Writing and Community

How digital text will change the novel

I am a writer.

The best way to demonstrate the structure of the writing community is by throwing a rock into the nearest lake. The splash at the centre represents the text (a novel, for example). A series of concentric circles surrounding the splash represent different elements: the first circle represents the author of the text. The next circle represents the reader. The third circle might represent historical influences that have shaped the content of the text. It is an interesting structure for a number of reasons. Firstly, the wrting community is created by individuals who work alone (the authors) who in turn receive support from their readers. Secondly, each reader has the capacity to support many authors. Thirdly, the waves produced by the splash are infinite, for the novel is a complex creature. Throw a few more rocks into the lake and the picture will become a little more clear.

It is an ideological community, one that has always represented the feeling of the times. By reading Marcel Proust, for example, the reader can obtain an insight into the aesthetic pleasures that existed before the First World War. Similarly, after the Second World War, totalitarianism influenced the novelists of the day, as did the atomic bomb.

We are experiencing a historical shift at the moment. The paper based society is on the way out, and the digital age is embedding itself into the current social fabric. With this technological revolution it is up to the writer to make sense of the shifting zeitgeist, although this time the medium of expression is changing. In ten years there will be no publishing houses. Novels will exist in digital form and people will read them electronically. Within ten years it is likely that other mediums will be produced, although I cannot say what they are.

The writing community will not change. It will receive the same support. It will still be a collection of individuals with the similar ideals, it's just that all of them will be online. There will be greater access to books and materials. It is unlikely that newspapers will exist. The ritual of buying the Saturday paper, reading the reviews and then visiting the bookstore to see if they have a copy of the one that captured your interest will no longer exist. For example, using Twitter, I 'follow' The New York Review of Books, who upload daily book reviews which I read on my phone. I can then download these texts to an e-reader if I wish. Twitter itself supports the community by providing instant community updates, as well as inviting online feedback.

In the Weekend Australian just published, the chief literary critic, Geordie Williamson mourns the demise of the antiquarian book trade, "The thrill of the chase that made book collecting such a romantic undertaking was reduced to the banal scanning of eBay listings, uploaded by faceless digital traders with no experience and a tendency to sharp practice." (Williamson, 2011)

There will be little time for nostalgia in this urgent new world. Milan Kundera, in 'The Art of the Novel' says that "The unification of the planet's history, that humanist dream which God has spitefully allowed to come true, has been accompanied by a process of dizzying reduction." (Kundera, 2000) In his essay he blames globalization, the mass media and political economy for the death of the novel, however, he does not consider the digital media and the freedoms that it gives to the writing community. The novel will not die, it will simply take some other shape.

For a start, authors are able to self-publish. History will decide whether the text has any resonance, yet it is the freedom given to the members of this community that will enable it to thrive. Information overload is a concept that has little effect on the minds of isolated individuals, unless they are planning to write about it, or at the very least, be inspired by it. Globalization will not overload our minds, it will simply provide us with more choices.

Texts are less expensive, if not free. The public domain is expanding. Globalization will allow writers to appeal to the reasoning of other cultures. It will be like the Library of Babel, a place invented by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, a place where you can find all of the books.

Professor Robert Darnton, the director of the Harvard University Library in an article about the new digital library that is forming says:

“Perhaps Google itself could be enlisted to the cause of the digital public library. It has scanned about 15 million books; two million of that total are in the public domain and could be turned over to the library as the foundation of its collection. The company would lose nothing by this generosity, and might win admiration for its good deed.

Through technological wizardry and sheer audacity, Google has shown how we can transform the intellectual riches of our libraries, books lying inert and underused on shelves. But only a digital public library will provide readers with what they require to face the challenges of the 21^st century – a vast collection of resources that can be tapped, free of charge, by anyone, anywhere, at any time.” (Darnton, 2011)

The digital universe can only increase the richness of the writing community, in fact, it is almost made for us.

Darnton, R. (2011, March 23). A Digital Library Better Than Google's. The New York Times (online edition) , p. A31.

Dyson, F. (2011, April 7). How We Know. The New York Review of Books (online edition) .

Kundera, M. (2000). The Art of the Novel. New York: Grove Press.

Lantz, D. (2010, February 22). Publishing your book on Amazon's Kindle. Retrieved March 27, 2011, from You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8BDnQNcyqI&feature=related

Williamson, G. (2011, March 26-27). Rare: A Life Among Antiquarian Books (Book Review). The Australian , p. 20.

Media Richness and Education

As a language teacher, encouraging students to make use of available technology is important. Mobile learning applications are becoming prolific. There are translation applications, listening exercises, vocabulary builders, interactive iconography exercises and more, and they are all fun , and research shows that they are just as effective as traditional classroom methods.

