Class Reflection: Week 4

It's week four of the semester already! Amazing. I think because we only have each class once per week the semesters go by even faster than they would otherwise. Anyway.

So yesterday in class we talked about some really interesting topics! Probably the most enlightening was Kristin's clarification of the term "transliteracy," which we all (or at least I did) basically took to mean that people need to be literate in a variety of mediums, i.e; able to use a computer, smartphone, print material, etc. to be functional in today's society, which many of us felt something along the lines of "Well, obviously. Thanks for putting a fancy name on a skill that doesn't need a fancy name." But Kristin explained transliteracy as more along the lines of how reading practice and comprehension change across the mediums. Is reading a scholarly article in a print journal the same or different across the spectrum? Is the brain working in a different way when we have online articles filled with links to other sites instead of static pages? How does comprehension change when we go down the rabbit hole of hyperlinks? When framed in this light, transliteracy seems like a more distinct and interesting concept than just "Yeah, I know how to use a smartphone. I'm transliterate." Which, coincidentally, Kristin says she hates the term transliteracy, and never uses it when she is speaking about the concept because it's trite and confusing.

As a result of the enlightening of the term above, as well as hearing many practicing librarians express surprise that young people/students mostly prefer print books to e-books, I have started to think that it would be beneficial for someone to do a study (maybe studies have been done on this) on how students a. prefer to learn (print vs. electronic) and b. how well they learn in either format. Do they prefer print books to e-books simply because they are familiar with the physical object? Or do they actually learn more and understand better when they use print materials? And if that is true, why is that the case? The electronic material is exactly the same as the print material. What about their electronic study habits is different from their physical learning? I know that personally, since so much of the reading done at SI is done electronically, I don't have as good of attention when I read electronically. I often will flip back and forth from my reading to check my email, check Facebook, check whatever. I almost cannot read a whole article in its entirety without getting distracted, whereas I know that when I read a chapter from a physical book, I put the computer away until I finish the chapter. Thus, I read more, I am able to focus better on what is in front of me, and take away more from the physical book, even if I had read the same thing online. I think, too, there is something about the tactile functionality of reading a physical book that kind of embeds the information in our (my?) brain a little better. It's definitely the reason I don't take notes using a computer; I don't get the same kind of tactile retention by typing as I do when I physically write out my notes. It will be interesting to see if this kind of mentality changes as more and more students use computers in place of handwriting as they come up through the school system.