank piece of paper covering up the solution and writing it out, figuring out the solution as best as memory will serve. You do it wrong you do it again until you know it my memorization. For further practice you usually do the problems without the answers to apply what you’ve learned. Learning by wrote. Basically I was pushed through mathematics because we had to “Beat the Russians.”

         I got through college mathematics just fine until I attempted to push up into engineering. My algebra deficiencies reared like a hydra in Calculus I One when it was discovered I didn’t have a proper foundation in mathematics. Dr Murray who taught me in Tech Math loved my tenacity in problem solving and took me under his wing by allowing me to sit in on his summer instruction classes in elementary algebra and intermediate algebra. I was his star pupil and I wasn’t even enrolled in the course. He was the first of the mathematical humanitarians. He explained it very simply. “Math is like cooking. You have to follow the recipe. The formulas, rules, theorems, axioms, corollaries are simply cooking instructions on how to cook what you want.” The words stick with me twenty years later, “Follow the recipe!” It applies to Chemistry, physics, biology, statistics, mathematics, philosophical logic… it applies to anything with symbols. It’s not just a matter of “it is because it is.” It ‘s a matter of “it is because it is because you proved it is.” I’ve been in school a long time obviously and hold three degrees, three course short of my fourth in English-Technology and Communications and could easily walk into the Mathematics department and declare a fifth major by taking the last two classes in mathematical complex analysis. I have floated through many different science cirrocumuli in my time and have seen good and poor methods of instruction and know there is no one single way to teach and that some subjects led themselves to being taught by different methodologies.

         In conclusion, D. Putzel once asked the class in the first session, “So who taught you grammar?” nine out of ten times the response was, “I don’t know, some old guy.” I’m probably going to end up being that “old guy teaching grammar,” because you’re never too old to teach grammar and so ends another journal log of verbal diarrhea.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to reading in Tyner's Literacy in a Digital World

Tyner takes issue with former Secretary of Education, Richard Riley's remarks and the ensuing tendency to launch 'media literacy' as a "problem solving strategy for a wide range of social and educational ills." (128)

Offer a clear statement exploring her concerns as well as specific examples you have witnessed of the accuracy or inaccuracy of this concern. Draw on your experiences as a student, teacher, parent, administrator, or professional.

         According to Tyner, ‘media literacy’ may be used as a “problem solving strategy for a wide range of social and educational ills,” but it will never address all of them. For media literacy to do this would be an unrealistic expectation. Tyner brings to light a series of reasons why this will be. One reason is that the media messages cannot be corporately controlled. The messages will have to come from the children themselves: written, produced, and directed by the children. Children can see through very quickly when the production is not genuine and has been interfered with by adults. Teachers may set the tone of these productions by assigning topics, but it will be up to the children to tell the story and come up with their own solutions.

         I remember having to make such productions in 12th grade Health class. Our productions were primitive by today’s standards. We were fortunate enough to own tape recorders and 35mm cameras. We used what was available to us. We used our stereos and records to create background theme music. We selected particular songs that would aid us in delivering our message. The teacher assigned the project and provided suggestions of how to create the presentations and allowed us to use any of the topics we had discussed in the class. As with any good business manager, the teacher expected us to come up with a topic and a plan as to how we would produce this multimedia production. We were provided with a slide projector and we created a slide show. We went out and collected our own images and posed people in scenes.

         What we produced was an anti-drug message. The difference was that this presentation walked like us, talked like us, and dressed like us. As a group my peers could identify with it because we did it all without adult interference. The message was genuine, not staged or in today’s lingo it wasn’t a poser.

         Today as Tyner says, the easiest tool for kids today to use is the video recorder. My last girlfriend had two daughters, age 9 and age 11 and they were constantly producing their own films. Their productions were a way for them to express their concerns and were an attempt to sort out thoughts and emotions that were confusing to them. Divorce and dating became one of their themes. The girls understood some of adult concepts such as marriage, family, father, mother, husband, wife, divorce, boyfriends and girlfriends. What they couldn’t sort out and were exploring was me; the boyfriend. Mom has us and we’re her children. We have a father and he’s an ex-husband to Mom. Mom now has a boyfriend and we have an idea what boyfriend’s are, but what is Mom’s boyfriend to us other than Mom’s boyfriend. He has a relationship to Mom, so what relationship does he have to us and what’s our relationship to him? This is what left their heads reeling. In their short education’s, science has taught them that everything has a definition and a category. Everything in this world is defined, filed, indexed and placed into a corresponding cubbyhole in the wall.

         At the time, my view of the girl’s productions was that they were like the character Brendan in “Home Movies,” a cartoon aired on the Cartoon Channel’s segment called “Adult Swim,” creating videos for the sole purpose of having something to do. In the cartoon, Brendan and his two friends are constantly creating videos that in their own way describe what issues they are dealing with in school, home and social interactions.

         Now that I am being asked to critically analyze this phenomenon as a researcher and educator it is fascinating to note that the production of videos by kids is a phenomenon of this generation. Considering that human beings are “visual creatures” we naturally attach ourselves to this form of communication. Because of the ease of operation of a video camera and because the technology has been around long enough to make it a cost effective technology, evidently many kids are gravitating towards video as a means of sorting out the complexities of maturation in a subliminal way.

         Looking back, the girls used the video camera to produce and explore complex analysis of social norms, social interactions, exploration of self, and human relations. The girls and I simply assumed they were playing. Little did I realize how complex their “games” really were. Sheeeeh, talk about being illiterate, now I see I was the one who was illiterate.

K. Zajdel journal entry response to the same readings:
         Riley feels that this education of media literacy is essential for young people understand and make sense of the many media messages they are confronted with everyday. He implies that some media is just inherently no good and that young people should be taught to recognize this media. He feels that if young people understand what makes good or bad media they will then be able to improve the quality of media in the future.

         Tyner takes issue with the politicizing of media literacy education. She believes that this publicity will lead people to believe that some media is “good” and some media is “bad.” Tyner believes that this view is incorrect; the value of media is relative to the consumer and the viewer and can not be inherently classified as good or bad. She does not feel that the quality of media needs to be improved, as quality is a matter of interpretation.

         An example of this I’ve seen as a student is the banning of certain books from high school and middle school curriculums. I know that the book The Catcher in the Rye has been banned from many reading lists because it is deemed “bad” media due to foul language and sexual situations. The actual content and message of this media was never taken into consideration as “good” or “bad” because the reviewers could not get past the superficial aspects of the literature. This example perfectly supports Tyner’s beliefs that media can not be classified as inherently good or bad.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to K. Zajdel journal entry:
         I found it difficult to relate to most of these journal entries because my educational experiences were very different from everyone else. I went to high school where the television was wheeled into the classroom with a set of rabbit ears. I was already a teenager when Sesame Street was first aired. Television for us was broadcast television either ABC, NBC, or CBS with rabbit ears. I only remember watching Apollo launches in grade school.

         I had some very special experiences with books. I took 12-grade literature analysis, which was not a required for us. My teacher was one who went the grain of all politics of the time. Her name unfortunately doesn’t come to me at the moment. We were assigned specific readings in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” by the state (NY State) that were deemed as “safe,” meaning lack of vulgarities, sexual innuendoes, and infidelity. The teacher specifically went out of her way to inform us that these were the required readings by the state. Her next instruction was to read five more stories of our choice out of Chauser and be prepared to discuss them amongst ourselves. She told us exactly why the state didn’t want us to read certain stories. The Vietnam War had just ended two years before. The teacher said to us, “At this point most of you are adults. You drive cars, you have boyfriends and girlfriends, you work at part time jobs and two years ago you were worried about going off to die for your country. That in itself gives you the right to read adult material.” When it came to the discussion, she left the room and returned 45 minutes later as though the discussion had never occurred.

         We also had to write literary analysis on Shakespeare’s readings. Once again, we were instructed to read something we hadn’t read before and we were granted full reign to read what we wanted. I read most of the tragedies and I wasn’t thrilled in reading a history so I decided to read a comedy. I wanted to find out how an author who could write such emotionally packed tragedies how did he handle a comedy. What was the sense of humor like of the time period. I chose “A Mid-summer Night’s Dream,” one of the plays specifically designated as “hands off” by the state. It was a wonderful read and I was thankful for the lessons she taught. “Learn to think for yourself, question everything.”

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to Using Compositional Interpretation, Chapter 2 Visual Methodologies by Gillian Rose :

Last update: October 14, 2005

Respond to the following question: Analyze the attached image.

Color/Light:
The image is black and white. The light source is from our right side as we observe based on the shadow on the left side of the photograph. The hue of color is high. The dominant hues are the flesh and the eyebrows. The color has high saturation based on the fact that the lines in the person’s hand and face are perfectly clear and detail is well defined. The photograph has both high and low values on the hand. The eye itself has low values based on the fact that we cannot make out the pupil from the iris.

