Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ The Magic of Images: Word and Picture in a Media Age

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
You have to do a lot of reading in this article to get a little content, but the argument is essentially that today's students were raised in a world of images, and especially moving images, and as such, as a consequence of moving image technology, they are losing important things, such as their ability to comprehend deductive arguments, and their ability to identify context, and hence, their own identity with context. One gets the picture of today's teens being subsumed under a swirling maelstrom of imagery, unable to distinguish themselves from the storm. The response to the dynamic, argues the author, is the static, and though the article is an extensive discussion of static images, the point is to argue that it is the static word that forms the counterpoint to the moving image. It is that the world of education should provide, and is failing to provide. I think that a lot of the description in this article is accurate - young people today certainly communicate using a dynamic, multi-media language. But are they losing their powers of reason and identity, or are they augmenting, or even superseding, them?

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 21, 2024 6:30 p.m.

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