Authentic Doing in Education

I recently read A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age by Daniel H. Pink. It’s fascinating book that builds off of Freidman’s The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century’s concerns about the changing nature of economic competition. But what prompts this self-reflection is a synthesis of my physical fatigue (reading, eye strain) and the desire to switch modes in input—on the fly—to listening and/or watching. This desire of flexibility to control how I choose to absorb new information—whether it be textual, auditory, or visual—is heartfelt, and in part results from a modern perception of frustration that all modes are not immediately available to me. This frustration is born out of my knowledge that there is very little standing in the way of making these options available, that is, there is no technical reason why information today can’t nearly always be delivered—simultaneously—in multiple forms. Yes, in growing numbers of cases one can purchase the audio-version of a book; the availability is rapidly increasing as cost continues to drop. However, I believe the choice one has to make—between text or audio—will eventually disappear; in the near future the “reader” will have the option to read, watch and listen, and to control this mode of information absorption dependent on a complex and ever changing interplay between, learning style, input fatigue, and the immediate nature of the information at the moment.

Our oral history project, Telling Their Stories: Oral History Archives Project is actually a wonderful model of this, right now! The user can choose to read, or to listen, or to read and listen, or listen and watch, paragraph by paragraph. Perhaps Telling Their Stories is a foreshadowing of the coming future in how one accesses new information.

The tactile book itself will not disappear, nor will the written word become any less important because text is still the most effective and efficient means for most of us. Text allows us to move much faster than the spoken word, and it allows us to move as slow as we want/need to absorb the subtleties, complexities, and beauty of the author’s words. But it also confines us to a single mode. And more importantly, information that is only available via text results in many students—for all sorts of reasons—to either prematurely stop, or inadequately skim, or even never attempt “the read” because, for them—at the moment—it is not the effective means of contact.