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Saturday, 11 January 2003 |
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[Electronic Language is the tool we use to communicate when using computers connected together, particularly on the Internet. Find a fuller explanation of Electronic Language here.]
We can ask the question “How do I read electronic language?” in another way that will help us to understand. “How do I decode a particular text?” or “How do I read the search engine Google?” (This is like asking, how do I read John Grisham’s novel “The Chamber”.) To explain this, it will be easier to show you someone writing about their reading of Google. Let us work through the following. This is a discussion about how Google does something:
Terms of service ¦ Privacy Policy ¦ About http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/7946.htm Snowfox121 is reporting an incident where he was reading Google. Just like someone might go to a particular page and paragraph in a book by John Grisham, Snowfox121 turned to a particular type of interaction Google has with its readers. Snowfox121 sets up a search of Google for “blue widgets”, he receives a response from Google. He then sets up another search “widgets” and gets a result. He compares the results and seeks to answer what is going on. This is an act of reading electronic language. Let us set this out. An act of reading electronic language involves:
Snowfox121 opens his browser on his personal computer, connects to the internet and points his browser to Google (this is step 1 in this reading activity). Then, he tests Google with two inputs “blue widgets” and “widgets” (this is step 2 in this reading activity.) He receives the output of the two tests (step 3) and analyzes the results to interpret what is going on (step 4). In fact, the rest of the discussion in this forum entry focuses on step 4 in this reading process. Powdork at We will work a number of reading activities through this book. Essentially, you should understand that reading electronic language can be done individually, although, you will get a much better understanding by having different inputs in a reading discussion as seen in this example. While the activities in steps 1-3 are done individually and you may come to a reserved conclusion in step 4, you may wish to discuss the reading with others to arrive at a conclusion. This may also be reserved until you later show more evidence; although it is also wise to always be tentative about any reading, as programmers may change the text, a business may cause the text to be changed, or additional entries in the enormous database may change the results. So while we arrive at conclusions, we need always to be open to re-read. 12:08:29 AM 
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Friday, 10 January 2003 |
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What actually consitutes the consciousness and the range of skills required of a technate person in 2003 will be different than what it was in 2002. Simply put, as technology changes and as new ways of making meaning emerge, the consciousness of what is going on and the skills required to participate in communication will become in some cases simplified and in other cases more complex. Here are some of the trends that the truly technate person will need to keep abreast of this year (this is only a partial list, more items will be added as they emerge): HOW TO BE HEARD HOW TO WORK WHAT TO DO This is a partial listing of what it means to be technate in 2003. There are also the many matters to do with the basics of using a computer, being connected to the Internet, maintaining backups, and so on. More coming soon . . .
7:59:07 AM
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Wednesday, 1 January 2003 |
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I have just completed a survey on my normal morning wanderings around the weblogged world. Found an interesting weblog of a Finnish Scientist, Juha Haataja. Seems that he is a prolific writer of particularly scientific books. He states that he has been writing this weblog for four months in these words:
From my point of view, where I have for the past ten years not actually been employed where I can obviously develop my theory of Technacy, I find his interest in weblogs to be similar to what I was about six months ago. I have shaped weblogs into being the central location where my work is centered. I am no longer employed and I devote my time to producing texts online to extend my theory developed in a PhD and awarded to me in 1997. Now that I have decided to focus on my theory, and to develop that regardless of what employment I receive out of doing that, weblogs has become central to me. Here is an inventory of the centrality of weblogs to my project of exploring and expanding the theory of technacy:
Where is the economic model in all of this? There is one, I think, in developing materials that answer people's common problems where an application of Technacy can provide a solution. The economic model for me is centered in providing answers and at the same time educating people to understand the importance of Technacy to their thinking, living and indeed their economic future. Yes, if you are new to my site, I believe that "being literate" is now not sufficient to be an effective member of society in this new electronic era. It is important for people to now become "technate". What I am doing, in effect, is putting technacy to the test, applying its concepts and if those concepts are worth anything, I will have developed an economic model of experimentation with ideas, development of knowledge, and publishing of knowledge through this process. If the concept of Technacy is worth anything, I will make money. If it does not provide answers to people's needs, I will earn no money and the activity will be over. 6:56:32 AM
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Wednesday, 18 December 2002 |
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Since installing the Google Search tool on this site, I have started searching through weblog land to see what people are doing with their weblog sites. Some are imaginative, others seriously collecting links on particular topics, some writing serious themes and then there is the mass of junk collections everywhere. Since beginning to be a weblog wanderer, I have begun asking myself the question as to why we are all so busily logging. My personal enquiry led to to understand exactly why I do it. To me, the world of knowledge managment, software tools, new ways of doing things, invention and plain doodling provides me with a playgroun where I can test ideas, develop concepts and have some readers along to provide feedback. I know when something hot is happening when I see the readers coming by the droves. Then, when they melt away I know that my experiments are simply not interesting. I do not know that it is simply a matter of writing better as Mahoney suggests, it is a matter as to whether you have something to say, to demonstrate, or whether you have been busy to add some real value to the wealth of knowledge out there. For me, it is about playing with the tools, building information along the way and promoting the idea that there is a new way of making meaning that has little to do with literacy and lots to do with techancy -- the new way of making meaning since we have adopted electronic devices connected across a large-scale network. The latest interest in the world of technacy centers on rapid text construction techniques. I am now employed as a writer and getting sick and tired of composing texts at 7,000 words per day. So, using all the tools I could muster, I devised a way to make my job easier. Download a copy of the book for yourself and see what I mean. Even this weblog I am now writing took me half the time as I used text chunks rather than writing this from complete scratch. Anyway, now that we have the tools to store and retrieve larger items that letters and word, why not build text from text chunks? Copyright a problem? How about it if I build you are text chunk library? And give you the right to copy any text from the library as long as you pay me a fee of say, $25 per month for access to any number of chunks. Drop me an email and tell me what you think. And if you liked my text on Rapid Text Construction, let me know too.
