Saw a RT on twitter which I have posted in links - article by Niemeyer on how reliance on computers to store knowledge affects our memories, and the links to remembering and doing... how does the act of visual recording/blogging help to store the memory of the thing being recorded ?
Something in the article about remembering either what has been stored, or where it has been stored resonated with me - conversations with students are ghosting through my mind - when I say I'll put session materials on Blackboard, does that cut them off from a more active participation?
So with this blogging, are there connections? I think that the act of objectification which happens as I write - a kind of self censorship based upon the location and permanence and public-ness(?!) is helpful - in the same way that editing drafts is a concrete and creative act.
The power of the written word supercedes the power of words I think - because written words leave my head and come back to lodge in it, are they welcomed and noted more specifically or with more longevity than when I just think them?
Similarly, what about the act of visually recording? This is more than taking snapshots, it involves the same processes of self censorship and selection and creative decision making as the writing, doesn't it?
But if I am not directly involved in the blogposting or visual recording, I come to those memories differently. So unless I actively engage with them, how well will I recall them?
I wonder that about my visual recordings - do they have value for anyone other than me, because only I know why I chose to write the particular things I wrote...would be interesting to see someone elses drawings of the same event and see how different they would be. Pretty sure for anyone who didn't attend the drawings mean nothing at all, but for people there you'll hopefully have your memory jogged by them but it's not like your own record at all.
ReplyDeleteI found them really interesting to look at - the particular choices you made visually and textually - and to see how they affected my recollections. Also in an imaginary way, to think of how I would have graphically represented ideas and connections - which meant I was thinking about your work in a more considered way than maybe I would have a piece of text?
ReplyDeleteMay be the value is in this kind of exchange?
In which case, do I need to think about attaching visual recording tasks to discussions, or votes within a students group of the top three points which they all agree as remembered/ well recorded/significant?
Or, for more blog-experienced students, the blog is the repository for the recordings and each person can work through those processes themselves...