Janet Isserlis
This is the page I'm developing as part of an inquiry group (visions for technology) during an extended workshop in 1999 at theLiteracy Assistance Center. Our
discussion board traces some of the process of our work as a group; this page explores my own questions and speculation about integrating technology and learning.
Although I've worked on a website for a long time for Literacy Resources, this is a place where I'd
like to explore using the web for other purposes - for sharing information about sites and ideas that ultimately relate
to adult education but are not necessarily about adult education, per se. I suspect that utilizing web based resources
to learn more about things that interest us is a big part of integrating technology into adult education and
life long learning, generally.
I see cultural production (as defined/illustrated through many of the sites below),
as a means through which we can think about using technology in varying
forms to learn not only about [your topic here] but also about
how to gain access to information, resources, people, images. The
processes of learning about poetry, or photography, or prose or
painting, and about the people who make those things, can be integrated
into the learning we might do with and about technology itself. Follow the links
at the bottom of this page; send feedback, please.
This page is being updated in July, 2001, after two years of lost access to the server.
Here's a link to my day job at Literacy Resources/RI
Here are some other sites related to learning, culture, cultural production and literacy:
- documentation of a mask project created by
students at Roger Williams Middle School with their teacher, Julie Nora
and very capable students at the RISD photo department, including
Lindsay Kelley.
- The Umbrella Country Bino A. Realuyo's first novel,
selected for Spring 99/Discover Great New Writers by Barnes and Noble. The novel will soon appear
on on the Discover Great New Writers page of Barnes and Noble's website
(go to recommended ) and is in the
special Discover section of the bookstore, along with other new spring selections. Bino A. Realuyo is a participant in this
institute and a writer to be read. An excerpt from the book appears online. Go read it.
- These links have gone missing; if anyone can find them, please contact me
eastside out - young people's photography project, Challenging Perceptions, edited with the young people by Annie Bungeroth and Anthony Lam
Part of the East End Festival site ,
including Words
from the East End.
The site is an extraordinary example of what a community can develop when it expresses itself on line. Pages focus on current events, community history and
creative expression and elements of community life.
Pete Hocking
Young Chicago Authors" GirlSpeak
- Poetry, a click and drag diversion
- Poetry Daily, a new poem everyday, recommended by Lenore
Balliro, educator, writer/poet, painter.
This posting appeared on American Library Association's list on 4/29/99 from
John Lionheart, "a private individual, a semi-retired general contractor (CA lic#539705) and disaster relief worker, with little experience in literary or literacy
programs, but I think I've created a pretty nice online vehicle for
promoting adult literacy...
This new art and poetry site was created with the homeless street poet
in mind (street poets, at least in SF, offer photocopied poetry in lieu
of panhandling). The site is by, for, and about the 'i'tinerant poet
(the 'i'poet) past, present, future. Theoretically, these poor poets would be
able to access the site through the internet terminal at their public
library. There they could read works by other itinerant poets, submit
their own works for posting, and find access to other online resources.
The site is designed to helpful to other users too, of course. It's a
colorful site, with good poetry." Have a look.
- AS220
-- "Since 1985, AS220 has been a non-profit alternative space deep in the
heart of Providence, RI whose primary mission is the maintenance of an
unjuried forum for artists."
- This site has gone dead, but I'm leaving it here, in the event that someday someone revives it.
To Make the World a Better Place
-- "A public forum for youth, To Make The World A Better Place uses the visual arts as a vehicle for positive social change. Through arts and literacy mentorship programs, exhibitions, and scholarships, young people ages 5-21 are provided an
opportunity to express their vision of the world."
The Times Square Photo site, images from homeless and underhoused people, as well as links
leading to more locally-created cultural production - photos, poetry, narrative writing - seems to have died.
Here's another site, TImes Square Gallery.
"Founded in 1989, REPOhistory investigates and re-contextualizes historical representation through site-specific public art
works. Based on the concept of re-mapping urban landscapes, our goal is to create works that intervene in an anonymous
city-scape by drawing attent to the forgotten or suppressed narratives while revealing the spatial relationships inherent in
power, usage and memory."
Paper Tiger looks at cultural production in/of communities, as does the Journal of Ordinary Thought and many of the learner-generated sites at NALD. I'm interested in how we can use technology AND direct encounters-- writing groups, community meetings, other 'naturally' occurring ways for people to come together -- in order to talk, think, reflect about communities/neighborhoods. How do people make meaning, express hope, ideas, joy, frustration, the need for change? What action is taken? How does change occur?
Is anybody out there?
In an article in Bright Ideas, fall, 1998, I wondered about the value of a website for practitioners with little interest in or access to the internet. As part of this Institute,
I have been made aware of websites I'd not known about, and reconsidered in a new light others with which I'd been familiar.
Our inquiry group, Visions for Adult Technology, has been fragmented;
Charles Callaway has developed a clear notion of what he'd like to develop with
learners in his program. In discussing this work with him, I've
considered what a vision of technology could look like in my own context, that of
state literacy resource center in the nation's smallest state.
The resource center (Literacy Resources/RI) has had a website since 1997. Although a small number of learners and practitioners have added content to it, the site has developed over time as a place where those visiting may find both what they've come to look for, as well as the posibility of being lead into new areas, related sites that might induce them to (re)consider adult
education in different ways, to shift thinking, to make new connections. Thinking of this as an interactive medium, utilizing its dynamic and dialogic (if I may) possibilities is part of the larger
challenge of thinking about what we mean when we talk about learning and when
we talk about cultural production.
I still believe that this is my own vision for adult
literacy/technology --
that the technology serve as a tool enabling those who use it to reach
the goals that they determine. However, in order to shape goals in which
technology plays a part, it is necessary to understand the scope and
limitations of what technology can provide.
I'm thinking about these things:
Technology
as vehicle
Technology as content
Technology as tool.
This page was created by Janet Isserlis on Thu Jan 21 16:56:43 1999
I am grateful to Nancy Cooper, Hal Adams, the New York City Subway,
the LAC and NCAL for access and exposure to many of the sites and
ideas informing this work. Last updated November 12, 2008