Spatial Organization:
The vanishing point of the photograph is the center of the person’s pupil. The photograph was taken from and is viewed from a frontal angle. This engages the viewer and makes the image overly personal. There is no difference in height between the viewer and the depiction of the eye in the image. We are looking straight at the central image of the picture: our eye locks with the person’s eye. This suggests a relationship of equality between the viewer and the subject of the photograph. The picture is an extreme close-up, the nature of which creates a relationship of intimacy and intensity between viewer and the subject. The fact that the close-up is of a person’s eye makes this image unnerving.

Kells journal entry response to P. C. Paul's journal Entry #4:
C. Paul said, “The person is forming a circle with the tip of his forefinger and thumb and holding them against his eye with the palm facing towards us as though playing a game with a child inferring, ‘peek-a-boo, I see you,’ or the person could be symbolically looking through a telescope as though at sea. This also be Patrick McGoohan, who played the lead role of the character number 6 in the television series, ‘The Prisoner,’ from 1966 giving the camera one more symbolic salute to say, ‘Be seeing you,’ to number 2 or in other words, ‘Just as you see everything I do in The Village, I also see everything you do in The Village.’”

I found this statement to be rather interesting as I never stopped to think about why the person in the photo was making the ring around his eye. I just assumed that the reason was one based on artistic and photographic principles and simply to highlight the eye. The possibilities that you suggest are ones that bring up the question of purpose. Since most pictures have a purpose it is important to consider the purpose of this image. I think that the three possibilities that you explore here all make sense though I have never heard of the gentleman you discuss in the third suggestion. This exploration of meaning and reason gives new insight into the image and the ways in which the photographer uses position, light, and focus to evoke many different ideas and considerations within the viewer.

S. Neal's journal entry response to the same readings:
Content: What does the image actually show? (objective observation)
The image is a man, known because the thickness of his fingers and his eyebrow, with his fingers covering a portion of his eye. The eye is the focus of attention for the picture. The male in the picture is a white, older man. The man does not appear to show any bold emotion in the picture.

Color/Light:
The color of the picture is black and white. However, it is evident the man in the picture is white. The picture appears to be lighter in some places and a little darker in others. The dark background brings more attention to the man and the eye. The image seems to have more of an affect on the reader because it is black and white. Consequently, I think that the photographer made a conscience design not to make the image in color.

Spatial Organization:
The photographer focused the camera very close to the face. The image is so close that we get a clear understanding of what the man look's like. The eye in the picture is at the picture. The bushy eyebrow and the thick, slightly wrinkled finger, is also center of the picture. I think that the photographer wanted to draw our attention to the eye of the man in the picture.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to S. Neal's journal entry:
Subject’s Sex: Most of our peers so far have said that the subject is a man. This is most likely true but I did not say I was 100% sure it was a man. I have found that when some people it becomes difficult to be certain of the sex. As we age, the body makes less estrogen/testosterone so senior citizens become less masculine or less feminine. Some people start to become more like the opposite sex because of the reduction of estrogen/testosterone in their bodies.

Subject's Age: I agree that the person is older. I said the person was either upper middle aged or a senior citizen. More likely a senior citizen, but here again there is room for speculation. We all age differently, some fast and some slower that others. I held on to my doubt that the person could be upper middle aged because we cannot see the entire person. Due to the fact that we cannot see more of the subject’s face, it’s more difficult to determine age. We are quite certain from the wrinkles and graying hair of the eyebrow, the person is certainly not young by any means.

Subject's Race: It is interesting to note that we are the only two to cite the person’s race. That I think is significant based on the fact that we were asked to state objectively what we see? As a scientist making an objective observation, race should be speculated. If I was making out a report with the police, race would be important. To say that the person was white would eliminate two thirds of the entire population. To say that the person was upper middle aged or was senior would eliminate another portion of the population. To say that the person was male would eliminate half the population. By stating these things we are certain of we are scientifically reducing the probability of who the person may be. Two thirds of six billion gets the probability down to two billion to one. Indicating sex would reduce the probability to one billion to one and so on. Even though the image is black and white, I think I can be relatively certain that the person is not of the Black race or Indian from the lack of contrast in skin tone judging from the inner part of the palm and the back of the had we can see. An Asian person would not have the extra flesh that forms the eyelid so we can reasonably assume the subject is not Asian. It will be interesting to note whether our Asian peers comment on the subject’s race. I think your observation was quite an astute and scientific observation.

I do differ on the emotion of the subject. Most of our peers like yourself found the subject to absent of bold emotion. It seems that the person’s gaze does not disturb other observers. I felt as though the subject is not gazing but objectively staring as though scanning the horizon or peering into a microscope examining a microbe. On the other hand, I did say that he could also be playing peek-a-boo with a child. I just cannot focus on the feeling the subject invokes as I look at him looking at me. Otherwise, I am in agreement with the rest of what you said in your log.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to the following question: "In your experience, is American education ‘scaling up’ critical literacy efforts or are you witnessing more thoughtful, careful literacy teaching methods? Consider both Tyner and Rose in your response."

         ‘Scaling up?’ does this mean that the educational system is still talking about critical literacy and not doing anything about it, or does this mean that the process has begun, but not enough is being done about critical literacy?

         My only point of reference is UMBC. I have attended several colleges and universities and hold degrees in Engineering Science, Automotive Engineering, and Information Systems with a strong background in the sciences, mathematics, and statistics so everything I studied was critical analysis. In these disciplines, I was not taught to think critically about anything but science and technology. When I studied humanities other than at UMBC, everything was in a classroom with lectures, essay exams, and term papers. Now as a senior in UMBC’s English-Technology & Communications track with a minor in philosophy, everything is critical literacy, everything.

         Here at UMBC, it was not until 2003 that many professors began to use Blackboard for some purpose. I see classes being held in computer labs that normally would have met in a standard classroom with a chalkboard, chalk, desk, student chairs, and writing into notebooks. Things have substantially changed in the past two years. UMBC now hires undergrad students during the summer to teach middle-school children computer literacy in a summer boot camp. They are in the labs for approximately five hours a day and I suppose they have various exercises and drills they conduct to teach how to improve their computer literacy skills.

         Every course I have studied here at UMBC is in some way critical literacy, whether it was History on Film, English, Statistics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Ethics, Information Systems, or Computer Science. “Go deeper young man, go deeper. Compare and contrast? That’s for kindergarten; you’re not doing critical analysis until you’re doing synthesis.” I have no children at home so I have no idea how things have changed in grade or high schools. I only know what I am experiencing within the UMBC community and portions of the field of teacher training. With this course and ENGL395, I am mixed in with some students who are on an educational track. Much of what is being taught in both courses has to do with educational training, a whole new field for me. Now it seems that all the computers are networked together, educators are salivating over the prospects of how they can use these new toys. The computers have become so cheap and so powerful we are actually able to perform useful tasks like never before. The change occurred in 1995 with cheaper computers, Windows 95, a graphical user interface (GUI) for browsing the Internet, and the ability to build cheap computer networks.

N. Indge's journal entry response to the same readings:
         In my own observations, I think that the American educational system is pushing for advancements in technology throughout the school system, without necessarily considering why they feel they need such technology. While in the minds of some educators, it ma be felt that students literacy awareness is improving, in actuality a students educational experience may be suffering. In the early years of education, setting up the foundational skills for the rest of a student's life is important. In the world of today it is equally important that students find a comfort on some level with computer use, as it is to understand some other parts of the education process, but the Internet cannot replace the educator. The majority of learning software that students use at a young age is made to be fun at the same time as it teaches children. This type of software is known as "Edutainment." Students compete with one another playing games while doing math, grammar, geography, and all other scholastic activities at the same time. In principal, this type of educational device sounds like something that would be practical for young children and spark their interest in learning. This is true, in doses. The relationship between student and teacher can in no way be replaced by student and laptop. While a game might make a suitable partner to practice a student's multiplication tables on, it cannot help you become a fully functional student. Quite the contrary, technology may actually create a gap between the teacher and student. This is why schools must regulate a healthy balance between traditional classroom learning and digital literacy practices.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to N. Indge's journal entry:
         “In my own observations, I think that the American educational system is pushing for advancements in technology throughout the school system, without necessarily considering why they feel they need such technology,” said Nick Indge. I agree with you on this Nick, in some ways educators, as the rest of us, are “blind people, in a black room, searching for a black cat.” All of this technology is in its infancy, similar to the automobile in the early 20th century. We’re trying to determine what we can do with all these new toys. Obviously, some of these technologies will be fads, while others will prove to be more useful hence those will be expanded further. Much of the technology is only creating busywork for some. Many of the technologies available are not sufficiently covered even in the curriculums where it is being taught: math, statistics, computer science, and information systems. When we look at the humanities the problem only gets worse. Many times, even at the university level, as students we find ourselves muddling through an exercise or project for the purpose of turning something in, not necessarily a qualitative product demonstrating true learning. In many cases the learning needs to be broken into two semesters, one of theory and one of application, versus theory in one day and the next in the lab. There is a loss of quality pushing too much training into too few weeks.

         “While in the minds of some educators, it may be felt that students literacy awareness is improving, in actuality a students educational experience may be suffering,” said Indge. I can see where this would be true. The instructor has to fragment their time and insert more exercises, more activities, and more training both for the instructor and the students in the same allotted time for classes. Obviously something has to give when one has to spread out across so many disciplines. Plus are the instructors themselves up on all of these new technologies and if not, where do they find time to train themselves to train students? Nick said that it is “equally important that students find a comfort on some level with computer use, as it is to understand some other parts of the education process, but the Internet cannot replace the educator.” Many of us are already aware of this. One of our peers in this class said, “I’ll never participate in distance learning or online classes again.” One of my Writing Center peers expressed the same opinion about a class she is taking now here at UMBC. There is a lack of feedback for one. Others, like myself, rely and depend on visual instruction and body language of the instructor for clues on what they consider important. In addition, even for those who are gifted in language, sometimes it is necessary to stop a speaker mid-stream to qualify a statement with a question such as “what does this mean,” or “I don’t get it, please explain.”

         Indge continued by saying that, “The relationship between student and teacher can in no way be replaced by student and laptop” I agree with you on this, but I do not believe the intention is to replace the instructor with a laptop. The machine cannot provide reinforcement, encouragement, and human reward when students succeed or fail. Most of us rely on the human factors of reward for our accomplishments, without them, many students will not succeed. There is a balance that has to be maintained and I think educators are aware of this. As with all of us we have a bunch of new toys in our play chest and time will ultimately tell us which ones work well and which are just fads which will just fall out of fashion.

N. Indge's journal entry response to P.C. Paul's journal entry:
         I was in a way touched that Chris decided to actually cite my journal entry in his response. This is the first time that I have ever written a response to someone responding to me. I find it extremely interesting that Chris is mostly dependent on "visual instruction and body language" in the learning process, much like myself. I’m happy to see that someone agrees with me in the fact that while technology is an integral part of the educational system, it is important to notice where it is and isn’t necessary. I am also happy to see that Chris agrees that a machine cannot replace an educator in that "a machine cannot provide reinforcement, encouragement, and human reward." This week's journal entry differed from the majority in that it was much more of an opinionated topic relating to the reading, rather than just reacting to something directly from the reading. I hope that further entries are similar to this week’s, as they seem to encourage a discourse between members of the class, and get people interested in the subject matter.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to the question refering to the "Pride and Prejudice" movie trailer analysis online collaboration assignment.

Respond to the following quetions on the online collaboration assignment:What did you learn about group collaboration this week? Be very specific.
Was it different in any way regarding the assessment of a visual?
What worked well?
What became more difficult, if anything?

         First I would like to say that I hate collaboration. In the famous words of Herman Munster, “I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! …,” but I digress.

         This session went particularly well which is the exception in collaboration and not the rule. I know this is the way everything is done in most fields of employment today, especially academics and information systems, but it does not mean that I have to like it. There are always one or two people who do absolutely nothing or the entire group stalls until the eleventh hour. This has been my repeated experience in information systems. Every class I took here in UMBC had a collaborative project or paper and an oral presentation, always. The end result of these projects was always the same: one or two people who were contentious and concerned about their marks ended up doing all the work in its entirety.

         Those who did nothing at all had more time to prepare for exams. At the end of the semester, those who did nothing on the group effort had higher marks. The projects typically were “B’s” and “A’s”, so collectively everyone received an excellent grade. The problem was the projects were only 10% to 15% of the final grade. Projects are time consuming taking away time from the higher level work where the percentages are 15% to 25%. The people who worked on the project would have less time to study resulting in lower test grades. The end result was those who did nothing walked away with A’s and B’s, those who did the project got B’s and C’s. This results in those who do nothing in obtaining the higher GPA, permitting them entrance to Graduate school and better positions of employment on the backs of the grunts.

         Continuing the process, those who did not do the work continue throughout their work careers. The boss doesn’t care who does the work so long as it is done. Only the grunts “know” how to do it and are kept in the trenches continuing to do the work while the “slackers” are promoted to managerial positions. In five years and the grunts are left in the trenches, they get fed up with the reward system, change jobs, and end up repeating the process over and over from company to company.

         In this case the collaboration went well and I think this is because everyone in the group was either a graduate student or in my case post undergrad working towards graduate school. We are all contentious workers and we know full well what we’re working towards, unlike undergrad students many of whom have no intentions of going further with their studies and find a “C” acceptable.

         This project was done the same way most of my projects were done in information systems. Someone usually leads, delegates, and picks up the slack at the end. With us it was a little different and I think that is because of our commitment and seriousness about our educations. Instead of waiting for someone to take the lead, as a group members just jumped in and started swimming. One person created a template, then we broke the work into four sections and each person then did an analysis, typed up their findings and emailed them out. The analysis was pieced back together and another person smoothed out the language into one unified voice as would be done in any professional setting.

         Only two things come to mind that would have been helpful. One, we never exchanged IM’s which may have been helpful for coordinating efforts towards the submission deadline. This would have helped to coordinate our efforts even if they were only brief messages letting each other know that we were online and proofing the final cut and paste version together. I know this would have been appreciated by the team by the email exchanges going back and forth. I used to be a big user of IMing, but got so tired of it I’ve forgotten my own user names. Another possibility would have been using ICQ which is much more powerful for remote communications, but has an added problem of having a steeper learning curve for non-users. ICQ allows for direct file transfers from computer to computer reducing delay times waiting for the file to post on the Internet.

         Unforeseen was that the person who elected to do the mise-en-scene perspective analysis had the most complex section for this trailer and the other portions of the analysis only made minor contributions. By no means was this a reflection on the group members, but rather a matter of the nature of the analysis being applied to this specific trailer. I think we delegated the work improperly due to a lack of understanding of how theory would apply to practice. Having never done this before, as new researchers we did not realize that some of the analysis would hardly be applied for this trailer. I think as a functional team, if we understood this problem would occur beforehand, we would have broken up the work into smaller portions in the mise-en-scene perspective analysis with each member analyzing two or three clips within the trailer at a time. My associates may differ on this point due to the fact that allowing one person to do that one specific piece of analysis created one unified voice in the writing. This made the process of integrating that individual voice into the rest of the analysis an easy process. In addition it may have been difficult to convey which clips each should take considering none of us were at the same location. Overall the analysis went well, but in the future it would be easier to view the trailer within the same room on the same monitor.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to J. Meechais journal entry:

         Initially I started responding to N. Estey’s journal entry because I had so many similar experiences while attending Drexel U and UMBC as a Math/Comp Sci dual degree major. I realized not only did all my experiences parallel his, but the end result would have been a book and I have to concentrate, like everyone else on a paper and another collaboration work so I shall abstain.

         Responding to J. Meechai’s entry will be easier, plus I took ENGL383, so I know we are expected to write a response to a different person each week and I have not responded to J. Meechai yet.

         It is not unusual for anyone’s schedule to agree. We’re all adults, some with families, jobs and other commitments. Do all my computer work at UMBC to avoid all the problems N. Estey had. Plus my computer is too old and I have to use UMBC’s dial up to get anything done remotely. No one is going to be able to tolerate the lack of speed so it was easier to use UMBC’s computers and put the responsibility of tech support on UMBC.

         Meechai mentioned that, “it might be easier if we saw one another face-to-face if any of us was not sure about the terminology or the concept.” I was the one who got hung up on a few questions that did not seem to make sense to what I was viewing even after viewing the trailer several times. As a group we decided that if none of us could answer the questions I couldn’t answer, they probably didn’t apply to what we were viewing. Professor Carpenter had said that some portions would not apply and it seems that I had a few of those parts.

“In terms of collaboration, each individual tried to contribute something in the group work beside the analysis itself. One took an initiation part, one gathered everything together, and another took care of the language and sent it out. It seemed fine for me that we all made the best out of it.”

V. Tasch's response to P. C. Paul's journal entry:

         In general, I was surprised by the number of students who do not enjoy group work activities. Furthermore, I found Christopher's journal to be extremely well-written and right on point. As a member of his group I agree with his observations, particularly in regards to the way our group divided the work and in efforts to put the finishing touches on our product prior to submission.

