X-VMS-To: IN%"WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu"
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Fri, 1 Jan 1993 21:55:57 -0800
From:         Peter Montgomery <MONTGOMERY@CAMINS.CAMOSUN.BC.CA>
Subject:      Re: Electronic Literacy
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

> From: Rita Marie Rouvalis <rita@EFF.ORG>

>         Have you read Sara Keisler and Lee Sproull?  They've done much

>         Ellen Spertus has also done some interesting analysis of

Thanks for the tips. Have you seen McLuhan's _Laws_of_the_Media,
published a few years back by his son Eric?

Nothing you've said suggests to me that WORDS-L is not an interesting
example of instant response creating involvement in depth.

> I don't think you understand the nuances of
> electronic culture.  You cannot make blanket statements about how the
> quality of discourse is affected without taking into careful
> consideration the subtle etiquette, personality, purpose, etc. of the
> forum in question.

Having been involved in this kind of analysis since c.1974, I've become
convinced that nobody really understands electronic communications,
except in bits and pieces. Having been involved in all kinds of forums
and conferencing set-ups, I'm well aware of the varieties of local
customs involved, which is partly why I was surprised to see the use
of profanity on Words-L. Words-L is in fact the first I've run into
(and I was on it about 3 or  4 years back), in which the laws of the
Jungle are the only ones that apply.

>         This isn't Star Trek, Peter.
Just a convenient example as a quick descriptor. All kinds of
interesting technology hasn't taken off. Remember Videotex?? It was
going to be the great wave of the future in North America. Interesting
that a primitive version (Prestel) survived in Britain, with the
database concepts being most successful in Minitel, but NAPLPS went
nowhere -- least of all the Canadian forefather called Telidon.

A current contender for a new revolution is pen-based computing.
Right now NCR is marketing a nifty little 4lb. baby that reads handwriting,
and has 20 meg. memory cards (bye-bye floppydisks/hard drives?).

> with the handicapped so far, but haven't managed to infiltrate the
> general marketplace.  Why?

Don't forget the deliberate sales lag in the market. There're all
kinds of goodies that have to wait till the market is saturated with
current technology. You are in general correct, though. Ma Bell
developed a video phone back in the mid-60s, at enormous cost. Market
research indicated that nobody would go for it, so bye bye.

>         We prefer text.  Why?
Literate people prefer text. I'm not so sure what will apply with
the new generations coming along who haven't had the same exposure
to literacy.

Would you really call what happens on Minitel the USE of text?
And even if you do, how is the use effecting the language?
Keep in mind that France has a much greater tradition of 'protecting'
its language, than do any of the English speaking countries.

> like a city.  It never went anywhere.  Even English professors like
> Natalie -- going against stereotype -- prefer the command line
> interface.

Our dept. has been using a networked command line facility for five
years now as a teaching environemnt. We also prefer the command line
'interface'. The MAC lab I helped set up in Pennsylvania last year
WAS a whole lot easier for the students to get along with. The teachers
pretty much had a hard time, because they were all PC users.

>         Once you can explain why all this is, then maybe you can talk
> about where we might go in the future.

Rita, you didn't read what I said. I think its silly to try to explain what
exists, because that doesn't help knowing where we might go.
I don't want to know where we MIGHT go, I want to know where we WILL
go. I think we need to know where we will go, so we can deal with
the effects of electronic culture on literacy, in order to help
people to be more literate.

There is a fascinating experiment happening at Carnegie-Mellon U.
right now. Researchers go out into neighborhoods to teach literacy
in exchange for learning from the neighborhoods how the language is
evolving.

MAC lab teachers may be interested in a new process-oriented word
processor that has been developed by the English dept. at CMU. It's
called Prep.

*************************************************************
*  Peter Montgomery               Montgomery@camosun.bc.ca  *
*  Professor                                                *
*  Dept of English                 ph (604) 370-3342 (o)    *
*  Camosun College                    (604) 370-3346 (fax)  +
*  3100 Foul Bay Road                                       *
*  Victoria, BC                       Off. Paul Bldg 326    *
*  CANADA   V8P 5J2                                         *
*************************************************************
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU