literacies log

Wordle

2009-02-24T06:33:00.000-08:00

Things you can do with digital literacies:

Create instant art from your web page.

www.wordle.net

Karin

2008-10-31T07:35:00.000-07:00

DB writes: BOOK OF THE MONTH

Passion and politics: Academics reflect on writing for publication by E. Carnell, J MacDonald, Bet McCullum and M. Scott. London: Institution of Education, 2008.
This fascinating book, which has just been published contains interviews with 18 academics at the London Institute of Education about their writing practices. What they say is strongly framed by the editors in terms of themes like: becoming a writer, managing time, imagining the reader and the two themes of the title, their passion for writing and the politics of writing. Gunther Kress and Jan Blommaert are two of the academics who provide glimpses into their lives. The editors, who unfortunately reveal nothing about themselves, provide lots of ideas on how to carry out such interviews and for further projects.

Geisel library

2008-09-18T03:27:00.000-07:00

Images from the wonderful Geisel library at the University of California, San Diego, visited for the ISCAR conference (Intl Society for Cultural and Activity Research).

more on literacies and place

2008-07-17T01:17:00.000-07:00

Barbara Comber played with the phrase 'know your place' when she began the special focus day on literacy and social class at the UK Literacy Association conference last Thursday. She argues for a hopeful take on critical literacies with place pedagogies, suggesting that the notion of 'knowing one's place' can be an inclusive educational resource, getting away from the implication of 'accepting' one's (lowly) position.

This urban renewal project brought together primary and preschool children with architecture trainees to transform their setting. It was so clear how the project, being so real, engaged the children in authentic processes of planning, consultation, design and so on, in which their literacy skills flourished. Above is a photo of Ridley Grove school grounds early in the project.

I'm currently reading 'A mobile century? changes in everyday mobility in Britain in the twentieth century' by Colin Pooley, Jean Turnbull and Mags Adams. It turns out that the question mark is fundamental to their argument. Although the opportunities for long distance travel are far greater now than they were a century ago most people only do this once or twice a year and many never have - or take - the opportunity. '...for many, everyday mobility consists mainly of local travel connected to essential everyday tasks and ... this aspect of mobility has changed little over time.' (p. 1) The book includes some fascinating interviews with older people who reflect on their changing travel patterns over their lifespan; many move around more in their 60s than every before.

I take from this a strengthening of Barbara Comber's argument; that relating literacy pedagogies to the locality can be fruitful and empowering in many ways. Here is another gorgeous image from her Centre for Studies in Literacy, Policy and Learning Cultures

UK Literacy Association conference

2008-07-14T12:30:00.001-07:00

I've just returned from the UKLA conference at Liverpool Hope University. One theme that came across very vividly to me was the experience of place in people's formative experiences of literacy. David Almond, the author of Skellig, was convinced - and really very convincing! - that his lifelong love of literature and determination to write that lasted over several decades before he attained any success - began with his first encounter with his uncle's small printworks. OK sounds reasonable - but he was 9 months old at the time! (I also loved the way he talked about using word processor software - how he occasionally turns the view down very small so that just the shapes of the paragraphs are visible, not the words themselves). In this interview he explains how he uses a sense of place in his writing. Steve Martin, a historian who works with children and recently published his first children's novel (Jupiter Martin) explains how he uses visits to local archives and walks around their locality to stimulate children's imaginations and writing work through revealing some occluded aspects of history including the presence of black people in British cities even centuries ago.

Julia

writing, technology and teens

2008-06-30T06:09:00.001-07:00

JG writes:
I'm reading a fascinating report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project & the National Commission on Writing: 'Writing, Technology and Teens'. Its two sentence summary is: 'Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messaging as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.'

Small wonder really that US teenagers are thinking in this way, given the narrow view of new literacies so prevalent in much mass media. Although having written that sentence I wonder if I'm being fair? It's now 5 years since the story reproduced in so many places about the Scottish girl handing in an essay written entirely in text messaging abbreviations (which I think I remember was exposed as a myth). So perhaps it's not that simple...the report should be interesting, I'll read on.

Thanks to Guy Merchant's blog for alerting me to the report. It's good to see that the Pew Project is continuing to produce such fascinating stuff.

RaPAL

2008-05-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

Several members of the LLRC are looking forward to attending the annual conference of RaPAL (http://www.literacy.lancs.ac.uk/rapal/ )which will be held outside the UK for the first time this year. The conference will take place in Galway, Ireland from 19-21 June and is being organised by Kieran Harrington who works at City of Galway VEC. Kieran has written an article about RaPAL and literacies learning in Ireland, which was published on 20 May in the Irish Independent. Please follow this link to read the article:

http://www.independent.ie/education/latest-news/time-for-serious-reflection-on-adult-literacy-1381561.html

Chain chain chain....

2008-05-21T08:07:00.001-07:00

What is the eternal fascination of chain letters? I remember them from my childhood; wikipedia dates them from 1935 (I'd be quite surprised if there isn't any earlier evidence though) and confirms they're still popular on email. One on Facebook claims 4m although - or perhaps because as it claims - the only purpose is to see how big the chain can get. I'd heard of it and then found its origin reported here.

Creating Connections: Policy Research and Practice

2008-05-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

This was the title of a conference organised in Glasgow by Learning Connections, which I attended on Tuesday 29 April. For me the highlight of the day was a session in which three adult literacies practitioners gave presentations on the action research projects they had carried out as part of an online professional development course. What impressed me most about their presentations was that they spoke in a very confident and matter-of-fact way about the theory they had been using. What's more, their references to theory were woven into their discussion about some very practical issues connected with their work. One of them summed up their approach when she said 'We know better by doing and do better by knowing.' Another presenter described how he used to think of himself as an 'intuitive' teacher, but carrying out his research had convinced him that intuitions need to be examined and questioned, and that theory is a good tool for doing this. These teachers seemed to have made a very real connection between research and practice in literacies, one which they all felt would become an enduring aspect of their work.

Communications around the Olympic torch on Everest

2008-04-30T03:39:00.000-07:00

With a news blackout at Everest base camp, some blogs are attracting considerable attention chronicling the Chinese government's attempts to get the torch up the mountainside. Jim Curtin has posted a photo of a sign at Camp II, handwritten on improvised materials, telling climbers they cannot go forwards. I can't help noticing it is in excellent standard English, by someone with a very good eye for the conventional layout of such notices.

Books

2008-04-30T03:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the Literacy Research Discussion Group had an open discussion of books. Here are the titles people brought along, and succeeded in making some interesting links among:

Writing on the Plaza: mediated literacy practices among scribes and clients in Mexico City. Judy Kalman (Hampton Press, 1997)
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See. (Penguin, 2006)
Illuminating Disadvantage: profiling the experienes of adults with entry level literacy or numeracy over the lifecourse: research report. John Brynner & Samantha Parsons. National Research and Development Centre for adult literacy and numeracy research report (NRDC, 2008).
Actual Minds, Possible Worlds, Jerome Bruner (Harvard University Press, 1986)
Pies and Prejudice - in search of the North. Stuart Maconie (Ebury Press, 2008)
Les ecrits de septembre 11: New York 2001. Beatrice Frankel (Textual, 2002)
Introducing Bakhtin. Sue Vice. (Manchester University Press. 1997)
Birds without Wings. Louis De Bernieres. (Vintage 2005)
Doce Cuentos Peregrinos. Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Grupo Editorial Norma USA, 1998)
Someday you will no all about me. Anne Robinson, Leslie Crawford, Nigel Hall. Heinemann, USA (1990).

Some of these books may have been published before or since as well in various editions . I'm sorry I haven't always inserted accents where they should be too.
JG

Changing Literacies, Changing Technologies

2008-04-14T09:15:00.001-07:00

This is the title of a collaborative research project I am involved with at Lancaster through the Senior Learners Forum.
We have been meeting since December to document the experiences of older people in relation to changing practices of literacy and technologies across the lifespan - both positive and negative.

It is still possible for people to join the project.
You need to choose two people to interview who are contrasting in some way. For example, they might be:
Older or younger
Use new technologies or don’t use them
Live in an urban or a rural area
Be male or female;
Have different past experiences of education and employment;
Have a positive or negative attitude to new technologies.

Overall we are interested in making a contribution to wider research with older adults that is looking at why and how they use new communications technologies (ICTs), how uses are changing , what ICTS offer people and the choices people make to use new technologies or not. I have circulated some articles by Stephen Gorard that describe the larger-scale research he has been doing and that our research can fit into.

