Using Us/ing
An awful lot of folks are finding Michael Wesch's The Machine is Us/ing Us to be a fascinating look at Web 2.0 and digital text. On the NWP's Tech Liaison listserv, Tonya Witherspoon suggested that it might be interesting for teachers and students to look at a transcript of the text without the accompanying visuals from the video. She kindly prepared the document, and Dr. Wesch approved sharing it. Here's a link to the transcript. I'd love to know if/how you use it with students.
I am working on creating a found poem from the transcript that Tonya provided but I am not sure what will come of it. It seems jumbled in my mind right now and I am trying to find a thread to hold on to. That's just personal, though. I also wonder how this convergence of video and words can be used to spark a good discussion/workshop on the topic of New Literacy.
Kevin
Posted by: Kevin H. | February 09, 2007 at 03:05 AM
We looked at this clip in class on Tuesday, and I had viewed it a few times prior to that. I'm fascinated by it and maybe it's just an effect of liking the first version one sees of anything, but I find the printed transcript frustrating. While I'm really happy to have it and I plan to share it with the class, stopping the dynamic text this way seems to either negate the message or replace it with something else. In that way, it's a great realization--maybe--but I'm interested in hearing what others think.
Posted by: Louann | February 09, 2007 at 08:53 AM
I agree -- the video's far more compelling. Which, I think, might be the point of sharing both with a class. Such an activity would be great for discussing the value of different media.
Posted by: Bud Hunt | February 10, 2007 at 10:32 AM
It is so interesting how whatever we look at is often influenced by what other aspects of our lives. I'm currently teaching 1984 to my sophomores and just today reread the section where it tells of Winston's frustration over how you can't prove anything from the past, since it's rewritten again and again, with no record of any other drafts.
Viewing this video and then looking at the transcript was interesting in light of this, because with the video, all of the past changes disappear as the video moves on while the transcript lists them all. The first is much more powerful and just a little bit creepy.
Posted by: Greg Van Nest | February 10, 2007 at 05:17 PM
Bud,
I hadn't seen this before. Thank you very much for pointing to it. (Incidentally, in the previous sentence I first wrote sharing, which I then deleted and inserted "pointing to") Since I love developing questions for learning here are several related to this You Tube video:
1. Ask your students which screen they consider the most important screen in the video. Encourage them to explain their thoughts.
2. Encourage your students to reorder the images of the video. I'm sure that Dr.Wesch spent considerable time arranging the order of this video. But now it's in public domain, as I believe he would readily acknowledge. How would your students change this order. (You could have them use the transcript to rearrange it.)
3. If your students had to take one thing out of this video, what would they take out? Why?
4. If your students had to insert one new idea into this video what would they insert? Why?
Posted by: Andrew Pass | February 16, 2007 at 07:04 AM