Introduction

My inspiration for this article comes from the poet and humorist Ogden Nash, who could communicate insightful observations by playing with the meanings of words and texts. For example, he is purported to have once said, "I'm all in favor of change, but there has been way too much of it lately." His clever statement came to mind when I stared at my blank computer screen contemplating what I might say to The Reading Teacher audience about the topic of technology and literacy. I thought how Nash's words may ring true to anyone who considers how much technological change has affected modes of reading and writing since 1980, a date that roughly corresponds to the first wave of personal and instructional computing made possible by the development of affordable microcomputers. In 1980 relatively few people sat in front of a computer screen to begin writing prose, let alone to read for edification or enjoyment; and, of course, almost nobody thought about e-mail, hypertext, the World Wide Web, or the need to write a book arguing passionately that books epitomize the experience of reading and that texts presented electronically degrade that experience (Birkerts, 1994).

Extrapolating the rate of change between 1980 and the present into the first decade of the next millennium is enough to give pause to even the most ardent and adventuresome supporter of technology as a positive force in literacy. For example, a recent Scientific American article (Yam, 1995) entitled "Writing on the Fringe" reports a technological development that conjures up some rather bizarre images of what the tools of reading and writing might be like in the apparently not so-distant future. The article reported that, "[Computer] Hard drives may one day take an atomic twist. Using ultrabrief laser pulses, physicists have demonstrated an ability to manipulate the position of an electron in an atom. Through such control, they expect to craft a kind of atomic video screen, with letters written directly on an atom" (p. 40). I wonder, is there a kind of handwriting instruction that might be relevant for constructing atomic letters? An interesting dilemma, perhaps, for textbook publishers if they survive another generation (and maybe an interesting idea for children to talk and write about, too).

Click here for another example: virtual reading.


[Editors' note: WHERE IS THIS ARTICLE HEADING? WHERE IS THE STATEMENT OF PURPOSE? A TRANSITION SENTENCE OR PARAGRAPH IS NEEDED HERE.] Click here for an explanation of the editor's note.


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Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted May 1997
Published by the International Reading Association, Inc.   ISSN 1096-1232