We agreed that our particular theme will be: do new communication technologies increase isolation or do they increase social contact for older people?

If you are interested in joining us or keeping in touch with what we are doing, please let me know!

Mary

Nothing to Write Home About

2008-04-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Fiona Frank for this link to a great book of postcards from the time before emails and mobile phones when everyone sent cards, whether they had anything to say or not.....

http://www.abadie.co.uk/postcards/aboutthebook.htm

Mary

LRC in the Times Higher

2008-03-21T04:39:00.000-07:00

Our Literacy Research Centre is mentioned in the Times Higher Education magazine today, in the context of an article about Institutes of Advanced Studies in UK universities. The best thing about the article for me is the reproduction of an astonishing painting I have never seen before, 'Science and the Arts' by Adriaen van Stalbemt. THES reproduces this very detailed work, including some literacy practices, in a double page spread that's really worth having a look at.

It's a seventeenth century painting, held in the Prado, but I can find out little about the artist freely available on the internet, although this seems quite popular as a poster.

The 'Cute Cat Theory' of the Internet

2008-03-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Karin writes:

Since we're thinking about digital literacies at the moment, I thought I would post this link to a great post on the 'Cute Cat Theory of the Internet' by Ethan Zuckerman. The starting point - that Web 1.0 was invented to help physicists share research papers, while Web 2.0 was created to allow people to share pictures of cute cats - is a succinct expression of some of the ideas about 'ludic literacies online' we have been talking about. He moves on to develop a more serious point about the way the 'cute cat' technologies are being used by global political activists - and the unintended consequences when governments try to block the activists' sites (you don't want to annoy the cute cat sharers too, then they might just notice they're living under a repressive regime!)

Well worth a look. Even if you don't like cute cats.

electioneering

2008-03-06T05:25:00.000-08:00

Today the campus of Lancaster University is buzzing with elections for student union sabbatical posts so signs are everywhere.

postcard competition

2008-03-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

Julia writes: The photo shows the judging of the postcard competition. This took place immediately after a fascinating talk by Lynn Mario T. Menezes de Souza of the University of Sao Paulo to the Literacy Research Discussion Group entitled 'Lending ears to the visual in writing' concerning his research on literacy practices among indigenous peoples in Brazil.

2008-03-04T07:15:00.000-08:00

DB says: There were 44 images submitted for the latest postcard competition. Judging has just finished, with 10 extremely fair and impartial judges and we have chosen the next set of 8 postcards which we will soon be publishing... more later....

2008-02-20T06:48:00.000-08:00

Candice writes:
On Valentine’s Day there was discussion on Radio 4 about Brief Encounter and the most interesting thing I learnt was that the screenplay was edited by telegram, because Noel Coward was in India at the time the film was being made. I wondered about the implications of this and how it must concentrate the mind on the task – does it account for every word in the script being very carefully chosen with absolutely no room for superfluous talk, and does that in turn help to make it such a wonderful film?
It made me think about the differences in the way I’ve been editing documents recently - by email, in collaboration with several others using ‘tracking changes’ and ‘comments’, and actually being able to waffle at length with the risk of the precise intended meaning being lost – either in formulation or in transmission.
So is there something to be said for the discipline of editing by telegram? Probably not, but an interesting idea I thought.

Doodle.ch

2008-02-14T01:30:00.000-08:00

We're playing with a meeting planning tool called Doodle. You can get it here.
If you want to arrange something with a number of people you can set up a poll and they can easily vote for any of the slots they are available for. Then it's very easy to see which date everyone can manage.

postcards

2008-02-02T08:38:00.000-08:00

Julia writes: The Lancaster Literacy Research Centre is having an internal competition to issue a new set of postcards. The current set is absolutely magnificent so I am not sure I have anything to enter. However I did snap this recently as it amused me. - but unfortunately when uploaded it's hard to see that the sign on the left says 'No Parking'.

These remind me that Guy Cook said recently that signs often indicate the opposite of their apparent meaning. For example a sign that says 'no exit' on a door means that you could get out of it.

BookCrossing

2008-01-15T06:25:00.000-08:00

Just went to a fascinating talk at the Literacy Research Discussion Group on BookCrossing by Steve Lucas and Lynn Moores. This is a terrific international system of passing books between bibliophiles completely free of charge. I tested the system immediately by registering - which was easy - 'catching' a book and registering a journal entry to it for the site.