While m-learning is an exciting medium, it is complemented by the personal computer and the laptop (and now, the ipad and other interactive books) which are able to present learning in more sophisticated ways, particulary when group work is involved. For all of these platforms, the Internet provides enormous resources. "It is a vast and flexible resource centre where structured lessons, grammars, lexicons, fonts and other resources can be developed, shared, and added to." (Yeoman, 2000)

Where does media richness come into this? Media richness is concerned with the quality of information that is received when using technology to source the information. "Originally, Daft and Lengel created a media richness hierarchy with four criteria:

1 The availability of feedback
2 The capacity of the medium to transmit multiple cues
3 The use of natural language
4 The personal focus of the medium.

In descending order of richness, they produced the following spectrum: face to face, video, telephone, email, postal letter, note, memo, flier and bulletin." (Shepherd, 2006)

It would seem that this model was created exclusively for language teachers. Providing feedback and the use of natural language are central concepts  in language teaching theory. As these theories evolve, a learner centred approach to language teaching is emerging as the leading model. (Savignon, 2007)

In terms of learner feedback and media richness, m-learning and e-learning lie somewhere between 'face to face' and 'video.' Interactive screens are entirely learner centered. They are perfectly tailored for providing information in a teaching environment, and by using these new technologies together the students will have a rich experience in effective learning.

Media rich learning would particularly benefit students that have no English exposure outside of the classroom. Communication technologies enable these students to participate in virtual classrooms. Similarly,  geographically isolated students can benefit from media rich distance learning. Online mini-worlds such as 'Second Life' are dynamic, invaluable resources for both teachers and students.

The virtual classroom promotes collaborative learning and collective intelligence, and as
access to the Internet increases, language learning opportunities and problems such as literacy can be addressed through media rich platforms.
Marina Lu, in the conclusion of her study on the effectiveness of using mobile phones to increase vocabulary notes that the the mobile group in her study had greater vocabulary gains than their paper-group counterparts. (Lu, 2008) In order to enrich vocabulary learning, a useful mobile application would be one where the user uses the camera on his mobile phone to display the surrounding environment. With recognition software, the phone could attach the correct English word to the images on the display, for example, 'Window', or 'Taipan.' Direct learning using a phone and an external environment is the ultimate in media rich experience.

Universities are receiving grants for m-learning. Bond University has received a grant to develop games for the Android device. In 2005, the University of Wisconcin recieved a grant for mobile language learning. "In converting from analog to digital, a campus team decided to change the whole language-learning environment." (Gilgen, 2005) The use of games for interactive learning is becoming ubiquitous. Educational games are the way of the future.

Interesting Web Sites:

Web Site of the Nobel Prize
EDUCAUSE

The possibilities for educational games and language learning are exponential. During this decade we will see a change in the teacher-student relationship. The teacher will be there to guide the dynamics of learning, but it will be the classroom itself that comes to life by allowing students to transcend its walls and removing traditional limitations.

We are surrounded by 'Media Richness.' In this classroom (DMS302) we are subjected to podcasts, twitter, blogs, ilearn, turnitin and powerpoint. We have access to ipods. Our leader is digitally savvy. We have been subjected to Media Richness Theory and we have survived the experience, and suffer only positive side-effects.

In the language classroom, channeling information-media will ultimately heighten the cognitive learning processes of the modern language student.

Mobilese

Educational. (2004, January 23). Retrieved March 21, 2011, from Nobelprize.org: http://nobelprize.org/educational/

Educause. (2010, January 15). Retrieved March 21, 2011, from Educause: http://net.educause.edu

Gilgen, R. (2005). Holding the World in Your Hand: Creating a Mobile Language Learning Environment. EDUCAUSE Quarterly Magazine , 30-39.

Lan, Y.-F., & Sie, Y.-S. (2010). Using RSS to support mobile learning based on media richness theory. Computers and Education , 723-732.

Lu, M. (2008). Effectiveness of vocabulary learning via mobile phone. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning , 515-525.

Lusk, E. J. (2006). Email: Its decision support systems inroads - An update. Decision Support Systems , 328-322.

Mobilese. (n.d.). Retrieved March 21, 2011, from You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9lgNCv3-MA&feature=related

Savignon, S. J. (2007). Forty years of language teaching: The new millenium. Language Teaching , 1-15.

Shephard, M. M. (2006). Media Richness Theory and the Distance Education Environment. The Journal of Computer Information Systems , 1-10.

Webster, J., & Hackley, P. (1997). Teaching Effectiveness in Technology-Mediated Distance Learning. Academy of Management Journal , 1282-1309.

Yeoman, E. (2000). Aboriginal language-learning in cyberspace: A typology of language-related web-sites and their potential uses. Canadian Journal of Native Education , 120-134.