Thinker Phillip Thurtle

Thurtle at USF (yes, he was not wearing shoes- apparently his students at UW are used to this).

I quite enjoyed the casual nature of his talk. He opened by saying he prefers questions whenever people have them, rather than at the end of his talk- that he is a very interactive speaker. This immediately made the event more of a conversation than anything else, which was good because Thurtle got into some abstract stuff that was best cleared up with a question or two.

His task for the talk was to make us realize that we take comics, the medium that teaches us to read text as image, for granted. In fact, comics, a medium thought of as low culture, can actually teach us loads about the world, the future, and philosophy. He began by comparing journalism to comics. "Journalism is limited: it only covers what just happened. Comics cover what may happen."

Here are some other snippets of the presentation/conversation:

Comics teach us:
how to read surfaces instead of lines
what it means to live in an industrial society
ways to engage in the world.

"The image shows states of affairs and scenes and the eye has to discover the relations"- Villem Flusser


Comics always deal with a high level of industrialization- Superheros always have one foot in industry and one foot in their bodies.



"Superheros exist."

In comics, it's not about personal transformation, it's about world transformation. With images, time is different. The time of the panel moves with the world, not by the subject, like in other mediums of storytelling. You the reader has to move time in a book. How? You have a plot. Something happens through the action of an individual. In comics, time is part of the world.

Images are important for provoking the imagination into inhabiting a possible future. The idea is not to get rid of conscious thought, the idea is that things don't always move with reason and logic.

"We are who we are because of our environments." It's about understanding the world instead of the world understanding you.

"You have to change the way you think about space. For me, a much more interesting way of thinking about space is as the things that bring us together. I can see outside because of the window."

Thurtle also touched a bit on Scott McCloud's book Understanding Comics: the Invisible Art, which we read in preparation for his class. An interesting point I found in this book is the idea that we apparently see ourselves in cartoons, and other people in realistic drawings or photos of faces. Thurtle touched on this too. He said, "detail is all about othering."

Hmmmmm. Interesting.

Bryan Alexander, Web Wiz

I learned a lot from Bryan Alexander, including how to cut a crusty baguette properly. Baking bread is one of Alexander's hobbies apparently, so he knows what's up. (For the Davies Forum delicious food is a must along with our enlightening speakers, so Alexander shared the spotlight with homemade Chili from this fellow Blake and there was bread to go along with it). I know the bread cutting skill will probably be with me for the rest of my life, and I think some other stuff he said will be too.


At times it was hard to keep up with him, probably because I am new to some Web 2.0 lingo. Which is understandable. Alexander pointed out how Web 2.0 language sounds like Dr. Seuss language (Wiki, flickr, twitter, tweet, blog...).

The first thing that blew my mind was this website twittervision.com. Twitter, and to tweet, are a noun and verb I did not know this context of. Anyone can sing up for a membership on twitter.com and create "friends" like on Facebook, and then "tweet" to their online friends via cell phone or computer all day long. One tweets about anything, like how they're feeling at the moment, or their view on the latest news. And on twittervision, one sees a global map of tweets happening right now all over the world! AKA, someone can log on and see how people are feeling right now all over the world! Yesterday I learned it was raining it Amsterdam. I could have gone to weather.com and looked up the weather in Amsterdam, but why would I be looking up the weather in Amsterdam? I don't know about you, but I think this is pretty cool stuff. The world is changing.

Much of this change is due to collaboration, collective knowledge and research, and connectivism- the idea that we learn in networks. These are all large factors in Web 2.0. Think Wikipedia, blog and Flickr commenting, and things like twitter.

Connectivism is a part of Clay Shirky's very interesting article "Ontology is overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags," that we read last week for the Davies Forum on Digital Literacy. Shirky writes about categorization and the Internet, and he says, "the only group that can categorize everything is everybody." He points out that current ways of categorizing are out-dated in terms of the electronic world. The connectivism is everyone making sense of the Internet together, each having a hand in what it is. This is done in part by tagging. For example, i can choose what tags to put on this blog, and that changes the Internet a little bit. "By letting users tag URLs and then aggregating those tags, we're going to be able to build alternate organizational systems, systems that, like the web itself, do a better job of letting individuals create value for one another, often without realizing it."

