jeromemartin.ca

Visual Literacy: How to See in a Modern World

George Nelson’s book How to See: Visual Adventures in a World God Never Made (originally published in 1977 and re-published by Phaidon in 2017) deserves the fine reviews it has received. It’s a very special book that I will read and consult regularly.

 

Seeing Photographs

As the language or vocabulary of photography has been extended, the emphasis of meaning has shifted from what the world looks like to what we feel about the world and what we want the world to mean.

Aaron Siskind.

 

The photograph can confront us with both the universal and the particular at the same instant in time. The strange tension that results between these two polarities is the force that can make the photograph so moving or poignant or disturbing.

James Borcoman

 

Writing about photography or any art form is difficult, especially for those who have created it. Fortunately, artists such as Aaron Siskind and James Borcoman have provided us with succinct insights which help us to see and experience photographs.

Viewers of exhibitions in art galleries may spend 15-30 seconds looking at a particular image – but many spend less time than that. Since most people use cameras largely to document holidays and special occasions they tend to view photographs in a gallery and elsewhere  as ‘pictures of something’ rather than serious works that go beyond simply describing or representing a landscape or a person. They look at captions to learn what that something is – and then they move on.

Seeing an image is different from looking at it quickly as we walk through an exhibition. In most cases providing captions for photographs encourages moving on quickly to the next image.  Some photographers – and I’m one of them – do not provide captions. We want to encourage people to see images in ways other than trying to identify where it was made. 

I’d be pleased if you would consider spending some time with the above photograph (one of mine), thinking of Siskind’s comments about how the meaning of a photograph has shifted to ‘…what we feel about the world and what we want the world to mean’. Think too about Borcoman’s statement that ‘The photograph can confront us with both the universal and the particular at the same instant in time’.

Opportunities for Learning on Campus

Stephen Leacock, the famous Canadian humorist, teacher and writer, said: 'If I were founding a university I would begin with a smoking room; next a dormitory; and then a decent reading room and a library. After that, if I still had more money that I couldn’t use, I would hire a professor and get some text books.’  

If Leacock were writing this today he would have probably said that that he would begin with a coffee shop, not a smoking room – but otherwise his ideas fit well with those who write about the third place (coffee shops, libraries etc.), informal learning, and how students learn from each other and from the world around them. Late night conversations in residence, discussions over coffee with fellow students, and explorations of library books and other resources are some of the most productive and interesting learning experiences available to students. 

I lived in residence at the University of Saskatchewan and became friends with students in virtually every faculty on campus. Living on campus allowed me to attend concerts, play with a college band and a concert band, attend theatre presentations, and meet students from other countries.

I studied science and agriculture but found that I was also interested in English, History and a variety of other subjects; I learned to appreciate areas of study that other students chose, and to read books that they recommended. I still have books that were given to me by friends I met on campus in the early 1960s – books which included One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Selected Writings of Herman Melville, and The Faulkner Reader. Being in residence was one of the highlights of my university years. 

My University residence (Qu’Appelle Hall) was very close to the College Building (now known as the Peter McKinnon Building), which contained Convocation Hall. Since there were no classes between noon and 1:00 PM student groups invited politicians and others to speak at Convocation Hall and the Memorial Union Building. 

Speaking to several hundred university students can be a humbling or an invigorating experience. Lester Pearson was indignant as the crowd laughed when he referred to himself as the next Prime Minister – but, of course, he later became Canada’s 14th Prime Minister. Tommy Douglas, however, was always delighted when he was asked difficult questions by young Conservatives and Liberals because this gave him opportunities to engage in conversations with these students about current issues. He also had witty and appropriate responses for hecklers which everyone, including the hecklers, enjoyed.  

Living in residence gave me the opportunity to attend evening lectures by visiting authors, scientists and experts in various fields. Most of these were held in Convocation Hall. I decided that I would go to as many of these as possible, especially those with speakers who were unknown to me. One cold and snowy evening I went to a lecture by Laurens Van Der Post. I did not know who he was, only that he would be speaking about Africa. It proved to be one of the finest presentations I had attended. Van Der Post discussed his life in South Africa, his wartime experiences, and his books, including The Lost World of the Kalahari. His presentation and his books (which I read later) were probably factors in my decision to spend the summer of 1964 in Kenya with Operation Crossroads Africa.

Dr. Hans Selye and his research related to stress in a medical context are well known now, but in the early 1960s when he spoke in Convocation Hall I had never heard of him or stress as we now understand it. I learned about the significance of stress in a short time from this amazing man who was responsible for most of the early work in this area.

By living on campus I was also able to attend concerts (and practices) of the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra, theatre productions, and student musical events. Folk singers, including the great Guy Carawan included the U of S on their concert tours. Carawan, who visited the University twice in two years, introduced the protest song ‘We Shall Overcome’ to the American Civil Rights Movement. 

We can provide new opportunities in our learning system by using technology appropriately, especially for those who cannot attend classes regularly. However, we should recognize that students who attend universities and colleges – particularly those who live on campus – have unique learning opportunities, not all of which relate to classes, degree programs and job opportunities. Living on campus and taking advantage of the learning opportunities that are available can be as significant as what we learn in classrooms.

 

iPods and Learning

An article in the November 24, 2007 issue of the Los Angeles Times entitled The iPod Lecture Circuit by Michelle Quinn tells the story of how the iPod has created new learning opportunities for people who are not enrolled at colleges and universities.

BERKELEY -- Baxter Wood is one of Hubert Dreyfus' most devoted students. During lectures on existentialism, Wood hangs on every word, savoring the moments when the 78-year-old philosophy professor pauses to consider a student's comment or relay how a meaning-of-life question had him up at 2 a.m.

But Wood is not sitting in a lecture hall on the UC Berkeley campus, nor has he met Dreyfus. He is in the cab of his 18-wheel big rig, hauling dog food from Ohio to the West Coast or flat-screen TVs from Los Angeles to points east.The 61-year-old trucker from El Paso eavesdrops on the lectures by downloading them for free from Apple Inc.'s iTunes store, transferring them to his Hewlett-Packard digital media player, then piping them through his cabin's speakers. He hits pause as he approaches cities so he can focus more on traffic than on what Nietzsche meant when he said God was dead, then shifts his attention back to the classroom.

iTunes University makes lectures available online. There are currently 28 colleges and universities which post lectures on iTunes, lectures which may be downloaded and played by anyone in the world who has a computer and a connection to the internet. Quinn reminds us that 'unofficial students' do not earn degrees for listening. These students learn for the joy of learning.

Some of them have college degrees and some have never had the opportunity to attend an institution of higher learning.

By making hundreds of lectures from elite academic institutions available online for free, Apple is reninvigorating the minds of people who have been estranged from the world of ideas.

Quinn says that 'Retirees in Long Beach and Weaverville, California, halibut fishermen in Alaska, data entry clerks in London, and casting agents in New York' are learning from some of the world's top scholars. Institutions such as Yale, MIT and Stanford are providing lectures to people who may otherwise have never have heard of distinguished professors such as Hubert Dreyfus.

One can access lectures by Dr. Dreyfus by going to the iTunes Store, searching for his name and downloading any or all of his online lectures. iTune lectures may be played on a computer or transferred to an iPod. iTunes is free software and iTunes podcasts are free downloads.

Free and accessible knowledge helps all of us to learn new subjects and to keep up to date on others. Thanks to iTunes University and the institutions which support it Baxter Wood and other students now have access to a continuing and exciting learning process.

Michelle Quinn and the Los Angeles Times deserve top marks for this excellent article.

Scan This Book: Kevin Kelley's article in the New York Times

Scan This Book!

According to Kevin Kelley in the New York Times Sunday Magazine (May 14, 2006) scanning books and making them available to everyone in the world with access to a screen is both inevitable and desirable, in spite of the difficulties with copyright and the affection we still have for the paper book.
'In the clash between the conventions of the book and the protocols of the screen, the screen will prevail. On this screen, now visible to one billion people on earth, the technology of search will transform isolated books into the universal library of all human knowledge.'
Kelley said that people who currently have limited access to fine libraries and bookstores will benefit more that the rest of us from mass digitization of books and access to those digitized products.
This is a comprehensive and fascinating look at how knowledge will become more accessible for all of us and what impact this will have on writers, publishers, students and the public.

Catherine the Great, Cervantes, and Dandelions

If you had driven down the back alley behind my house this afternoon you would have seen me digging dandelions in my back yard: but you would not have known that I was also learning, first, about Catherine the Great and, second, about Cervantes, courtesy of the BBC and technology developed by Apple.
I was listening to podcasts which I had downloaded from In Our Time, a BBC 4 program in which Melvyn Bragg and his learned guests investigate the history of ideas. Apple's iTunes downloads new In Our Time programs as they are made available by BBC, once I have asked to subscribe to this series. The programs are copied to my iPod when I plug it in to my computer. Thus, I can listen to the programs on my computer or on my iPod.
One of the advantages of learning through podcasts is that one can play them again and again, something that cannot be done with a live lecture. Some professors in some educational institutions are recording their lectures and making them available as podcasts.
Learning while working or walking is one of the benefits of modern technology. It's multi-tasking, and it's fun.
Tomorrow: Aristotle.

A new standard for e-books

I spoke at the Tri-Province Forum on Publishing in Winnipeg last week about e-books and e-journals. The audience was a small group of publishers from western Canada and funding agency representatives from the Government of Canada and The Canada Council for the Arts.
I told my audience that e-books were here already and would be used more and more in various areas of publishing, including fiction. The reaction to my presentation was quite positive, considering that this is a subject on which publishers are seldom neutral.
I used the term 'traditional e-books' to describe e-books which were simply words on a screen – digitized text that looked the same on screen as on paper. Such e-books still have a lot of advantages or potential advantages including the abilitiy to search for key words. The cost of a digitized text is usually significantly lower than that of a paper product and, of course, e-books are easily stored, shipped and carried (students need not carry Mt. Everest backpacks back and forth to class).
The new standard I suggest for e-books has nothing to do with DRM or witch hunts against PDF: it involves interactivity and features which can make an e-book an experience rather than an imitation of a paper book.
The letter E in the born-digital e-books of the future will stand for Experience: the experience of hearing and seeing the author or critics discussing or reading the book; the experience of linking to other books, sites and experiences; and the experience of using incorporated video, audio and even game components in the book.
You'll hear more about such products in the near future, and the e-books you currently have on your laptop, PDA or iPod will seem very traditional and clunky.

Cappuccino U

This week I published Cappuccino U: a new way of learning and working, an e-book which is about a new style of learning in which innovative people have combined new information technology with traditional ways of learning to develop a new, personally-driven approach to learning. This learning happens primarily in 'the third place' which is neither home nor office. Your third place may be a local coffee shop or a library, a place where you can be with other people and yet be alone as well.
I used the book in two presentations this week, one to a professional association which is considering using innovative technology in their professional development program and another to a University communications class, and got excellent reactions from each group.
The e-book is free – and I'd be pleased to send you a copy. Send me an e-mail with Cappuccino U in the subject line and I'll reply with the e-book (PDF) as an attachment. It's a short book (14 pages) but since it's well designed and includes a variety of links and references the size of the the attachment is about 1 megabyte.
In the meantime, I and thousands of others will be using wireless connections at coffee shops, libraries and other public areas to work and learn, perhaps even taking university courses – or teaching them – while we sip coffee and smile at our colleagues at the next tables.