         Using an outline template, each group member selected a section to complete. Most of us, apparently, picked fairly arbitrarily-without fully understanding the depth and complexities of each sub-topic. Consequently, some members ended up with denser, more difficult section than others, but only because we were unaware-not because one person was trying to “get away” with doing less than another. Also, as Christopher mentioned, once all of our work was submitted, we somewhat scrambled to put the finishing touches on our work, including proofreading it, editing it, and ensuring its coherence. This last-minute scramble was not because our group had waited to the last minute to finish and submit our work to each other; it was, however, because no one was really assigned to the final step of the process: cutting and pasting the sections and creating one cohesive product. During the last few hours, thought we agreed to a virtual meeting time, it was unclear who was sitting by a computer and who was not. Perhaps, like Christopher suggested, we should have exchanged IM information.

C. Tsubakis' response to V. Tasch's journal entry:

         I agree with all of the interesting comments of our group members, Vered, Jiraporn, and Christopher, made on their respective journals regarding the “compositional interpretation of moving image” of the Pride and Prejudice.

         However, I would like to react to one of the Vera’s comment:
She said, “During the last few hours, thought we agreed to a virtual meeting time, it was unclear who was sitting by a computer and who was not.”

         I was not sitting on the other side of the computer because of several reasons. First of all, I did not know that the group has decided to have a virtual meeting because I thought any communication would be carried asynchronously through the group e-mail. Next, my UMBC e-mail account is frequently down or my ID and password not being accepted by the system. My alternative BCCC accounts also from time to time malfunction, so I am very much at the mercy of technology, or help-desk assistance for establishing a communication line. By the time I was able to access the UMBC account, the drama was over.

         Perhaps the most important reason for my “absence” from the virtual meeting is my access to transportation. Not having a car, I exclusively depend on public transportation for my job and study sites. This dependency on public transportation means that I spend daily between 4 to 5 hours either on MTA buses, Metro Subway, or UMBC shuttle buses, missing most of the “prime time” activities. In the age of New Economy of 24-7 work schedules, I do not know anymore whether it is dawn or dusk, whether I am coming or going. Hopefully, I will not lose my mind before the semester is over.

P. C. Paul's response to C. Tsubakis' response to V. Tasch's journal entry:

         I had to chime in on your journal because I can feel your pain living through the same nightmare. “Perhaps the most important reason for my “absence” from the virtual meeting is my access to transportation. Not having a car, I exclusively depend on public transportation for my job and study sites. This dependency on public transportation means that I spend daily between 4 to 5 hours either on MTA buses, Metro Subway, or UMBC shuttle buses, missing most of the “prime time” activities. In the age of New Economy of 24-7 work schedules, I do not know anymore whether it is dawn or dusk, whether I am coming or going. Hopefully, I will not lose my mind before the semester is over,” said Chik Tsubakis. I just wanted to say that I’m going through the same thing. I have to rely on Mass transit also. We both know mass transit is anything but reliable, plus it takes hours as you said to get anywhere. A tremendous amount of time is wasted doing nothing but waiting. I’m living through the same… well never mind. I just wanted to say as a fellow mass transit commuter I know all too well what you’re going through.

J. Meechai's response to P. C. Paul's response to C. Tsubakis' response to V. Tasch's journal entry:

         Thank you for responding to my journal. Since I haven’t responded to your journal either, let me take this chance to do so. Basically, I understand and agree with you on most aspects. I know how you felt when you did not get the answer or response from other members right away because we chose to communicate by e-mail. I felt the same way when I did ask for a clarification about dividing our group work, but nobody responded. So I waited until everybody picked his or her parts, and I did the rest. When I copied and pasted our work together and waited for everybody for a virtual meeting, I was wondering where was everybody. As I said in my journal, e-mailing can make the group work difficult and as you and Vared said, Instant Message might be an option. In such way, we would be able to know who was online and who was doing what in order to start our meeting. However, at the end, we made it!

         An antidote from your old co-worker is funny, but true. I have a couple friends who are online all day long. They carry their notebooks around, and check e-mail all the times. I wonder what they did before they have computers in this information age. I myself find that I spend more time on the Internet to check e-mail and read news about my country, but I try to limit my time so that I can do other activities. It is interesting that when I visited my country last summer, I could live without checking e-mails and readings news on line for two months. I think it is because when my life style and situation change, computer and Internet usage behavior also changes.

         In conclusion, I learned a lot about virtual communication from this group work. Difficulty taught me how to deal with it better for next time both as a student and a teacher. And thanks everybody for such a good job. Last but not least, I just want to let you know that I am also in the same boat with Christopher and Chik because I have a slow dial up Internet and take a bus everyday. So, you two are not alone :)

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to reading Roland Barthes’ essay Myth today

What does the essay bring to your understanding of semiology?

Yes, the text is difficult; however, it presents some wonderful differences between semiology and myth. One approach is to begin your response with a definition of semiology and a definition of myth. Then discuss the differences you note.

         Semiology is a system of signs. So a semiological system is a visual language. The language is read and interpreted through a sign, a signifier, and the signified. Manga—Japanese comic book art—is a pop culture language. In a society like Japan’s, do not have the same rights as Americans to free speech. The government will not allow for political and cultural discourse openly. Therefore, the only means left is to conduct written discourse through metaphors and inferences or through symbolism. The reason for using this type of communication is two fold. First, Japanese written language is written with pictographs which represent, concepts, abstract thoughts, and emotions. Second, by using symbols, it is easy for the creator of the discourse to defend themselves by saying that that is not what the symbolism meant. The symbols mean something else, thereby protecting themselves from speaking against the government.

         Myth on the other hand differs from semiology in that it is a metalanguage. Myth is a language of a language. This is still not very clear, but in computer languages, there are languages that speak through other languages. Such a language is XML which is also considered a metalanguage, because it speaks through another computer language such as Java or through the web browser. A metalanguage is not a first order language but a second order language. In myth the signs, signifier, and the signified are not as clear as in semiology. As a linguistic system, myth plays two roles and not one. There is a sign, the myth, and the signifier. The myth can play a partial role as the sign, the signifier or the signified. The best way to describe it is the intersection of a Venn Diagram. One circle is the sign, the second is the signifier, and the third is the signified, the intersection of the three would be where the myth lies.

Y. Lawson's response to P. C. Paul's journal entry

         Actually, I think you did a fairly decent job at explaining Barthes paper. Congrats on even being able to get through the entire thing!

         I like the example of Japanese comic book art as a means to try and explain semiotics. Though I began to think that the Japanese, in their quest to hide the initial meaning of their comics by inferring a different symbolic meaning to their discourse, are in fact creating a myth (i.e. a different signification) by doing this! I'll quote you here:

         "Therefore, the only means left is to conduct written discourse through metaphors and inferences or through symbolism. The reason for using this type of communication is two fold. First, Japanese written language is written with pictographs which represent, concepts, abstract thoughts, and emotions. Second, by using symbols, it is easy for the creator of the discourse to defend themselves by saying that that is not what the symbolism meant."

         I thought that was very interesting, and quite a different way to view the creation and propagation of myths in certain cultures.

C. Tsubaki's response to P. C. Paul's journal entry

         Certainly the original document on Mythologies by Barthes as assigned to us is difficult. But your comprehensive note on the above essay is equally difficult for me to comprehend; some sections of the note read like math equations, very intimidating. Mythologies is one of the books that I have to come back later for further understanding. However, one of his essays “The World of Wrestling” is something that I have enjoyed and understood. Ironically, in the essay except the word, “sign,” I do not see any technical terms like signification, meta-language, tri-dimensional pattern, signifier, signified and regressive semiological system. Thus, rightly or wrongly I claim that at a practical level, I can still enjoy Barthes’ essays without understanding his theory of mythology or semiotics.

         I was surprised that Barthes had written an essay on wrestling, a non-academic topic. But I was further surprised by his declaration: “Wrestling is not a sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of Suffering than a performance of sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.” Then, he compared wrestling to boxing and judo. Because I associated Barthes’ name with semiotics and post-modernism, I never thought he would write anything on wrestling. What a surprise!

C. Tsubaki's Response to reading Roland Barthes’ essay "Myth today."

         Reading of Barthes’s essay “Myth Today” unfortunately does not increase the current level of my understanding of semiology. It actually makes me defensive of my limited knowledge that I gained from a chapter on the semiotics of Rose’s Visual Methodology and several chapters on the same topic from van Leeuwen and Jewitt’s Handbook of Visual Analysis. With some hesitation, however, I claim that I understand the use of word as a sign that includes two dimensions: signifier at a denotative level and signified at a connotative level. The former may refer to an object that can be objectively identified as a substance by almost all people; the latter may refer to ideas that may be subjected to multiple interpretations.

         With the above limited knowledge on semiology, the study of signs, I can analyze texts and images at two layers: the first layer may cover the identification and description of an object, and the second layer may address its meaning or significance by the use of allusion, metaphor, metonymy, and symbolism. Once I accept the word as a sign and dissect it by connecting several objects or images on given subject, I can now add a density to my analysis by connecting all of them by moving either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally; in other words, I can delve into the matter beneath the surface by sinking into several layers in depth and ultimately uncover the hidden ideology or myth or the metacode.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to C. Tsubaki's journal entry:

         I apologize if the mathematics was intimidating. I took five years of mathematics at the Bachelor’s level, one course short of my BA and one more short for my BS. I lost my steam so to speak. Sometimes I understand things better in mathematical terms especially when the material is abstract.

         It is interesting to note that in the English department the art of argumentation is taught through the use of language. In the Philosophy department the art of argumentation is taught through logic theory first. The Philosopher works out a structured argument using mathematical symbolism and the converts the mathematical symbols to language, say English. This ensures that the argument is sound. Hence, mathematics is a universal language so long as all agree as to what the symbols mean.

         Unfortunately, what I have said so far sheds no light on how semiology and myths compare and contrast. My first post was an attempt to first, satisfy the academic requirement of having made an attempt to disseminate in some way what Barthes was conveying to us about myth and semiology. I was trying to break down his language in some form that I could understand and then demonstrate what I understood of the reading. Second, as with all academic assignments, I was trying to beat a deadline. My intention was to come back to my notes (the first post) and re-post something that would be demonstrate a better understanding after dissecting the complexities of Barthes’ language.

         Since the first post, I have created a second post, which is comprehensible to me, but still only scratches the surface of what Barthes’ was conveying. I think the problem we have here is as my Calculus III professor once said, “A picture is worth a thousand words, well maybe not a thousand, but at least a couple of a hundred.” I.e. :-) ≠ 1000 words, or ;-) ≤ 999. Meaning a picture is not equal to a thousand words, but at least nine hundred and ninety nine words. He said this after he wrote an equation on the board and then proceeded to draw a graph of what the equation meant.

         Considering that we are working with visual analysis, would it have been more succinct for Barthes’ to explain what he meant through the use of a few visuals versus using language which always becomes cumbersome and practically incomprehensible when trying to explain something that is visual?

         In this Venn diagram, the first circle is the sign, the second the signifier, and the third, the signified.

Venn Diagram

         The intersection where the three circles meet forms a very small area would be called a union. Hence that little area call it D, equals the union of circle A, union of circle B and the union of circle C. D=A U B U C, where the symbol U = union. Hence myth lies in the union of the sign, the signifier, and the signified. Myth has qualities of all three.

         On the other hand, this may not be what Barthes meant at all, so I would have liked to see a graphical representation of what he did mean.

         I hope Dr. Carpenter is not going to leave us in a quandary over this concept.

Y. Lawson’s response to reading Roland Barthes’ essay "Myth today."

         Semiology is the study of signs. As Rose explains, "semiology confronts the question of how images make meaning head on." Semiology does this by breaking down the meaning or sign of an image or word into two parts: the signified, which is the idea of the object, and the signifier which is the sound or image of the object, according to Rose.

         To break it down further; basically, we formulate an idea about an image (almost like Plato's representation of the forms), and we then assign a name to that image or have in our minds a universal image of that idea; So that every time we see a picture of a horse or hear the word "horse" we understand the idea or meaning of that word or picture. The object/image/word becomes a direct connection to our conception of that form (i.e. the horse) in our minds.

         Myth is different because the object/image/word is not a direct reflection of that idea we've created in our minds. For example, when we see an image of a horse. The horse now represents nobility, strength, and independence in our minds. Barthes says, "myth is not defined by the object of its message, but by the way in which it utters this message." The form in our minds have changed when we see this horse (I know this is confusing, but it's very difficult to explain).

         To further explain I will use an example. At the first order of meaning we have a conception of the horse, the signified. The word or picture of that conception (i.e. a picture of the horse) is the signifier. It is a direct and universal interpretation of that form we call horse. In mythology, we give the signifier a second-ordered meaning (i.e. the picture of the horse, the signifier, now means something else in our minds, the signified).

         Therefore, mythology presents an interpretation of an image/word/idea that can be false or subject to different interpretations and time, because the original form or conception within our mind has been misconstrued to mean something entirely different.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to Y. Lawson’s journal entry:

         By using Plato’s forms to create a second attempt in explaining the reading was impossible to resist.

         Plato and the forms seems to get a great deal closer to what is being explained. When someone says the word “horse” we have an image in our minds that we can relate to and recall all the qualities of a horse or essences of horseness. Mentioning Plato and the forms conjures up the discussion in “The Republic” of the shadow people or shadow world. Several people are kept in a cave for years and all they can see is the shadows on the wall projected from some other real world. The people in the cave have awareness of this real world’s existence. All they know is this shadow world projected upon the wall and for them this is the real world. Plato’s concept of the forms and the shadow world does help to get a little closer to understanding Barthes’ explanation of myth. This was an astute observation.

Have you taken any online courses before?
If so, please describe the experience.
What are the key concepts/learning moments/ideas you take from the two remote weeks of class as compared to the in-person classes?
How can you apply this experience to future academic work or professional work?
Is there anything you would change or recommend for future online classwork?

         I have never taken online classes at any university so far. I am avoiding this as much as possible. In order to enter the MS program here at UMBC in Information Systems, Professor Redding had recommend asking what the enrollment rate was because his hunch was that it was less competitive to gain entrance than the traditional classes. Research indicates that only 27% of learning occurs without the visual clues of being in a classroom. Therefore, 63% of learning is through visual means. Obviously the odds are against us. This method of education has been suggested more than a few times and I am highly resistant to it.

         I had some real bad computer experiences while attending Drexel University to the point where I withdrew from the Comp Sci program to earn my degree here at UMBC. My experiences were similar to the problems Nathan discussed in his journal entry #6. Operating remotely places me in a position where not only am I responsible for the coursework, but I’m also responsible to function as tech support. The weakest link in the equation is the computer. Working remotely places us in a position where we are completely dependent on the technology and we all know technology is not dependable.

         The last two weeks struck at the heart of two of my academic pet peeves: group work and working online. This is especially true for me because I was almost a half hour late for this class today because every computer I tried to log onto from 4:00 p.m. on, refused to log into the system. The computer would accept my username and password and then it would sit there trying to connect to the network with no indication if it would ever log on. I was trying to make a printout of journal entry #7, which had inadvertently forgotten to print at home when I wrote it.

         In the future, maybe we could use more reliable means of communication like smoke signals, morse code, semaphore flags, or aldus lamps.

J. Lawson's response to P. C. Paul's journal entry:

         "Operating remotely places me in a position where not only am I responsible for the coursework, but I’m also responsible to function as tech support. The weakest link in the equation is the computer. Working remotely places us in a position where we are completely dependent on the technology and we all know technology is not dependable." I think you brought you brought up a good point here. One that I did not think about, but can readily agree to. As a complement to this, I would also like to add that, as a generality, online work takes longer than regular work. Waiting for things to load, technical difficulties, reading badly designed websites, all of which combined together can slow the learning process down.

         I took a GRE prep course over the summer in which the testing portion and sample questions/homework were online. My homework in that class took upwards of three to five hours each time simply due to the bad page layout and upload time for each page. I honestly think I could have completed those homework assignments with greater speed using just paper and pencil. Certainly less than three hours.

         And this comment of yours,

         "In the future, maybe we could use more reliable means of communication like smoke signals, morse code, semaphore flags or aldus lamps."

         simply struck me as very funny and decidedly true! Fabulous!

J. Lawson's journal entry response to the same readings:

         I have never taken an online course for two reasons. One, I am a biology major. Most of my classes require the direct face-to-face interaction between student and teacher, and student to student. Two, I very much like interacting with the students and teachers and felt my money would be best spent by learning how to interact with all of the various intellects out there, in addition to gaining knowledge in my field. After all, the working world is two parts who you know and how you work together, and one part skill.

         I thought the online classes were not as interesting as the face to face class. If you take away the human element in most situations, life, all of a sudden, becomes boring. Imagine newspapers, the most interesting stories are those that incorporate a human element. That's why you will never read an article about a blender in and of itself. You will, however, read an article reviewing the pros and cons of a certain blender so that you, the reader (the human), can decide if you would like to purchase such an item. Get it. No humans, no fun!

         How will I apply this experience to future academic classes or professional work? Continue along as I've been doing. Ascertaining my belief that face to face interaction is best and incorporating online use as a bonus to that interaction, not as a complete replacement.

         The things I would change to future online classes. One, let people know ahead of time that there will be an online portion incorporated into the class. Also, to have a online class, one must be extremely prepared and organized. Finally, I think one cannot truly have an entirely online class and learn as much as they would by interaction with individuals (after all, it's not what you know, but how best you can present yourself). Therefore, the best online classes for the future would be those that you can have video conferences, where real time discussion can take place.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to Y. Lawson's journal entry:

         My only experience with doing an academic process online is working for UMBC’s Bartleby creative art journal which is strictly an online community. We review student submissions in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and art online. What bothers me about the online community is that I do not know the people I work with. I learned this semester that there is one person in ENGL 395 and one person in ENGL 488. I only learned this because the 488 person mentioned this in conversation with Dr. Carpenter while discussing her academic plans for next semester. The person in 395 knew how I was an volunteered me to make an “off the cuff announcement” in the class that Bartleby was accepting submissions. My point is that we are walking around campus and have no idea who is part of the staff.

