Digigran

Or La Plus Ca Change

I have noticed that my colleagues have suddenly become very serious about their BLOGGING. See Dr Kate's post here and Dr Joolz's here. (Go to Joolz on May19th- I can't navigate round her new BLOG yet- it doesn't seem to work like Blogger.)

Then I realised they must be conscious that the students on this course which they run (See the Module 3 choices) have recently been asked to BLOG and would probably be reading theirs as examples. Which raises the question of how far BLOGs are constrained by the known identity of the BLOGGER.

I, for one, am missing the regular fix of narrative from Ruffield, tant pis!

Joolz however continues to divert with images of Trois Tetes looking wet. See

Anyway decided I had better do a more "seious" post myself, just in case any of them logged on to mine. Do let me know if any of you do...

SERIOUSLY THOUGH...

This post was stimulated by the wonderful images of the Chrysler Building that Dr Joolz brought back from NY. I was inspired to look up more facts about it and its construction only to find an ongong debate about the loss of authenticity in creativity and craft.

See

The trouble with all the talk about the decay of artisanship
is that it is true. It has always been true. It was true when the last
wattle-weaver died and they took to building houses of brick. And it will be
true when the tools and machinery of the contemporary arts are replaced by atomic explosions...

The master-workmen of our time drive steel to steel with
hammer strokes of air. But they still depend upon the judgment of hand and
eye. And their necks are still breakable" (27).

I was reminded of Plato and his anxiety about the loss of human faculties consequent on the introduction of writing:

If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their
souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is
written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by
means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory,
but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but
only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you
will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and
as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a
burden to their fellows.
(Plato, Phaedrus 275a-b)

Which brings me to the latest example of the Luddite in the surprising guise of

Susan Greenfield, who one hoped might have known better.

Does this mean young people are acquiring or will need different skills? v Memory, for example, may no longer be as essential as it was for those of us who had to learn reams of Latin grammar, but with everything just a click away, perhaps we are at risk of losing our imagination, that mysterious and special cognitive gift that until now has always made the book so much better than the film.

Books better than films, always? I suppose this book has been found to be better than this film . But so what. There are good films and bad films, good books and bad books. Sometimes they deal with the same story, sometimes they don't nut they have different affordances and satisfy different tastes and desires.

For more on Greenfield's views on issues of creativity and the digital see http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/comment/story/0,,1760235,00.html.

Then let me know what you think.

I for one will only be teaching Alexander Latin of this order:

Ceasar ad sum iam forte

Pliny et erat (Ah, ah! Please note subtle segue into main meme of this BLOG.)

So perhaps we can enjoy this from here together. Long before he is 15, though, I hope.

# posted by Digigran @ 4:01 AM