The first two days of class have yielded interesting results. The fervor of the new device has not died; indeed, the students seem all too eager to discuss what is "cool" to do with/on the iPads. Curiously, a lot of these cool things are simulacra of activities we are already familiar with: highlighting, taking notes, using a grocery list to shop for food, identifying overheard songs, and so on.
To be totally honest, I found the second day of class to be vaguely nauseating: the hype factor around the smorgasbord of "apps" that promise a sort of personalized utopia, if that is not an oxymoron. However, later that day I noticed one of my students in another class taking notes on her iPad—and I was actually pleased with the appearance, the affect of knowledge-absorption emanating from the little titled screen in front of her, positioned next to a traditional paper book.
Next week we will begin to discuss Robert Darnton's The Case for Books, and I am eager to see how we shift from the object-as-text, to a text-as-text: how easy or difficult it will be to track the medial layers of Darnton's arguments as they unfold on our screens.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment