February 5, 2007 by kirkjobsluder.

This is an argument I’ve gone around with other people about over on TerraNova, and other places. Why are language and text still important? Spinning off a question over at the O’Reilly Mac blog questioning why programmer’s love editors if typing is such a barrier to thinking and problem solving.

My answer to the question is that language and text are still important because they are cognitive alchemy.

Language is critical because it is one of the ways in which human beings communicate about the real world using abstractions. We appear to be hard-wired for language, with the process of learning language starting before birth and a large chunk of the actual (as opposed to the written formal) grammar mastered before we go to school. Advocates of “post-literacy” will of course point out that we have equal cognitive facility with graphics, and can communicate other things graphically. I won’t disagree, but will point out that visual literacy is different from linguistic literacy and have different powers.

Encoding language onto some sort of a persistent medium provides a different type of power. You can now start linking short utterances together into more complicated structures: sentences, paragraphs, stanzas, chapters, and books. You can use this persistent text to make arguments and claims that are difficult to convey in a single conversation and lecture. For better or for worse, you have created a record of that thought process that does not depend on a shared and reasonably quiet location in space and time.

I think this explains both programmer’s love of editors, and the persistence of asynchronous text messaging systems over long periods of time. The ability to copy and paste paragraphs or portions of code is the ability to change the basic logical concepts expressed. Asynchronous messaging systems such as mail and bulletin-boards create knowledge that can be reviewed and revised at a later date.

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January 17, 2007 by kirkjobsluder.

…like APA citations with 10 co-authors.

I really can’t claim much credit for this. But a book chapter based on a presentation from a few years ago is certainly welcome. This is mostly Sasha, Hakan and Taylor’s show.

Barab, S., Dodge, T., Tuzun, H., Job-Sluder, K., Jackson, C., Arici, A., Job-Sluder, L., Carteaux, R., Jr., Gilbertson, J., & Heiselt, C. (in press). The Quest Atlantis Project: A socially-responsive play space for learning. In B. E. Shelton & D. Wiley (Eds.), The Educational Design and Use of Simulation Computer Games. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

The Quest Atlantis Project: A Socially Responsive Play Space for Learning (604KB pdf)

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