Category Archives: Textbook
It’s out! The Textbook & the Lecture is published
Here’s a blog post about the book just posted by the publisher, Johns Hopkins U.P. I went to school at the dawn of the microcomputer. These were expensive, immobile boxes that only responded to coded commands. Today I hold a … Continue reading
Posted in Friedrich Kittler, History, Lecture, Marshall McLuhan, Media Theory, Michel Foucault, Textbook, Uncategorized, Writing
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The Catechism and the Textbook: A Genealogy of Instructional Interactivity
This presentation traces the origin of Luther’s catechism and its impact on later educational methods, materials and instructional interactivity, using German and American examples from the 16th to the 21st centuries.
Posted in History, Media Theory, Textbook, The Self
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Lecture & Textbook: Education in the Age of New Media
Forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press. Why are the fundamentals of education apparently so little changed in our era of digital technology? Is their obstinate persistence evidence of resilience or obsolescence? Such questions can best be answered not by imagining … Continue reading
Posted in Bildung, Friedrich Kittler, History, Lecture, Media Theory, Michel Foucault, Textbook, The Self, Writing
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How Luther went Viral
A 2011 article from the Economist (listen to audio, above) compares Martin Luther’s use of the then new medium of print in the Reformation, and the use of Facebook in the so-called “Arab Spring.” In looking at Luther’s use of … Continue reading
Posted in History, Media Theory, Textbook
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The story of the Textbook as a Foucauldian Genealogy
This is a recording of a presentation I recently gave at the Katholieke University of Leuven in Belgium, thanks to an invitation by Jan Masschelein.
Posted in History, Michel Foucault, Textbook
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The eTextbook: A Paradigm Shift?
The e-Textbook: A Paradigm Shift for Learning? from Norm Friesen on Vimeo. Will the e-textbook, with its multimedia potential and flexibility, bring a paradigm shift to education? In this video presentation, prepared for a keynote in Montreal in March, I … Continue reading
Paradigm shifts and Educational Forms: A Textbook Case
This article just appeared in “Online First” for AERA’s Educational Researcher. It is intended as a kind of ‘sequel” to my study of the “transmedial history”of the lecture, which was published in the same journal in 2011. Both articles look … Continue reading
Posted in History, Media Theory, Textbook, Writing
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"Note to Self:" A Genealogy of the internal dialogue from Aurelius to Vygotsky
Referencing Foucault’s notion of “technologies of the self,” this paper/chapter traces the notion of the self-reflective, self-directed dialogue from the practices of the late Ancients (e.g. Aurelius) through Vygotsky to today’s digital tools of self-management and self examination. Here’s a link … Continue reading
“Note to Self”: The Genealogy of Internal Dialog in Educational Material & Practice
An abstract and short paper I’ve been working on as a conference proposal: This presentation provides an overview of the history of the “internal dialog” as a pedagogical form whose variations have played a key role in educational materials and … Continue reading
Posted in Media Theory, Textbook, The Self
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Open Textbooks, Educational Content & Knowledge
[slideshare id=15443685&doc=opentextbookseducationalcontentknowledge-121201133451-phpapp02] Open textbooks are an important step toward accessible and affordable education. But there’s a gap between what’s currently happening with open textbooks and what commercial publishers have long been doing. Until this gap is closed, commercial publishers will … Continue reading