Alexander works for NITLE,- a nonprofit initiative dedicated to promoting liberal education. Their organization is "dedicated to advancing learning through the effective use of digital technologies" (www.nitle.org) and it seems like this is what Alexander is all about. Which is pretty cool. He mentioned the Pew Internet Study in December of 2007 about Teens and Social Media ( I think we felt cool telling him we had read this study already, in preparation for another speaker of ours, Mary Madden, of Pew). Anyway, Alexander mentioned from this study how more than half of teens are published authors now. He also said two years ago he thought by now most kids K-12 would have RSS feeds by now. Wouldn't this be great? Their feeds could be full of informational blogs about things they were learning in school. Alexander says he thinks kids don't have these because RSS feeds are "too geeky." I think the reason is that teachers don't even know about RSS feeds, so how would their students?

Alexander is also interested in Alternate Reality Games- computer games that involve real life and online experience to tell and create a story. One example of this is "Blood on the Stacks," a game created by Trinity University and their Coates Library. It was created in order to increase interest in the library and it has worked! It's a mystery game that takes place largely online but is also a real life treasure hunt. People have to be involved online to be able to enact the real life clues.

I asked Alexander how he thinks all of these new web technologies that enhance and multiply connection are changing the world. It seems he is positive about it but also recognizes that there are fears. Two of them are: Undermined traditional authority; and sexual predators. But that's a whole different blog post...

Internet Archive Founder Brewster Kahle at USF in 60 minutes

Brewster Kahle is coming to USF! Or may be here somewhere already. I am excited to learn a little more about this man- with a vision of archiving and preserving all information for all generations to come!- from his own perspective. Hopefully he will talk about himself.

This whole idea is pretty crazy and hard to grasp. Understandably I think. I am not sure there is a large enough way to say that this is a whole lot of information we are talking about.

Especially the idea of digitizing books. It's just not the same to cuddle up with a computer. But maybe Kahle will address how this isn't the point. This quote, from Kahle in an August 2007 interview with Andrew Richard Albanese, called Scan This Book for me illustrates the grand excitement of Kahle's vision.

"Books are the heart of the library. For thousands of years, humans have been putting their knowledge in books to pass on for future generations. So, yes, we have to have these materials in digital form, and we have to make them accessible in such a way that we can continue to have a library system like the one, frankly, that many of us grew up enjoying, where we can access and use these materials in new and different ways, as an engine for research, learning, and discovery, even if in ways not originally intended. So far, I think we have been negligent in our responsibility to perform this task. Not because we don't have the materials, but because we haven't put them into the formats new generations expect."

Also, I am curious what all he will say about Google. From what Kahle has said about Google in the above article, and in this one, and from the blog- the googlization of everything, I am beginning to think Google is the devil. What are they trying to do? And here I am writing on a blog represented by them, and owned by them? Shiest.

I am exited to hear more about this in less than an hour!

Librarian in Black Speaks about the Future of Libraries!

Tuesday night at the San Francisco Public Library, Sarah Houghton-Jan, known in the blogosphere as the "Librarian in Black," (her blog is here)gave a lecture titled, "The Future of Libraries- What's Next for Civilization's Great Educational Equalizer?" Awesome title. Compelling. I was required to go for my Davies Forum Digital Literacy Class, and I am glad, because now I feel enlightened.

The theme of the LIB's (Librarian in Black's) talk was that many things, including the digital world, have weakened libraries. Libraries aren't used to having to deal with change. Now constantly they are having to play catch up with the digital world, as they have lost their place in culture as an "institutional repository," and they are having to "redefine their cultural role."

Going into the evening I was curious what she would talk about because I don't use the public library (well I didn't before the talk) and upon my entrance into the building for the first time yesterday I thought it kind of a crusty place. it turns out I held many stereotypical, popular ideas of what libraries are about and reasons for why I don't use them.

For example, libraries aren't up on digital technology. Often, scary negative signs like "ABSOLUTELY NO DOWNLOADING" prohibit potential world changers from embracing the world- through all that the internet has to offer -because the computers can't handle the load.

The stock at the library isn't the same as amazon.com. People do not go to libraries for stuff. Because, let's face it: there is large chance you won't get the specific stuff you want at the library (I did a brief browse of the DVDs yesterday and the A section totaled 15-20). LIB gave a stat: 8/10 times that we want a book or music or a movie, we buy it. As a Librarian, she said, this was so sad to her!

The large reason for this is funding. Libraries don't have money. Where are they supposed to get it? Grants only do so much.

But there are things libraries can do without tons of money too. For one, their public face is important, and perhaps there are simple steps that can be done to enhance it that don't include a high priced PR person. For example, common ways of running libraries include negative signage strategies like the one mentioned above. There's also a lot that libraries could do to self-promote in the way of social networking sites, like Facebook, and through other online outlets like podcasts, videocasts, and 2nd Life. Different ways of marketing should definitely be explored, LIB emphasized.

Libraries face many challenges, and LIB's talk proved that librarians aren't crotchety old ladies with buns who don't know what's up. She thinks the keys to their future success include: creative marketing; getting rid of the old fashioned ideas that, "we do it the right way," and instead welcoming social organizations of data and social knowledge; making libraries clean, inviting, relaxing places; and embracing change!

According to LIB, their game plan now includes: making the library the peoples' third place (after home and work); combining virtual and physical environments for one space; and focusing on the question "what can we provide that nobody else can?"

I am interested and excited to follow and be part of the development and future of libraries after this talk.

The Internet Connection

Ivan Chew, giving the most engaging power point presentation I've seen


Yesterday's blog would be impossible not to tie into the Davies Forum on Digital Literacy's speaker Ivan Chew and his talk at USF yesterday. Chew, expert blogger (he has 8 blogs- his main blog link is here) and Singaporean librarian, spoke mostly about the connections that can be and have already been created through blogs and the internet. It seems the couch on the street I spoke of is a symbol for the internet! and perhaps more specifically, blogs. I will elaborate.



The most interesting part of the talk for me was his mention of IG (Inter-Generational) relationships in his segment on seniors and blogging. I guess this part was so interesting to me because I do think about the divide between old people and young people. Maybe it is just as simple as that there's no relationship there because the two generations can't relate. But old people have stories to tell, and young people have so much to learn, that it seems there should at least be an attempt at a connection. What if, for example, kids in elementary school who were assigned a project about something that took place in recent history could have the choice to go to the library and check out a book, or to connect with someone who had actually experienced this time in history- through a library hosted blog? I think this would be great.

Some seniors don't blog or may be apprehensive about it because the internet in general is still foreign to them, not to mention that negative view the media can give blogging and the Internet. And also seniors are more private- they come from more traditional times. One thing that does get them into blogging, Chew pointed out, is so that their great great grandchildren can read about them. They usually don't trust the Internet otherwise. Maybe the library hosted blog could remedy this apprehension. If they were to realize that sharing their stories created positive results, and then saw the beauty of newfound connections, they would be more into it. The key is showing seniors the beauty of it. The Internet truly does get a bad wrap in the press- sex stalkers, identity theft, etc.

All seniors have stories, and do have motivation to tell them, they just need to be asked. A guest in the audience, identifying himself as a senior (he was in his late 50s or early 60s), pointed out that also most seniors don't want to write their own stories but dictate them to someone who will type them, or they will sit in a front of a camera- a videoblog.

I don't know, it seems pretty cool to me. I think if when I were in elementary school or high school and could have seen a videoblog of someone talking about what the depression was about, rather than learning about it in a book, I would have been wayyyy more interested. Hopefully this is the future.

The theme of Ivan's talk was -we are so alike-. His ideas may even be so profound to say that if more people used the Internet and connected with each other and realized this idea, there would be less war. He concluded by showing us a video he had made, with his own computer created music too- called, "Dolphins Galaxia." The music was lovely and inspirational and the visuals were a decoupage of visuals of different lights from all different settings (like stars in the sky and the sun and the earth and sun rays in water) so that while watching it I was thinking the lights represented the connections made by the Internet, and the dolphins swimming around represented the innocent bystanders, affected by the lovely connections. Like the couch provides a place for.