Hello to everyone,
This is a brief introduction since I've not been courteous in greeting
you thus far.
I am once again, impressed by the knowledge of a listserv members, and
so need to say upfront that I am not an academic & probably cannot share
the same range of informational opinion as many of you here. My writing
background is with trade magazines. Also human interest, short features,
indepth journalism, when allowed the time by an editor, and
self-publishing for a brief 13 months. About two years ago, I found
poetry and have been reading and writing it since. Mostly reading it
lately. Since my background is journalism, I am still involved in
writing a few articles freelance. I'm in the process of preparing myself
for a certificate as an "online professor" with the objective of
teaching a course of poetry to noncredit students. So you can see where
I am on the spectrum of things.
My take on the internet: Last weekend, I took part in a workshop held by
the Florida literacy coalition and facilitated by a local college
professor (Catherine Rifkin), who's working on her PhD dissertation on
"Digital Intelligence." The workshop dealt with the 1980s theory of
multiple intelligence (MI) as put forward by Howard Gardner. Originally
known as the "seven intelligences," I'm guessing that those of you who
are in the teaching mode are familiar with this whole concept, which is
correlated with areas of the brain and their functions. There are now
ten intelligences - not all of them are accepted - with Naturalist,
Spiritual/Existential and Digital increasing the original count by
three. This is the first I've heard of the theory and it's exciting to me.
My thought is that Digital Intelligence is a valid one, and that some
folks are drawn to the internet precisely because their brains are smart
in this way. Ansorbing and integrating information via the workings of
the computer are easy for them. They have a high DI. I'd think they also
have a high Spatial and Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligences as well. The
interesting thing is that Interpersonal intelligence is not required.
That makes me wonder about internet communities, such as this listserv -
perhaps these serve to provide a ground for people with a markedly high
digital/interpersonal intelligences.
But what about Musical intelligence, which is associated in the MI
literature with the cadences of poetry and the rhythm of vocals &
instruments? This was all but absent from the internet until someone
invented devices for listening online.
The more I think about it, the more the internet appears as the mother
of all teaching forums.
Yes, this is pretty simplistic but I like to rinse things down to their
simplest form for starters. I'd love to hear comments.
Ann White
--
It is our duty to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
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The Red Hibiscus http://theredhibiscus.blogspirit.com/
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