Category Archives: Media Theory

"On beyond Ong:" the bases of a revised theory of orality and literacy

J. Coleman’s Public reading and the reading public is excellent book that goes way beyond its ostensible medieval specialization, and offers a comprehensive critique of the antiquated ethnocentrism of the Ong / Goody approach to orality and literacy. This approach, … Continue reading

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Education, Media and the End of the Book –a view from German media theory

Just finished a draft of this paper with Rainer Leschke. It incorporates a number of concepts and references familiar in German media studies (Medienwissenschaften), including notions of a Leitmedium, of Medienvergessenheit and media-systems. But these aren’t all necessarily German. One of these … Continue reading

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Educational Change & the Longue Durée: An Analysis of the Anatomy Lecture

Proof of a paper, co-authored with Wolff-Michael Roth, soon to appear in Educational Philosophy and Technology. Here’s the abstract: Although there are many points of continuity, there are also a number of changes in the pedagogical form of the anatomy … Continue reading

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“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

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Wandering Star: The Image of the Constellation in Benjamin, Giedion & McLuhan

Did Walter Benjamin’s powerful metaphor of the “constellation” wind up becoming the titular figure in Marshall McLuhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy? Benjamin and McLuhan actually have something in common besides a shared interest in recent material histories. This commonality is a personal … Continue reading

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CFP: Special issue of Phenomenology & Practice on "Being Online"

Phenomenology & Practice announces a special issue devoted to the phenomenological description and exploration of the experience of being online in educational or pedagogical contexts. The intent of this special issue is to focus particularly on epistemology of practice, on … Continue reading

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Special Issue of CJLT on Philosophy & Education

A special issue of the Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology / La revue canadienne de l’apprentissage et de la technologie co-edited by Erika Smith and myself, is out. This issue has some great papers, including a short editorial by Andrew Feenberg, an excellent … Continue reading

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Text to Speech (and back again) – Media in Education

This paper explores some readings and questions I’ve been working on for quite awhile. What is the relation of present-day educational media and technologies to the most basic and fundamental media of communication: text and speech? Unlike the forms that … Continue reading

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Wandering Star: The Image of the Constellation in Benjamin, Giedion and McLuhan

Just got word that this proposal was accepted for the “14th Jerusalem Conference in Canadian Studies” at the Hebrew University. It focuses on three great writers, and three very unique texts: Walter Benjamin’s notion of the “constellation” marks a particularly … Continue reading

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Two Ed Tech/Media Traditions: Rationalist vs Romantic

Spoken language is the first and most basic medium, and various forms of writing come next. If this is true, then media have a long history. This is certainly the case for education & for learning speech & writing. I … Continue reading

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