Re-Imagining Critical Thinking in the Digital AgeNarrowing the Gulf
Conference
Presenters: Matthew Bodie, M.A.
Cher N. Gauweiler, Ph.D.
Synopsis of presentation: Since the early twentieth century,
sociolinguists and related theoreticians have given deeper meaning
to the word text and have gradually changed our view of reading as
one that not only deciphers words on the printed page, but one that
involves reading messages and signals, ranging originally from
individual gestures and community traditions to today’s vast array
of media technologies. As methods of communication have advanced,
so has the need for closer reading and deeper thinking. How can
students be more engaged in reading the world when they only think
in 140 characters? In this interactive presentation, participants
will explore how to infuse critical thinking strategies with
multiple forms of media.
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We live in an ecosystem of interruption technologies (Carr,
2011).
Slide contains embedded sound of AOL’s well-known “You’ve Got
Mail,” one of the first frequent interruptions for early Internet
users.
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Defining our terms
What is text?
What is media?
What is message?
Below are just a few suggested definitions of the words on the
screen, but the point is this: Literacy today is not only concerned
with reading the page but “reading the world,” so to speak. A
strong indicator of this extended view of reading is the long list
of what might be called critical literacies. Many disciplines have
their own form of literacy (e.g., see bottom of Wikipedia’s page on
literacy: http://bit.ly/H4yCIZ); however, if the ‘Net Generation
does not engage in deep or close reading – say, they are only
accustomed to reading 140 characters on Twitter – then questions
have to be asked about how they will read the world. Will their
interpretations -- constructions and deconstructions, if you will –
of the personal, cultural and social texts around them be weak?
Will they be able to achieve the literacies of their disciplines
that hinge on deep reading and critical thought?
Text “Derived from the Latin textum (‘something woven’), which is
also related to the words ‘textile’ and ‘texture’.” How to cite
this entry:
"text" A Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology
1450–2000. Peter Beal. Oxford University Press 2008 Oxford
Reference Online. Oxford University Press.
Text “A group of practices for signaling meaning(s). This commonly
means written texts, but has recently included economic, political,
and social institutions, paintings, landscapes, and maps.
Anthropologists view culture as a text.”
How to cite this entry:
"text" A Dictionary of Geography. Susan Mayhew. Oxford
University Press 2009 Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University
Press.
media (mass media) The means, such as television,
radio, newspapers, and magazines, by which advertisers,
politicians, etc., communicate with large numbers of members of the
general public. How to cite this entry: "media" A
Dictionary of Business and Management. Ed. Jonathan Law. Oxford
University Press, 2009. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University
Press.
‘Medium is the Message, The’. The playfully paradoxical
title of the first chapter of Understanding Media (1964) by the
Canadian philosopher of communications Marshall McLuhan (1911–80).
His point appears to be that the form of the electronic media
(television, computers, etc.) plays a key role in shaping our
thought, in that a ‘message’ is ‘the change of scale or pace or
pattern’ that new technology ‘introduces into human affairs’. How
to cite this entry: "‘Medium is the Message,
The’" Brewer's Dictionary of Modern Phrase & Fable.
Edited by John Ayto and Ian Crofton. Chambers Harrap Publishers
Ltd.
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Video from: http://youtu.be/UFwWWsz_X9s
Is good old-fashioned paper a technology? Can learning happen
outside of technology? Does technology change the way we read
deeply and therefore critically think? Nicholas Carr, author of The
Shallows, in his essay, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” relays a
great story about how the typewriter changed Friedrich Nietzsche’s
form in his later writings. See: http://bit.ly/GWd3Wn If technology
changes writings, will it change readings as well?
Jaron Lanier in his book You Are Not A Gadget (2010) discusses
software lock-in. He says that software developers who develop
original formats or programs do not have the ability to know how
their work will be used in the future. MIDI, for example, continues
to be tweaked over 20 years after its initial invention. The
implication is that the same “lock in” that happens with software
can also happen to its users. Lanier writes, “Every element in the
system—every computer, every person, every bit—comes to depend on
relentlessly detailed adherence to a common standard, a common
point of exchange.” Is this not a sense of sociocentric thinking,
an inability to think outside a certain milieu? What does this say
about those elements of reasoning, such as interpretation and
inference, that are part of critical thinking? Drawing conclusions
and creating solution by using only one process seems to deny a
person the chance at being a strong-sense critical thinker.
