[Reading-hall-of-fame] Interview with David Olson for the French on-line journal <skhole.fr>

[David Olson]

Hi Gang: Sorry to bother you with the complete interview on
"Digitalization" . David 


INTERVIEW WITH DAVID R. OLSON

~

Based on your analysis of the notion of «~literacy~», could you explain us
how you understand the current technological and cultural changes, i.e.
the fact that we are entering the age of the digitalisation of writing and
reading ? According to you, how important are, those changes from a
historical viewpoint ? How would you define them ? What are the
opportunities and dangers that they might represent in terms of human
culture ?

It is difficult to anticipate the cultural importance of a new technology.
 Clearly digitalization has opened up new and rapid modes of
communication, linking people in new ways within existing communities and
creating new ones-- chat groups and so on.  However, historically and
culturally, the big transformations reflected the invention of writing
systems, whatever their form, and the invention of print.  The former was
important because it gave permanence to the word, allowing and inviting
people to look more carefully at language itself.  So we got the invention
of logic and more specialized forms of discourse including "scholarly"
language.  The second, printing, was important in that it altered
readership dramatically, allowing everyone, or almost everyone, to become
a participant in the discourse.  As we say, it democratized literacy.  So,
what does digitalization add?  Less to literacy, I suspect, than to
economics, manufacturing, social planning (airline ticket bookings and the
like).  Literacy, as a matter of extending the uses of language, so far as
I can tell, has not changed much.


Could you give us more details about what you meant when you wrote, in
your article dedicated to the modes of reading and writing from the
alphabet to the Internet, that in the era of digital writing "the reader
becomes responsible" ?

I suppose I meant that with such an abundance of written material, the
role of editor-- namely what to read, what to trust, what to pass on to
others-- falls to the reader.  We can no longer so easily rely upon
authorities to tell us what to believe.  I suppose that is further
"democratization" in that everyone can now participate and form their own
opinions, but at the loss of mechanisms for evaluating the quality and
truth of what is written.  There is no longer the Church or the State to
tell us what we must believe.


You seem to consider digitalization just as a moment inside the print era
of writing and reading, rather than a  « big transformation » of literacy.
Don’t you think these changes could have wider cultural, cognitive and
epistemological consequences, specially because of what you called « the
loss of mechanisms for evaluating the quality and truth of what is written
» ?

It is universally acknowledged that speech, that is, the competence for
speech, is the competence that more or less defines us as human.  Nothing
approaches speech in significance.  Secondly, the representation of speech
in writing is the second major feature of humans in most and certainly the
most advanced societies.  Mathematical notation is perhaps the third,
giving us access to science.  Fourth is computing languages that make the
digital universe possible.  The uses of computing for advanced science,
for social organization, for pre- planning, for design and the like is
significant.  But the implications of computing for human cognition, that
is for thinking and for extending the uses of mind, are either small or
unknown.  Certainly, computing allows new levels of animation and computer
programs can organize missions to the moon.  But mostly the uses of
digital technology for ordinary people in ordinary life is small compared
to writing, mathematics, and certainly in comparison to speech.


How do you think the school system, which is based on book reading, should
react both institutionally and pedagogically, to the deep technological
and cultural transformations we are currently undergoing ? What should the
school systems and teachers do regarding “new technologies” as a whole ?
How do you think they should deal with the way “digital natives” use them ?

The school should keep reading and writing showing children  how to
understand various kinds of documents and how to write their own. 
Computers find their place in this system as tools for writing and for
looking up information without seriously altering the traditional focus on
the uses of writing.  Printing tended to individualize learning-- remember
the old days of silent classrooms?-- although modern schools tend to rely
much more on group reading and writing and talking.  Computers may be
useful for collaborative learning too.  It remains to be seen.  Kids do
talk to each other on their iphones but is it not clear it helps to think
about a topic.  Computers may help students to collaborate but it remains
to be seen how classrooms use them.  We cannot expect simple consequences
of digitalization; it depends on where they are found to be useful.



INTERVIEW WITH DAVID R. OLSON

~

Based on your analysis of the notion of «~literacy~», could you explain us
how you understand the current technological and cultural changes, i.e.
the fact that we are entering the age of the digitalisation of writing and
reading ? According to you, how important are, those changes from a
historical viewpoint ? How would you define them ? What are the
opportunities and dangers that they might represent in terms of human
culture ?

It is difficult to anticipate the cultural importance of a new technology.
 Clearly digitalization has opened up new and rapid modes of
communication, linking people in new ways within existing communities and
creating new ones-- chat groups and so on.  However, historically and
culturally, the big transformations reflected the invention of writing
systems, whatever their form, and the invention of print.  The former was
important because it gave permanence to the word, allowing and inviting
people to look more carefully at language itself.  So we got the invention
of logic and more specialized forms of discourse including "scholarly"
language.  The second, printing, was important in that it altered
readership dramatically, allowing everyone, or almost everyone, to become
a participant in the discourse.  As we say, it democratized literacy.  So,
what does digitalization add?  Less to literacy, I suspect, than to
economics, manufacturing, social planning (airline ticket bookings and the
like).  Literacy, as a matter of extending the uses of language, so far as
I can tell, has not changed much.