5:10:03 PM
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Sunday, 15 December 2002 |
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Rapid Text Construction Most people do not harness the power of personal computers when writing, or when composing information products. I have worked as a university lecturer, technical writer, consultant and have also served in management of an online company. Through witnessing several thousand people who write text, compose documents and some of those documents being information rich documents of more than 200 pages, I have not seen anyone who really harnesses the power of a personal computer and really makes light work of text writing and production tasks. Since retiring from normal work, I have been writing for both a hobby and a living. I applied the concepts of Technacy to these writing tasks and have devised a system, used the system and have shown through the construction of more than 5 different texts that it is possible to compose eBooks, websites, and other texts at the rate of up to 50,000 words per day. Impossible you say? I have demonstrated that it is entirely possible. You too can test it for yourself as I have written an eBook using the principles of Rapid Text Cosntruction (RTC). Download the book here. RTC is based upon the application of Dr Jenkins' theory of Synthesis -- the grammar like structure of Electronic Language. The highly technate person is aware of this structure and can use this grammar-like structure as a resource to make meaning. In grammar people need to cosntruct text grammatically. In Synthesis the concept is not about grammaticality but about efficiency. The objective in Synthesis is to gain efficiencies in composing electronic language. The eBook written by Dr Jenkins on this topic explains how he gains speed in writing tasks through devising a System. A System is composed of a process whereby several programs are linked together to form a systematic way of composing text and gaining efficiencies in that process. The Foreword of the text links the ideas of RTC to technacy and synthesis and provide a unique view into the world of Electronic Language that no other writer is talking about yet. 3:21:42 PM
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Friday, 13 December 2002 |
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Composing Composing involves consciously thinking about a problem that can be solved by using the resources of synthesis to construct an electronic language text. What this means is that a composer spend some time in thinking about and constructing a system that will then be used to generate written or other language in one or more genres. This activity may mean that prior to generating the written text, or even before beginning the process of generating the written text, it takes some time for a composer to build an electronic text that forms the system for generating that written text. In building the system described in this book, the activity of composing the system involved:
Skills of composing involve downloading and installing programs (downloading is included here as purchasing programs is far too time consuming to have as a regular activity in composing), exploring programs beyond the boundaries of what the originators claim it can do, thinking about the interconnectivity of programs through either cut and paste and/or other methods of interactivity, and finally producing a document or text that is envisioned. The efficiency of a system is greatly enhanced by creating a system specifically for production of a particular type of text and/or for a specific text. Thus, while you will be able to learn about composing a system through this ebook, you will do best by learning the principles and then applying those principles to how you normally work, and what the text is that you want to produce.
12:27:40 AM
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Friday, 16 August 2002 |
Technacy Info (http://technacy.info)This site is now 'THE' location for information on 'technacy'. The domain "technacy.info" has started directing people to this site. Through this action, of registering a domain and having people come to this site a whole new meaning to technacy has been demonstrated. A major part of technacy is knowing how to use and exploit the technologies of common communication systems. Weblogging is one of those major systems that takes its place alongside email, instant messaging, websites and file transfer. Weblogging and knowing how to make use of online systems to display one's personal information is part of the technate capability an individual may acquire. The real point about being technate is that one can participate in common means of communication in the age of electronic language. As weblogging is now entering that common status -- there are at least 500,000 webloggers on the service I am using at Radio Userland, and there are perhaps more than 1,500,000 others elsewhere (such as in www.blogger.com and other private services) now to be technate I must demonstrate an ability to organize my personal information in a weblogging system. The Taxonomy of Technacy Skills, Activities and Experiences is the place where I am working on registering a list of the items for which a person to be identified to be 'technate' should display a competency. Just as I am now adding weblogging as an activity area in which a technate person should display competence to be considered technate, other cultural activities will be added as they are adopted by groups of more than 500,000 people. So, what is the significance of adding weblogging to the list of cultural activities within which a technate person needs to display competence? Just as in the age when print dominated communication and literacy was the skill within which a person needed to display competence in order to be able to participate in social activities (such as reading a newspaper, reading a book, participating in education, having the capability to write, having a voice when writing and being able to be heard by publishing that writing in some manner), in this age of electronic language where websites, email, weblogging, and instant messaging are starting to become dominant ways of sharing information and getting things done, competence in 'technate' activities are required as a general set of skills to maintain or enhance one's position in society. What is now becoming clearly evident is that weblogging is becoming a standard way of managing and recording one's personal knowledge. Online evidence shows that this is becoming standard -- look at the librarians, academics, educators, and others who are managing their personal information in this manner. Simply do a search on Goggle and see for yourself. Perhaps this is one of the subsites I can develop -- a site showing the range of personal information weblogged to show that weblogging is now becoming a key cultural activity of technacy. . . more on this as I develop this thinking. So what now . . . 3:58:59 AM
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Last update: 11/01/2003; 12:09:00 AM .