I particularly enjoyed Steve's tales about books' trajectories around the world and also the 'themed releases' such as the copy of Eats Shoots & Leaves that was left beside a salad bar in a supermarket and Holes left above a compressor in some roadworks. Wonderful also to hear about people hiking up mountains to 'catch' a book.

Lynn made a very powerful argument for the site as a cross-over for connections among book lovers both online and offline and demonstrated what wonderful work the library service has done in Oxfordshire with books that might otherwise have been pulped.

Julia

everyday writings of Vindolanda

2008-01-11T03:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday the BBC Radio 4 programme 'Material World' had a fascinating piece on the 'Vindolanda texts'. This is the biggest hoard of everyday writings from a military outpost in Roman Britain. The programme was most interested in the enormous challenges presented in reading them however there were some fascinating quotations. The programme describes them thus: "They are like our emails today - quick, frivolous messages to friends and relatives: from laundry lists to letters asking for warmer underwear." I'm not quite sure why matters of personal importance should be described as 'frivolous'. The superb Vindolanda Tablets Online website defines this category as 'necessities of life'. Their other categories are: families, pleasures and ceremonies; letters to make, keep (or lose) friends; and military matters. JG

Illustration comes from:
http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/TVII-291

Diaries

2007-12-13T06:27:00.000-08:00

I am reading the very wonderful book: 'Annie Ray's diary: the extraordinary work of ordinary writing' by Jennifer Sinor. By coincidence it was recommended to me at just about the time that Irving Finkel of the British Museum came to the Literacy Research Discussion Group to discuss: 'What happens to diaries?'. Perhaps wrongly, I understood him to claim that there is little literature about psychological motivations to keep diaries and the practice in general - of course there is a great deal of scholarly attention to famous diaries. However Jennifer Sinor's literature review contributes greatly to the topic of everyday writing and then the diary she discusses - of her ancestor in the late nineteenth century - is indeed illuminated beautifully through her analysis.

In what might be regarded as a summary of some of her arguments on pp. 182-183 Jennifer Sinor suggests:

Diaries are 'ordinary writing' par excellence and that ordinary writing is not literary. 'The limit of the literary, though, is also what makes ordinary writing so powerful and pervasive.'

Ordinary writing is what is disregarded.

Ordinary writing is 'not supposed to be here but it is.'

'That is what makes it an opportune site for contemplating the ways in which ordinary choices by ordinary writers at ordinary moments reveal the complex set of negotiations constantly undertaken by writers, by people living in the world.'

With the aid of Annie Ray's diary, JS expounds upon the diurnal rhythms of the diary and how to 'delight in dailiness, rhythm, and repetition. To read her text in terms of what she makes as a writer rather than what she lacks. The capacity of dailiness to shape the diurnal form is revealed even at the level of syntax and requires that I pay attention to aspects and qualities of texts I have been trained to ignore, despise, or delete.' (p. 57).

However, as much as I am enjoying her book, I am wondering whether the dramatic elements JS brings to the story of Annie Ray's diary - that would befit any novel - work slightly against her overall argument. I have to admit I enjoy the elements of suspense and revelations enormously though and find myself turning backwards and forwards through the book to try to piece together the very narrative thread - clearly the literary - that JS argued should not be the 'valued.'

The book will be in the LRC Literacy Resource Centre as soon as I can bear to put it there. I should really asap as I am dying to discuss the book with someone.

Julia

mapwork

2007-12-03T06:16:00.000-08:00

I rely quite a lot on maps as I do not have a good sense of direction. I retreated from the library the other day because I could not find an office I had been to in there before - it wasn't marked on the maps because (I think!) although it is in the library it belongs to a different service. It can also be quite hard to find specific buildings on this campus unless you have a portable map. I find it very hard to imagine what use maps such as this one, just outside the library, might be. It gives a plan of building locations, each building being marked with a number. The number does not relate to any kind of available key; nor are the building numbers visible on the buildings themselves.

I think the reading and authoring of maps is a fascinating topic. There is such a need for a strong mutual striving towards shared understandings of symbols that in a way it is the archetypal 'literacy.' You don't always know what you can do with a map straight away until you arrive at a really good active understanding of it; I would be quite handicapped if the 'mini map' function was turned off in my 'virtual worlds' project for example, and yet I probably had no idea it was there let alone how to use it when I first went 'inworld.'