Could you give us more details about what you meant when you wrote, in
your article dedicated to the modes of reading and writing from the
alphabet to the Internet, that in the era of digital writing "the reader
becomes responsible" ?

I suppose I meant that with such an abundance of written material, the
role of editor-- namely what to read, what to trust, what to pass on to
others-- falls to the reader.  We can no longer so easily rely upon
authorities to tell us what to believe.  I suppose that is further
"democratization" in that everyone can now participate and form their own
opinions, but at the loss of mechanisms for evaluating the quality and
truth of what is written.  There is no longer the Church or the State to
tell us what we must believe.


You seem to consider digitalization just as a moment inside the print era
of writing and reading, rather than a  « big transformation » of literacy.
Don’t you think these changes could have wider cultural, cognitive and
epistemological consequences, specially because of what you called « the
loss of mechanisms for evaluating the quality and truth of what is written
» ?

It is universally acknowledged that speech, that is, the competence for
speech, is the competence that more or less defines us as human.  Nothing
approaches speech in significance.  Secondly, the representation of speech
in writing is the second major feature of humans in most and certainly the
most advanced societies.  Mathematical notation is perhaps the third,
giving us access to science.  Fourth is computing languages that make the
digital universe possible.  The uses of computing for advanced science,
for social organization, for pre- planning, for design and the like is
significant.  But the implications of computing for human cognition, that
is for thinking and for extending the uses of mind, are either small or
unknown.  Certainly, computing allows new levels of animation and computer
programs can organize missions to the moon.  But mostly the uses of
digital technology for ordinary people in ordinary life is small compared
to writing, mathematics, and certainly in comparison to speech.


How do you think the school system, which is based on book reading, should
react both institutionally and pedagogically, to the deep technological
and cultural transformations we are currently undergoing ? What should the
school systems and teachers do regarding “new technologies” as a whole ?
How do you think they should deal with the way “digital natives” use them ?

The school should keep reading and writing showing children  how to
understand various kinds of documents and how to write their own. 
Computers find their place in this system as tools for writing and for
looking up information without seriously altering the traditional focus on
the uses of writing.  Printing tended to individualize learning-- remember
the old days of silent classrooms?-- although modern schools tend to rely
much more on group reading and writing and talking.  Computers may be
useful for collaborative learning too.  It remains to be seen.  Kids do
talk to each other on their iphones but is it not clear it helps to think
about a topic.  Computers may help students to collaborate but it remains
to be seen how classrooms use them.  We cannot expect simple consequences
of digitalization; it depends on where they are found to be useful.


Amazon has just launched « Kindle », its electronical reader. Do you think
that this kind of devices will change the way we read and relate to
writing ? More generally, can’t we say that after the « word on paper »
we’ve began entering into something like a « word on screen » ?

Writing, I believe, brought language and words in particular into
consciousness, making words and language something to think about.  Books
exploit that new awareness as well as further develop it.  Kindle make
books handy.  The promise of electronic readers is that it makes books
available to a broader audience just as printing once did.  I see Kindle
as a charming alternative to buying books not as a revolutioinarly
technology.  Computing and computer science make up new medium of
representation and, as I mentioned above, have changed our sciences and
our economy.  But few people learn to program, to write programs to carry
out our projects, or to use computer technologies for other intellectual
purposes.  We benefit from the products of those who do but as yet there
is no move to teach us to use computing in everyday life.  On the other
hand, we all talk and read and write.  Perhaps there will be a day when
writing programs is so easy that we will make a habit of doing it and of
seeing outself as expressions of some program (like a Cyborg).  It'll be a
while.


What do you think of Google’s initiative concerning printed book
digitalisation and the free access to them? Do you share Robert Darnton’s
fears[Marker][2][Marker] about it ?

I thought Darnton's book rather trivial.  He had little or nothing to say;
like me he is waiting to see what happens. 


How do you envisage the coming age of «~digital bureaucracy~», in which a
consumer can access digital documents and whole libraries but can also be
exposed to electronic wiring and profiling ? 

Yes, we have that, or almost have that now.  Except for rural areas, there
is no limitation on access to information.  The bottleneck is in usage. 
It will always take serious, thoughtful people to make something out of
the available information.  I have read hundreds of books about literacy;
the problem is to make a comprehensible theory of all of that stuff. 
Information is only an tool to the formation of knowledge.  Knowledge is
the problem, not informational access alone.





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