tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post8653616806267738495..comments2024-03-26T23:57:42.268-04:00Comments on SpeEdChange: Curling up with... Literacyirasocolhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01412837280249622430noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-28448977432633304732009-02-13T06:27:00.000-05:002009-02-13T06:27:00.000-05:00some good news: i was able to download naturalrea...some good news: i was able to download naturalreader free text to speech software on some school computers. although the new windows systems are blocked, and the windows 98 system was also blocked from the naturalreaders.com main site, the backup 'site 1' (also on the naturalreaders.com website) was downloadable. i showed some spec ed students how to work it. i told them to look up whatever interested them. i showed them how to adjust the speed and highlight big chunks or single words. one student immediately went to research 'monster jam' on wikipedia. they loved it.v/vmaryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06862544306715636777noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-54159278856935001872009-02-04T23:05:00.000-05:002009-02-04T23:05:00.000-05:00Great discussion. Love the ideas and how you have ...Great discussion. Love the ideas and how you have expressed themRhonddahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14706374672531538775noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-19174493660137600212009-02-02T23:04:00.000-05:002009-02-02T23:04:00.000-05:00Here, Here, Ira! ... and I am so with you on the c...Here, Here, Ira! ... and I am so with you on the call "to stop. Please, just stop." Comments from HomerTheBrave accentuate the significance of digital media and the "war" that wages against ideas: the more difficult it becomes to "burn books" made of light, the more intensely the fires are apt to rage. ... nice connection, there. <BR/><BR/>All this and yet I note with some sadness the resistance I receive from digitally native students themselves when I try to teach electronic literature as a legitimate art form for the 21st century. Too many obstinately echo "Ben" in their certainty that these are not "books."mlghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18054588568585257228noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-31670103419452223832009-02-01T17:28:00.000-05:002009-02-01T17:28:00.000-05:00Hey, I wondered where you went from Xanga & he...Hey, I wondered where you went from Xanga & here you are!<BR/>:) Hope 2009 is treating you well!Margarethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00204458409586217628noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19457872.post-25621443021969361462009-01-31T21:29:00.000-05:002009-01-31T21:29:00.000-05:00I'm reading a really interesting book called 'A Un...I'm reading a really interesting book called 'A Universal History of the Destruction of Books (From Ancient Sumer to Modern Iraq),' by Fernando Baez. It's about book burnings and other intentional destruction of books.<BR/><BR/>It comes to mind when you say books are ideas. Because Baez has been studying book burnings for 12 years and he has the same conclusion. It's not about the book, it's about the idea. One might make a somewhat heavy-handed argument that denying new media forms is the same as a sort of pre-emptive 'book burning' of the new ideas those media might bring.<BR/><BR/>However, one doesn't have to look to far to see that rock and roll records have been burned, and video games, too. These were new media at the time, and they brought new ideas during a world-wide cultural revolution. We see internet access blocked by both governments and school boards, and no doubt if someone could burn the internet they'd try.<BR/><BR/>You've frequently said that denial of these new media are really about power structures rather than simply about which media is preferred or legitimized. So when you say this:<BR/><BR/>"So stop worrying. A "book" is an idea. It is a conceptual thing. It is a story set down in a specific set of words and/or constructed images. What matters is that our children, our students, engage the broadest possible range of stories, and learn to work with them, learn from them, and to develop their own, so that they may spread their own ideas."<BR/><BR/>...you know that what you're saying is dangerous. :-)HomerTheBravehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18261248973011130957noreply@blogger.com