I think 'mapwork' would be a fantastic future theme for the Institute of Advanced Studies here at Lancaster. But I see the closing date has gone for 2009-10. I have time to think about it perhaps for the following year! I wonder what themes were submitted.

Julia

2007-11-30T05:55:00.000-08:00

Fabian is entering the world of book reading

Last week, Fabian figured out how to climb on to our armchair. Since then, it has become one of his favourite places. He does two things in the armchair: read a book (as in the photos) or jumb up and down. When he wants to read a book, the first thing he does is put the book on the seat. Then he follows. Because it's quite an effort for him to get up the chair, he usually lands with his bottom right on the book. Which then means he has to drag it out from underneath his bum. Another big effort! Once he's managed to do all this, he's happy to read for a while and recover from the exercise. Not for too long though, and he's up on his feet again, turning his reading place into a bouncy chair.

What surprises me most in all this is that Fabian has chosen the chair for his reading. We never sit in it, we always sit on the floor when reading and so far, Fabian has always modelled us. But he clearly isn't too impressed by our carpet reading and he's probably wondering why on earth his parents put two lovely armchairs in their room when they never use them!

Uta

reading a bag

2007-11-27T02:33:00.001-08:00

At an event promoting Fair Trade I was delighted to be given my goodies in this bag. It's made out of recycled Indian newspapers. The website tells me they are made by former street children. All the newspapers are collected by one man calling at homes asking for newspapers, sometimes therefore the bags feature completed crosswords!

The employment ads on the other side give me the impression Delhi is booming not least in call centres. One says that 'average English' is required.

Julia

Paradigmatic borderlands

2007-11-22T14:10:00.000-08:00

DB writes: I had a very interesting time in Norway at the University of Stavanger, where they have developed a postgraduate programme in Literacy Studies. They are using the framework of literacy as a social practice to bring together diverse traditions including medieval dialectology, media studies, early childhood education, expertise research, second language literacy, national writing tests, music in people’s lives and much more. I was struck by how someone working on pre-colonial writing in Madagascar had a common language for talking to someone working on medieval medical prose. They said they are working in the paradigmatic borderlands and I liked the claim that ‘Literacy Studies is one of the few examples of interdisciplinary studies which really works’.

Literacy Log 2 PULP LOG

2007-11-20T10:35:00.001-08:00

Pulp log (thanks to Lyn Tett for this one)

Literacy Log 1 YOU ARE ASLEEP

2007-11-20T10:30:00.001-08:00

from Luccombe Chine on the Isle of Wight

Mattrealities part 3 final

2007-11-14T05:38:00.000-08:00

I'm glad someone else enjoyed the use of paper in the Infolab. So here is a final photo - it was kindly sent to me by Henrik Enquist of Lund University as his Canon was up to capturing this image whereas my phone wasn't.

I am most intrigued as to why in this ultra high tech environment somebody took the time to draw out such a large grid by hand with numbers in it. It reminded me of games that my family used to make during a wet holiday (I'm thinking both of my own children when younger and my siblings with self indeed).

Julia

2007-11-14T05:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at Quernmore School a huge wind turbine was installed - very exciting for all children, and is the first in Lancashire and possibly the country ... This morning Fabian (age 9) pulled out of his pocket a crumpled piece of paper - "I got the builder's autograph!" Does this use of the established literacy practice of collecting autographs indicate that wind turbine erectors have entered the category of celebrities in the minds of our children? And if so, does this mean that saving the planet really is a priority for them? (or is it just that it's dead exciting to see a massive windmill being erected on your playing field?)
Candice

Passive-aggressive literacy practices

2007-11-13T08:23:00.000-08:00

Don't know if others spotted a small selection of entertaining literacy pics in the Guardian yesterday - online version of the article here. Sadly the online version lacks the photos but the original blog to which it refers, a collection of photographs of 'passive-aggressive notes', could provide inspiration for the next set of LRC postcards....

Karin

Matterealities part 2

2007-11-09T12:41:00.000-08:00

I went on a fieldtrip to the Infolab. I loved all the bits and bobs around.

