Week 4 Syntax: in the Critical Literacies course
The ability to recognize and use forms, grammars, patterns and other structural properties of communication. This would include information literacy and ontology of information
An interesting presentation on this by Jen Hughes and Graham Attwell, which Graham makes a blog post about. Also a very creative presentation – but the content was difficult for someone not familiar with the intricacies of linguistics and I was wanting a discussion about why a week of this Critical Literacies course has been devoted to syntax.
I have just noted Rita’s post to the course blog which is helpful in putting it all in context – as is Stephen’s presentation which was sent to me by Matthias Melcher when I mentioned to him that I had lost my way and was having difficulty in understanding why the course has been structured into these weeks.
For me it would help to focus less on the what (i.e. that syntax is a critical literacy) and more on the why. Why is syntax particularly relevant for us as learners in the 21st century? It really does not help to be absent in the middle of a course!
Optional Readings/References:
http://www.shirky.com/writings/ontology_overrated.html Shirky on ontology
http://www.adammathes.com/academic/computer-mediated-communication/folksonomies.html folksonomies
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BBwepkVurCI Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe – Reality TV Editing
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/future-of-search.html google blog talking about searching
http://www.slideshare.net/librarianinblack/information-overload-is-the-devil?src=embed Information Overload is the Devil – by a librarian
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential.cfm USA Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/advice/media_literacy/ UK ofcom media literacy
http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article540.html centre for media literacy
http://www.wikihow.com/Understand-and-Use-Basic-Statistics wikihow:statistics
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