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“Lazy Eyes” is a picture and contains an embedded link to the an
article on how students (and many others, including teachers, too)
are used to reading. The same link appears at the bottom of the
page.
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Has skimming become our dominant form of reading?
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(Best, 2004)
If just skimming, will readers catch that these graphs present the
same statistics? What’s more, will they note that the bottom graphs
-- called truncated graphs -- offer a more dynamic
(sensationalized?) view of the statistics? Note how the truncated
graphs do NOT start at zero.
Graphic taken from: Best, J. (2004). Confusing numbers. In More
damned lies and statistics: How numbers confuse public issues (pp.
44-46). Berkeley, CA: Berkeley University of California
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Slow down when reading.
Other ideas?
The link to Purpose leads to a story called “The House.” The way to
use this scenario is explained here: http://bit.ly/H6VV70
The link to Importance leads to an example, provided by critical
thinking champion and presenter Gary Meegan, where the original
text is compacted into a smaller area to leave more margin for
students to “wrestle” with text, asking and answering questions.
See the site from where this example comes at
http://bit.ly/H6Wqy8
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What has happened to the role of author and reader?
Are we “all authors”?
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Question….
Question It is time to elect the world leader, and yours is the
deciding vote. Here are the facts about the three leading
candidates:
Candidate A: He associates with crooked politicians, and consults
with astrologers. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and
drinks up to ten Martinis a day.
Candidate B: He was ejected from office twice, sleeps until noon,
used opium in college and drinks a large amounts of whisky every
evening.
Candidate C: He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't
smoke, drinks an occasional beer and hasn't had any extra-marital
affairs.
This scenario was collected on the Internet as far back as 1999,
and while it makes readers think before judging, it should also
make them think about what they are reading because some of its
facts, or their presentation, are spurious in and of themselves,
not to mention it is anonymously written (read more at snopes.com -
http://bit.ly/H6CXNL). Still, like so many of these scenarios or
stories, they are spread practically worldwide to millions of
Internet users, with little regard to authority or fact.
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Question authority !
Cross-check references
The Authority link leads to an evaluation project used in Matthew’s
classes on research. With this project, instructor and students
discuss what makes these sources credible.
The picture of John Mellencamp contains an embedded link to said
singer’s hit, “I Fight Authority.”
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What is relevance?
Graphic taken from Paul, R. & Elder, L. (2006). How to detect
media bias & propaganda in national and world news, 3rd ed.
Foundation for Critical Thinking. www.criticalthinking.org
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Learn how redefine issues.
Strategies borrowed from Paul, R. & Elder, L. (2006). How to
detect media bias & propaganda in national and world news, 3rd
ed. Foundation for Critical Thinking.
www.criticalthinking.org
The Trending link leads to Google Trends. Instructors could also
try search.twitter.com (no account needed) to demonstrate what
Internet users are searching for. In this presentation, it was
noted how the day before the presentation, George Zimmerman, the
shooter of youth Trayvon Martin, was #10 on Google Trends, but on
the day of the presentation, he did not trend at all in the top 10.
Instead, the majority of trends, as the day before, were mostly
about celebrities. What intellectual depth are Internet users
looking for? Does the Internet predispose users to this lack of
depth? What backpage stories are being missed? How do we wrestle
with this? We seek Alternative Sources, which here leads to
FAIR.org, the watchdog organization that presents the weekly show
Counterspin, which takes to task – whether ideologically right or
left – some of the reporting on major news-stories. In addition to
alternative sources, we can seek to look at things in Historical
Perspectives, which at the link given here at About.com takes us to
an example regarding a quote that while virtually unremarkable
these days would have been incendiary during the time of the Salem
Witch Trials.
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References
Best, J. (2004). Confusing numbers. In More damned lies and
statistics: How numbers confuse public issues (pp. 44-46).
Berkeley, CA: Berkeley University of California
Carr, N. (2011). What the Internet is doing to our brains: The
shallows. W. W. Norton and Company: New York.
Paul, R. & Elder, L. (2006). How to detect media bias &
propaganda in national and world news, 3rd ed. Foundation for
Critical Thinking. www.criticalthinking.org
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