         I agree with you on the face to face. I think there is a tremendous loss in discussions and that many of us can communicate better orally than through written forms of communication. I agree that we all have different experiences and view the world quite differently. The observations of one person are only that, one person. With many people communicating in one room a richer view is developed and a possibility of coming closer to the truth of what has been observed. This is especially true in science for what is seen is the result of a cause. The scientist is forced to work backwards in order to determine the cause. In working backwards, just as in working forwards, there are many paths that may achieve the end result. The question is which of the paths is correct. I find it all too easy to see one path, to plow down it only to get stuck midway. The problem is that my mind didn’t see a few steps before that there was a possible deviation from the main path. Someone else may see that deviation and see something three steps ahead which results in success, while my path ended in failure.

         One of our tutors in the Writing Center who is working towards their MA has the same complaint about online learning. There is a tremendous loss in learning because of the inability to interact with several people. Inasmuch no matter how some of us try to get around it, we are social beings and with that anything can be used as a reason to socialize. A perfect example is something like the Physics Club. Most of the members are physics majors and sit around and talk about physics. “Sick, but social,” as was said in the movie the Breakfast Club. Even the Breakfast Club itself was “sick, but social.” Even though the purpose was punishment or detention even within this setting, the members learned something of each other that day.

         Yet another astute observation, thank you.

         My curiosity is aroused now, you said that you are a science major are you also an English major? What I mean to say is why would you take a senior seminar course in English? I’m earning my BA in English Technology and Communications to combine with my BS in Information Systems, but I also took ENGL 383 Science Writing with Professor Carpenter and knew full well how much writing was involved in this class. I also knew that Professor Carpenter’s class would cause me to reflect and build on the knowledge I already have. I’m curious as to why you chose this class.

Visit an online museum site for 10 minutes.
Do you think the audience is taken into consideration in the construction of the site and exhibits?
Why? Explain.

Salvador Dali Museum

         The web site provides a historical account of the images, states Dali’s influences in periods of his painting. The audience receives an overwhelming amount of information of what Dali was thinking, what and who he was influenced by, political influences of the time, not only for a painting period but for individual works also.

         The web site is not only about Dali’s artwork, but also about Dali the artist. The explanations of individual paintings provide information on the creation of the painting and also historical accounts of his life during the time the painting was being created.

         Under the “The Collection” menu, the site has categorized Dali’s art into four periods: Early 1917-27, Transitional 1928, Surreal 1929-39, Classic 1940+. This web site seems less interested in the web audience and more interested in promoting the museum itself. The web site says that within the museum there are “95 oil paintings, [and] the collection includes over 100 watercolors and drawings, 1,300 graphics, photographs, sculptures and objects d'art, with an extensive archival library.” Within the Early period of the web site the curator shows the user five selected paintings. The Transitional period contains two paintings, five within the Surreal period, and seven within Dali’s Classic period. Each of these paintings is analyzed but this is only 19 paintings analyzed. The purpose of this web site is to draw the viewer to the museum in St. Petersburg, Fla.

         As a comparison, when one visits the Salvador Dali Art Gallery , the site I frequent more often, is more of a depository of Dali’s collective works. 1029 paintings, 329 drawings, 128 watercolors, and 73 objects. 159 of the paintings are analyzed. This web site only has a presence on the web. This is a server somewhere in cyberspace. The web site is not promoting a museum. Its purpose is to allow the world and download Dali’s art. This web site does not break up Dali’s artwork into periods. The viewer sees the artwork in linear time as the artist created it. The site begins with 1910 and ends with 1983. On this site only, if the viewer clicks on the image the image can be viewed full size allowing for analysis of the image. The first site makes the image bigger, but not large enough to analyze properly. In addition many of the paintings in the second web site are paintings in private collections.

         The first web site is not targeting the web surfer but promoting the museum. The second web site is geared towards a web surfing audience. This find was purely accidental as I couldn’t remember which of the web sites I usually visit.

         Viewing art on web sites or in books is never the same as physically experiencing the artwork up close and personal. Physical size is lost as some paintings are quite large. Textures that the artist went to great lengths in producing become lost because of these mediums. Perspective, depth, and shadows are also lost. Then there are the subtleties as the artist appearing as a voyeur of the object he or she has created in some obscure portion of the painting putting a whole new meaning on the artwork itself.

C. Tsubaki's journal entry response to P. C. Paul's journal entry:

         Thanks for posting your informative entry on Salvador Dali Museum. It inspired me to visit the site and learn the exhibition that included the four areas as land, myth, perception, and God as I have copied the part of the text below. I like the site because it provided the visuals and texts almost equally. Since I am still at the stage of the alphabetic literacy, any textual explanation on visual materials certainly enlightens me to appreciate them.

         It appears Salvador Dali’s works are good candidates for psychoanalytic approach since they delve into the unconscious mind; surrealism seems to be symbolic, dreamlike, and fantastic. Judging from these images, I must say that Dali must have had many dreams on mythology. They certainly stimulate my imagination. I may even understand my own dreams by analyzing them if I continue study the works of Salvador Dali.

Copied from the web site:

DALÍ REVEALED: Land, Myth, Perception and God
Examining the sources of Dalí's obsessions
February 4, 2005 through December 2005
A portion of The Salvador Dalí Museum's enormous collection returned to view February 4, 2005 in DALÍ REVEALED, dynamically illustrating four themes of profound obsessions in Dalí's work: Land, Myth, Perception and God.

DALÍ REVEALED
Examining the sources of Dalí's obsessions

The Salvador Dalí Museum has opened Dalí Revealed: Land, Myth, Perception and God, a new exhibition of the permanent collection. The exhibition is open through October 2005, will examine four key sources in Dalí's work.

"Dalí Revealed organizes the permanent collection with regard to Dali's consuming interest in popular culture, ideas derived principally from religion, mythology, contemporary science and psychology," said the exhibition's curator, Joan Kropf. "Coming as this does immediately following the Dalí Centennial Year, the exhibition continues the goals of that international celebration, and together with the Museum's final 2004 exhibition Dalí & Mass Culture increases awareness and understanding of Dalí's impact on contemporary culture."

Dalí Museum Director Hank Hine added: "This exhibition organizes Dali's work into four persistent categories of obsession. It reveals a mind laden with traditions yet heroically striving to demonstrate what else the world might be. Exhibiting these four wells of Dali's imagination provides our visitors with an understanding of why Dali never departed from descriptive realism."

Over 100 artworks from the Salvador Dalí Museum's permanent collection, including oil paintings, works on paper and objects, are on view in this exhibition. The gallery will be divided into four areas: Land (the landscape of Catalonia); Myth (both classical myths and the highly personalized mythology Dali constructs); Perception (the elasticity of reality and vision and demonstrated by optical illusions and double images); and God (themes of theism [Catholicism] and atheism).

C. Paul's response to C. Tsubaki's response entry:

         I don’t know about you but I feel like a kid in a candy shop in this class. In the first couple of weeks after reading some of Lorh, she mentioned Edward Tufte. I was already familiar with Tufte and his books of graphical presentation. I ended on his workshop list somehow and receive pamphlets for his workshops once a year. I though this would be the topic for my third paper.

         Lo and behold, Professor Carpenter said one word, “anime” Which led me to exploring why the day college students are so fascinated with it. I went to a science convention back in 1992 where they had a lecture hall dedicated to the showing of anime from open to close and it was standing room only. I forgot about it until recently. Adult Swim Cartoon Channel dedicates three hours a night to anime and I have it on just to keep company with me as I work through the night on this stuff. My point is that as a writer, sometimes a person can say one word, which sets a creative spark. Anime was the spark. I intend to analyze manga for my third paper but still haven’t narrowed down the topic sufficiently. There’s just too many directions to go in.

         I was introduced to Dali in a documentary on the Public Channel some time after his death. I’ve been to the second site a few times and find it the most fascinating. I think you’re quite right that his art would make for an excellent paper in Visual Literacy but I can’t commit myself now. I may be able to use it in ENGL 407 the methods course with Shipka.

         I had originally copied a great deal of that information on the web site about myth into my post and cut it all out again because I figured nobody wants to read all this stuff. It was purely an accident that the first web site would be having a discussion an exhibition on Myth. I agree, “I am still at the stage of the alphabetic literacy” also and still wrestling with that so I agree “any textual explanation on visual materials certainly enlightens me to appreciate them.”

         I also agree that “Salvador Dali’s works are good candidates for psychoanalytic approach since they delve into the unconscious mind; surrealism seems to be symbolic, dreamlike, and fantastic. Judging from these images, I must say that Dali must have had many dreams on mythology.” I wasn’t even thinking of him for the basis of a paper in psychoanalytic approach. Now I’ll have to remember him if the opportunity comes up again.

         I tutor in the Writing Center and a young lady walked in with a paper for AMST 100 American Studies that instructed them to perform a semiotic analysis on a topic. I could believe the assignment and couldn’t believe she had chosen to analyze the difference between working class college students and college students from wealthy families. We had just disseminated Barthes paper on myth and the poor class myth and the myth of the Bourgeoisie. I know I am just learning to crawl, but I had to contain myself and prevent from interjecting what knew on semiology and myth. It was amazing how this particular topic was coming to a head over the course of a few weeks. I just wanted to share that with you because it was an enlightening experience.

K. Stegar's journal entry to the same question:

         After viewing an online exhibit of the Vatican Museums in Rome I think that for this particular site the audience is taken into consideration. The web site is designed in such a way that the viewer can click on what part of the museum they would like to see and thenon specific images within the wing or section of the museum. The images are accompanied by descriptions and brief histories that inform the reader about the piece of artwork they are a looking at. The only thing that makes the web site a little difficult to navigate is the fact that the images are rather small. You can click and look at each piece slightly bigger but still not large enough to be able to really consider the piece and analyze it. I think that the positioning of the image versus the text it helpful also. The text is always to the side or bottom of the image and spaced far enough away as to make it easy for the viewer to look at the image and then the text or the other way around without having either piece overtake the page position.

         I think that this web site seems to be made for people interested in visiting the Vatican or who are simply interested in art as a whole and it serves it's purpose very well. It seems to be slightly more helpful for the former group rather than the latter group however because of the fact that the thumbnails are rather small in comparison to the size of the page and the screen as a whole. Also the site could be useful to someone trying to research art history or a similar topic because the written portions are extremely informative and help the viewer to look at the image in its historical context along with their own personal opinions and views.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to K. Steger's journal entry:

         I disagree with this web site being designed for audience. K. Stegar's said, “The web site is designed… the viewer can click on… part of the museum they would like to see and then on specific images within the wing or section of the museum.” This does not consider the user. I have never been to the Vatican. I have no idea where I am supposed to start. I feel like a blind man in a black room trying to prove the existence of a black cat inhabiting the room. The user has to pass over the hypertext and at the same time watch the layout of the building to highlight indicating to the user where they are going on the map. The map means nothing to me, I’m not in the building. I’m on a computer. This makes for poor web site design. The hypertext means nothing to me. The only place I recognize is The Sistine Chapel.

         I went into the chapel and the only mural clearly labeled is “The Last Judgement.” When I select for an enlargement, I still can’t make out what I am looking at. The + sign symbol for enlargement doesn’t work once the image has been enlarged. If I click anywhere on the image itself it does enlarge that particular section but is still unclear. Everything in this wing is mystery meat. Meaning there is no explanation of how get the most out of your web visit. There is very little control when one attempts a zoom in. Examining portions of the ceiling did prove to be interesting. When one goes to Prophet Ezekiel as an example and continues to zoom in we can see the damages of time from expansion and contraction of the building. The images are severely cracked.

         I do have to give the web site developers credit as they are trying to capture murals 100’s of feet long and wide. What I now find intriguing is the process used in digitally capturing the mural. I guess they work on a scaffold and blocked off the images according to a coordinate grid and according to how much of the mural the camera can capture clearly. The photographer would snap a shot and then move to where the camera could snap another grid, reassembling the image into the web site as thousands of grid. This may explain why the web site is so difficult to use.

         Granted that the text seems to be complete in explaining what we are viewing, but if we can’t view the image, what’s the point. Kelly said, “I think that the positioning of the image versus the text it helpful also. The text is always to the side or bottom of the image and spaced far enough away as to make it easy for the viewer to look at the image and then the text or the other way around without having either piece overtake the page position.” I can understand your position on this as it does have some advantages. On the other hand, I would prefer that the image would open into a full size pop-up window. Text is text. If really need to read it while viewing the image I could print the text and then read it at my desktop while viewing the image. I think the web site designers could focus more on the users needs.

Rose, Kress, Van Leeuwen, et al., ask us to recognize a new types of emerging literacy. Today's literate individuals make meaning by synthesizing information, employing multimodal discourses of both language and non-language representations. Discuss.

         “It’s alive, It’s ALIVE!”

         By Job, I think we have created a monster. The monster was not the creation of two college youths some 25 years ago in their garage, the birthplace of the Personal Computer (PC). No, that creation was only the mini-monster or should I say the creators of the PC were the mini-monsters. The monster is the ability to connect all these PC’s together through the technology of networking: The Internet. Even the sound of the term has a monstrous ring to it: “The Internet,” A deep and dark foreboding. “You better not pout, you better not cry, you better be good I’m telling you why… The Internet is coming to town and you’ll be sucked into cyberspace never to be heard from or seen again.” Then again, the Internet is a thing, a concept, an abstract. Once again maybe the monster is the team of people who made networking computers together is the monster. This is quite fascinating because Mary Shelly in her novel “Frankenstein” weaves her tale in such a way that the reader is left to decide who is the real monster: Dr. Frankenstein or his creation, Frankenstein’s monster. This formulates a wonderful paradox.

         Rose, Kress, and van Leeuwen are paving a path of a new highway that few are even aware of. I know I wasn’t until I took this course and when I try to explain to other students what we are learning, I become lost for words in attempting to provide a 30 second synopsis of the course. Literacies and technologies are converging because of the ability to network computers and emergence of the “Digital Age.” There is clearly the emergence of a new literacy called “Φ,” a literacy that borrows from all other forms of literacy whether they be alpha-numeric, visual, audio, mathematical, statistical, historical, psychological, computer, digital, scientific and literary literacy. Is there no end to the literacies?

         Each discipline has its own vocabulary and conventions for conducting a discourse within a particular discipline, whether the field is Psychology, History, Computer Science, English, Medicine, etc. In other words, according to Michel Foucault, every discipline has its own form of literacy and its own “common discourse” or a discipline-specific discourse with its own literacies one must achieve and excel in if one is to gain acceptance into the particular discipline. If one does not learn the discipline-specific literacies or the modes by which to communicate and conduct a discourse within the discipline, one is labeled as an un-mutual and is not permitted entrance to the specific discipline.

         But let’s suppose for a moment what happens to the person who is capable of communicating across disciplines. The field of Artificial Intelligence works wonderfully for this purpose. Researchers have already determined that in order to make HAL, (The HAL 9000 computer from Arthur C. Clark book and Stanley Kubrick’s movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey) speak and reason as a human being will take a team of researchers and specialists in the fields of Psychology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics and others, plus Linguists, Logicians, and others. But as with most disciplines, each person is a specialist and lacks the ability to communicate and conduct a discourse in the other’s chosen field. The question now becomes who will emerge as the “generalist” who can communicate intelligently with each particular discipline, gather given information and new information from each discipline, and synthesize both the given/new information into new-new information directing the team towards “The Holy Grail Within the Church of Reason” creating a true AI? How much education will they need and what will that education look like or rather will part of that education come from the institutionalized educational systems we now have and the other part be supplied by independent study, employment experience, and the experience of the perpetual student of life?

J. Lawson's response to P. C. Paul's journal entry response:

C Paul wrote:

“Rose, Kress, and van Leeuwen are paving a path of a new highway that few are even aware of. I know I wasn’t until I took this course and when I try to explain to other students what we are learning, I become lost for words in attempting to provide a 30 second synopsis of the course. Literacies and technologies are converging because of the ability to network computers and emergence of the “Digital Age.” There is clearly the emergence of a new literacy called “_,” a literacy that borrows from all other forms of literacy whether they be alpha-numeric, visual, audio, mathematical, statistical, historical, psychological, computer, digital, scientific and literary literacy. Is there no end to the literacies?

Each discipline has its own vocabulary and conventions for conducting a discourse within a particular discipline, whether the field is Psychology, History, Computer Science, English, Medicine, etc. In other words, according to Michel Foucault, every discipline has its own form of literacy and its own “common discourse” or a discipline-specific discourse with its own literacies one must achieve and excel in if one is to gain acceptance into the particular discipline. If one does not learn the discipline-specific literacies or the modes by which to communicate and conduct a discourse within the discipline, one is labeled as an un-mutual and is not permitted entrance to the specific discipline.”