Julia

Literacy bog

2007-11-07T10:43:00.000-08:00

You may not be able to read this, but it is headed 'Notice to builders'. Strange place to put it you might think ... This is from the LRC away day in Grizedale Forest where there were also many logs containing literacy .
Candice

Diary of Fabian's explorations of the world

2007-11-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

Friends keep on telling me that I ought to keep a diary of Fabian's explorations of the world. But I've decided to instead bore anybody who reads this blogs with some of the things he's up to these days. Of course, I'll only describe literacy-related developments. I said 'bore' because in a discussion with a group of undergraduate students yesterday, they showed very little enthusiasm for blogs. Not interesting, they said, and people can write anything they want on their blogs, so why shouldn't anybody get excited about this? Interesting comments, I thought. But not good for my seminar (the discussion was part of a seminar), because my question about blogs did not get much of a reaction. Making me, as always in these situations, feeling stupid. But back to Fabian! I've been trying since quite a while to get him interested in books. Usually, he likes them, but not for reading. For him they are for playing. He does, however, have a wonderful habit of copying me and Kay when we sit in the living room with him reading the Guardian. When he sees us, he picks up a book, opens it and holds it high, as if he was reading.

When I try to read a book with him, we always sit in the same corner of the room. This is also the corner I sit in when I read on my own, while he is playing. A few days ago, I sat in a different spot and I wasn't reading. Fabian picked upone of his picture books and he went over to the corner I usually sit in. He sat down on the pillows I normally use. I thought he would now start to 'read' his book. But instead he looked at me, held the book out towards me and invited me to come over and sit with him. Which I promptly did!

Uta

Matterealities part 1

2007-11-07T06:09:00.000-08:00

On Monday I went to Karen Barad's lecture at the matterealities conference. She discussed Niels Bohr's realisation in quantum physics that the behaviour of electrons depends upon the way they are measured. The very act of perception disrupts notions of cause and effect.

I need now to read Karen's book to understand why adding 'delayed cause' then completely disrupts linear notions of past present and future. Stingrays evidence this by altering their behaviour in anticipation of a message that has not yet been sent. (A promise to this blog: if no comment clarifies this I will come back to it when I've read the book.) Meanwhile, here's Brian Hackett's photo of a stingray from his fabulous underwater photography collection.

I find Karen Barad's philosophy a profound underpinning of ethnography, locating the global in the local and the local in the global. She argues that the very act of perception is profoundly ethical.

Julia

'Why don't you...?' Futurelab conference

2007-10-30T10:24:00.000-07:00

I'm enjoying this conference in London. So far the best bit has been Eric Rosenbaum's workshop on playful programming with Scratch which was video conferenced from an MIT lab. in Boston. It's a fantastic - well how it is described is crucial - that's why I hesitate. You could call it a simple programming language for children. Fine, it is indeed in some ways like Flash the animation programme. But it is very visual and I was very excited in that I thought it could be equally attractive to girls who have been using PAINT for example.

I agree with Mary we need pix - I would love to show you the fish swimming backwards and forwards - OK rather bumpily and it kept turning upside down! that I produced fairly quickly - with the programme. My excuse is I am still at the conference on a cyber cafe type machine so cannot download or upload my images. There would probably be a way round it if I were more resourceful! Take a look at the scratch website perhaps through following the link.

Julia

Learning to blog!

2007-10-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody

I realised I first need to learn the literacy practices of blogging. What for example is a 'dashboard'?

More importantly, what am I supposed to say? And how am I going to write? So, for a start, here is a little anecdote about changing technologies and changing literacy practices. I have just been part of an interview panel for the appointment of an audio and video loans assistant for our Department. Both candidates (MA students) had to respond to our questions, but also carry out a practical task. They were asked to play a cassette. Now, the first candidate, an obviously bright young guy from China, took a while to figure it out. After the interview I realised that the task had in fact been a bit unfair. Our equipment is pretty old-fashioned and I couldn't help thinking that he might never have used the kind of amplifier and tape recorder most of us (I suspect) still have in our living rooms! But he figured it out, so he might get the job!

I really enjoyed Mark's talk in the LRG today. I find it interesting that he has applied the idea of literacy as social practice to orthography.

Uta

First blog

2007-10-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone - taking a tentative first step.
I have a picture too - not sure where to put it...........
Mary