Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Power Point Reconsidered

The critique of Power Point is found in a short (34 page) essay by design guru, Edward Tufte, and is titled "The Cognitive Style of Power Point.". . .It available for about $3.00 on Amazon. If you happen to read it, let's discuss Tufte's critique. . .

IL as a liberal art

One of the readings argues that IL is a liberal art. . .Until reading that piece I had never thought of IL as a liberal art. . .I agree with the premise of Shapiro and Hughes that IL ". . .extends beyond technical skills and is conceived as one's critical reflection on the nature of information, itself. . .". . .We fail to critically examine the technology that we use in our daily work to the point that all too often the technology uses us as much or more than we use the technology. . .For example, "Power Point" has imposed its will on presentations throughout the planet by virtue of the limitations of the software to the point where PP has begun to alter the way our species approaches a problem--it limits rather than expands the horizons of each user. . .That is to say, it's a Power Point world; we just live in it. . .p.s. read "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov before it's too late. . .

I'm back

Hello All!
I've been overwhelmed. . .This my first post--better never than late, my father always said. . .I'm settling in with the busiest schedule I've had in about fifteen years and now have reached the point where I will be blogging daily. . .I'm enrolled in a master's program at Hamline and last night my class was given a brief tutorial on the technology available for research in our program. . .All I can say is wow!. . .I'm particularly interested in a citation tool called Zotero. . .With these tools, technology does everything but write the paper for you. . .Alas, the days of card catalogs, etc. . .Gone forever. . .See you this afternoon. . .
Dr. Faust