         I very much agree that each discipline has its own terms, its own lingo, if you will. But I can’t help but think people often use this as a scapegoat as a way to justify complexity of their field. To clarify, remember the article on semiology that we were assigned to read and comment on as a journal entry. I remember the reading itself was very complex and most of the class struggled to make sense of it and other, such as myself, gave up entirely. Granted, semiology has its own lingo, but it wasn’t the lingo of semiology that gave us eye and brain burn from trying to read the text. It was the writer’s complex and utterly unreadable academic writing style that had all our brains gasping for air.

         For some reason, most of academia, has decided that writing in such a horrific and wordy fashion best represents the study of their subject. It is when no one can understand what is being said, that one of those stuffy academic writer feel they’ve said it best. Folks, we are writing ourselves out of existence!

         The addition of multimodal discourse, I think, can aid in the fight against such atrocious writing methods. It can provide clarity to a study or a subject, without having to know the lingo. I again point to the meteorological website I mention in Journal entry 10. The weather man could tell us this, “A low pressure from the North is mixing with a high pressure from the south and increasing barometric pressure have led to precipitous cloud accumulations in the western region the mountains, leading to atmospheric changes in altitude feel and conditions of temperate climate changes in the south.” Or the lovely weatherman could just tell us, “It’s going to rain in the mountains in west and we’ll have mild weather in the south.” This of course will be expressed with a picture of rain clouds over a mountainous region and a picture of a sun covered by a touch of clouds over a region just south of the mountain picture.

         Therefore, creating other newer methods of discourse should aid in our ability to communicate across other fields of study. But I also think we as academic student should apply these methods with care, as the purpose of such new tools is to effectively communicate the activities within our minds. Let’s not be so high-minded in using these new tools to such an abysmally philosophic degree that we render them completely useless as we have done with the written word in a good portion of academic writing.

C. Tsbubaki's journal entry response to the same readings:

         Rose, Kress, and Van Leeuwen, et al are correct in pointing out either the merger or convergence of alphabetic, visual, audio, and computer literacy to establish a “new type of literacy” in the form of multimodal discourse or multiliteracies based on mediamorphosis. This is an age of anxiety with technology advancing so rapidly that we can hardly keep up with revolutionary change in the fields of information, communication, and literacy. From students’ point of view, it will be efficient to take courses that are already designed to accommodate multiliteracies. Unfortunately, however, not many so called “multi-literacy” courses are offered by educational institutions. Thus, we probably end up taking a few courses in computer literacy, art history, introductory literature, music appreciation and so on to “synthesize” information in order to navigate the twenty-first century information highway. This approach is time consuming and expensive; until multiliteracies are institutionalized in the form of textbooks and trained instructors with proper curriculum, I am afraid we probably struggle along to face the newly emerging literacy individually.

         Will it be possible that we may have newly forming multiliteracy-elites who are a few years ahead of traditionally oriented group in the field of literacy? People still observe the compartmentalization of alphabetic literacy, math literacy, computer literacy, visual literacy, and so on. Although Kress suggests that visual modes essentially dominate verbal mode in the new millennium, I still remain skeptical toward the hegemony of visual modes until they are institutionalized through educational system. However, just in case my prediction proves wrong, I need to take as many interdisciplinary courses covering literacy or multiliteracies as possible for “intellectual” survival.

P. C. Paul's journal entry response to C. Tsubaki's journal entry:

         I can see the emergence of a new literacy where the medium for the time being will be the computer screen and the mode will be the image. Eventually the screen will evolve into a holographic image. The new literacy will be a pictographic literacy. Kress states that the image will eventually dominate the screen and text will become subordinate. Kress states that there will be wins and losses. What I noted in all of this is a conflict of philosophies. Western philosophy always thinks in terms of conflict, superiority and dominance. Eastern philosophy thinks in terms of harmony, yin and yang, two universal life forces working in harmony.

         The reason I keep coming back to Mathematics is because it is not an alpha-numeric language but a universal pictographic language. It’s a language of symbols and is understood by all nationalities that have studied it. There are numbers for actual quantities, letters for variables, Greek alphabet letters for purposes that vary from discipline to discipline, last but not least, the mathematical operators themselves. The further one studies the subject the more operator’s one learns and all of then are symbols that have meaning. When one begins to look at some of the higher order work it actually begins to look like an alien language. What’s curious about Mathematics as a universal language is it does not consider the image as inferior or superior. In this case, the image would be a plot or a graph or some kind of image representation of the symbols. Mathematicians see pictures as just another means of obtaining an understanding. It’s just another tool in the tool box. I had a Math teacher who wrote and equation on the board, turned to us and said, “A picture is worth a thousand words, well, maybe not a thousand, but at least a couple of hundred.” He turned back and proceeded to draw the image of what the symbols meant. This was Calc. I, so he showed us how the symbols produced a washer (yes, one of those things you use with a nut and a bolt). The mathematic symbols explained the picture of the washer and the washer explained what the mathematic symbols meant. There was no inferior or superior. Each explained the other. Simply two types of communication working harmoniously.

         As far as education, all of this is coming together for me real fast but I have my hands in so many different areas that’s why all of this is merging. I don’t think we can expect the institutionalized learning system to be able to keep up with all of it. The person teaching is going to have trouble keeping up with all the training. The same problem exists in science and technology. Technology being the worse because it changes faster than science. Another thing that comes to my mind is who is going to pay for all this training? The teacher having one of the most noble of causes and yet receives the least in financial compensation is going to be asked to go back to school over and over on a teacher’s budget? Something is very wrong here obviously especially when it is the teacher who will need to be taught first in order to relay what they know to an audience of students.

C. Tsubaki's response to P. C. Paul's Response to C. Tsubaki's Journal Entry 10:

         I have always enjoyed your journal entries as well as your replies to other entries, for they have been comprehensive and thought provocative. For your response to my Journal 10, you give me a thought of the contrast between two approaches to reality: Western view of conflict and Eastern view of harmony. You are quite right in thinking that if the former prevails, we will probably see visual materials dominating the verbal materials whereas if the later prevails, we may see a balance between visuals and verbal. Coming from the East, a graduate of Atsugi high school in Japan, I prefer to see the harmony and balance in the multimodal discourse. But what I am afraid is that the Western mode through the hegemony of capitalism will prevail. I predict that the dominance of visual materials over verbal will come within a decade as textbook publishers, a part of multinational media conglomerates, will increasingly package textbooks in multi-media format because of higher profit-margin and perceived “consumer demands.” Once this trend starts, educational institutions will follow the corporate leads, and the new or next generation of teachers and students will accommodate and advance the supremacy of visuals. Perhaps, the harbinger of the new revolution will be the extent to which current textbooks carry visuals over verbal. By a simple content analysis of sampled textbooks, we might be able predict whether we might be going toward the direction of “dominance” or “harmony” in the new information revolution.

P. C. Paul's Response to C. Tsubaki's Response:

         Thank you, I ‘m going to miss our stimulating discussions on viewpoint. In regards to content analysis of textbooks, that could turn out to be an exciting research project that I may be able to follow up with next semester with Dr. Shipka for ENGL 407 Methods. We both know there has been a definite change in the style of textbooks, especially in the sciences from text dominated to image dominated over the past 35 years. I am sure someone else has already thought of this and written about it, but at the Bachelor level I could probably get away with performing the analysis. We both know at higher levels of education we are expected to publish something that hasn’t already been said. Another interesting tangent of the content analysis of textbooks would be how the language used has changed over the past 35 years. A change from long complex sentences to short, tight sentences, a change once again that may be due to the preference now dictated by the computer screen.

Y. Lawson's journal entry to the same reading:

         I think this is very much the case with literate individual and what I find fascinating is how readily we “apply multimodal discourses of both language and non-language,” without a second thought. When working with my partner on the assignment last week, I realized how reliant we’ve become on the use of images in accordance with text or even, at time, in the place of text.

         There was one web site my partner and I can across with no real images, just a lot of colors with mostly text on the page. Aside from the fact that it was what we thought to be a disorganized web site, we also found it uninteresting to even want to decipher it entirely. I think it was precisely because there was no image present to help organize the text.

         Today’s literate individuals, as have past individuals, make meaning by synthesizing information. This is nothing new, as discourse and the growth of knowledge rely on information synthesis. Though, the literate individual of today has more tool, more multimodal discourse types, at their disposal than past individuals. The movement from the book to the screen, according to Kress, or as I like to think of it as the movement from written word to the screen, very much employs the idea that there exists another realm of discourse that’s in addition to the written word. The screen, and all its literate forms contained within it, allow for a new mode of communication. It allows for both language and non-language representations. For example, in the assignment last week, we came across the weather channel web site. Not only does this web site explain in words what the day’s temperature and weather will be like, but a picture, fully explaining in detail what the temperature and weather will be like, also accompany the text. If the text happened to be missing, we would still have a very good idea what the weather would be like just by looking at the image.

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References

Kress, G. (2003). Literacy in the New Media Age. London: Routledge.

Rose, G. (2001). Visual methodologies. London: Sage Publications.

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