Since October/2014 I have been attending several classes at the University of Lisboa (PT), in order to get my second Master's Degree on Education and Digital Technology. One of the assignments required was a group project to creating an activity based on TACCLE 2. You may check our work by viewing these images below. Hope you like it.
Recent researches on French learning process concluded that students with higher scores were not those who read classic literature. This information, was spoken by Sophie van der Linden during the release of her new book called " Para ler o livro ilustrado", in São Paulo (Brazil), last year. In her opinion it is important to let children have access to a variety of reading style and also let them choose what they want to read because they capture the world through all these images. As they get older, they lose straight communication to the visual world as a result of poor stimulation for illustrated texts. One of the quality of illustrated books is the possibility for training the reader´s view to understand all the artistic details they have on their hands.
The whole article is available at:
http://educarparacrescer.abril.com.br/leitura/crianca-precisa-livro-ilustrado-703684.shtml?utm_source=redes_educar&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=redes_educar
Foto: Nana Sievers
Hi Folks!
My new post is about Technological Determinism based on an article written by Chandler, D. (2002). Technological determinism. Web essay, Media and Communications Studies, University of Aberystwyth. You may also read it from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tecdet.html
The technological determinist view is a technology-led theory of social change: technology is seen as 'the prime mover' in history. Technological determinists interpret technology in general and communications technologies in particular as the basis of society in the past, present and even the future.In its most extreme form, the entire form of society is seen as being determined by technology: new technologies transform society at every level, including institutions, social interaction and individuals.
Technological determinism focuses on causality - cause and effect relationships - a focus typically associated with 'scientific' explanation. Any exploration of communications technology has to recognize the difficulty of isolating 'causes' and 'effects', or even in distinguishing causes from effects.
Reductionism: As a mono-causal explanation, technological determinism involves reductionism, which aims to reduce a complex whole to the effects of one part (or parts) upon another part (or parts). Sociological reductionism is widely criticized, but it is intimately associated with the quantitative paradigm of science. The philosophers Democritus (6th century B.C.) and Rene Descartes (1596-1650) had both taught that the way to knowledge was through separating things into component parts. It is a feature of reductionist explanation that parts are assumed to affect other parts in a linear or one-way manner, and interpretation proceeds from the parts to the whole.
Holistic: Reductionism contrasts with 'holism', which is broadly concerned with the whole phenomenon and with complex interactions within it rather than with the study of isolated parts. In holistic interpretations there are no single, independent causes. Holistic interpretation proceeds from the whole and relationships are presented as non-directional or non-linear. It is holistic to assert that the whole is more than the sum of its parts, a proposition with which it is difficult to disagree when you think of a working motor compared with the stacked parts. Sometimes holism refers more broadly to a general hostility to analysis, a hostility common in the arts: 'We murder to dissect,' wrote Wordsworth.
Mechanistic Models: Reductionism, like technological determinism in general, is a mechanistic mode of explanation associated with positivism: a philosophical stance based strictly on the scientific method. Machines offer tidy models of phenomena for mechanistic theorists. It is common among social theorists to refer to 'mechanisms of change'. Machines serve a designated function and operate strictly according to cause and effect. Within the context of their mechanisms, causes are explicit and intentional and consequences are predictable
Reification: To reify is to 'thingify': to treat an abstraction as a material thing. Reifying 'Technology' involves treating it as if it were a single material thing with a homogeneous, undifferentiated character. This notion can be seen as a kind of 'essentialism'. In common and academic usage, the word 'technology' is variously used to refer to tools, instruments, machines, organizations, media, methods, techniques and systems. Reification is involved when we divide human experience into 'spheres' variously tagged as 'social', 'cultural', 'educational', 'political', 'ideological', 'philosophical', 'religious', 'legal', 'industrial', 'economic', 'scientific' or 'technological'.
Technological autonomy: Rather than as a product of society and an integral part of it, technology is presented as an independent, self-controlling, self-determining, self-generating, self- propelling, self-perpetuating and self-expanding force. It is seen as out of human control, changing under its own momentum and 'blindly' shaping society. This perspective may owe something to the apparent autonomy of mechanisms such as clockwork. But even texts are autonomous of their authors once they leave their hands: as published works they are subject to interpretation by readers, and beyond the direct control of their authors.
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Technological imperative: Some critics who use the term 'technological determinism' equate it simply with this notion of inevitability, which is also referred to as 'The technological imperative'. The doctrine of the technological imperative is that because a particular technology means that we can do something (it is technically possible) then this action either ought to (as a moral imperative), must (as an operational requirement) or inevitably will (in time) be taken.
Technology as neutral or non-neutral: Some theorists who posit technological autonomy are also amongst the wider group of those who have insisted on the non-neutrality of technology, arguing that we cannot merely 'use' technology without also, to some extent, being influenced or 'used by' it. Many deterministic commentators on the 'non-neutrality' of tools argue that the tools we use determine our view of the world. Abraham Maslow, the psychologist, once said that to someone who has only a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail. And Neil Postman adds that 'to a man with a pencil, everything looks like a list. To a man with a camera, everything looks like an image. To a man with a computer, everything looks like data.
Universalism: Another feature of technological determinism is universalism: a particular technology (such as writing, print or electronic media) - or its absence - is seen as universally linked to the same basic social pattern. Universalism is 'asocial' and 'ahistorical': presented as outside the framework of any specific socio-cultural and historical context.
Techno-evolution as 'progress': Also associated with technological determinism is techno-evolutionism. This involves a linear evolutionary view of universal social change through a fixed sequence of different technological stages. It is a kind of developmental or historical determinism. Evolutionary theorists interpret change in terms of 'progress' (an improved state of affairs) and usually regard progress as inevitable.
Theoretical stances:
- Strong (or hard ) technological determinism is the extreme stance that a particular communication technology is either a sufficient condition (sole cause) determining social organization and development, or at least a necessary condition (requiring additional preconditions). Either way, certain consequences are seen as inevitable or at least highly probable.
- Weak (or soft) technological determinism, more widely accepted by scholars, claims that the presence of a particular communication technology is an enabling or facilitating factor leading to potential opportunities which may or may not be taken up in particular societies or periods (or that its absence is a constraint)
Technology is one of a number of mediating factors in human behaviour and social change, which both acts on and is acted on by other phenomena. Being critical of technological determinism is not to discount the importance of the fact that the technical features of different communication technologies facilitate different kinds of use, though the potential applications of technologies are not necessarily realized.
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