n the mid 1960s, Marshall McLuhan explained that conventional literacy caused us to trade an ear for an eye, and in so doing, trade the social context of the oral tradition for the private point of view of reading and writing. To him, television was the first step in our "retribalization," providing a common social experience that could serve as the basis for dialogue in the global village.2
However, television told someone
else's story, not ours. It was not until Web 2.0 that we had the tools to come full circle and produce and consume social narrative in equal measure. Much of the emerging nature of literacy is a result of inexpensive, widely available, flexible Web 2.0 tools that enable anyone, regardless of technical skill, to play some part in reinventing literacy.
David L. Brooks on 21 Sep 09The Benefits of Comic Life in Education Making comics is fun for everyone, and Comic Life makes it easy. Teachers and students will find Comic Life a very useful software tool, and now it's available for both Mac and Windows platforms. Technology not only changes how we write, but it also changes what writing is. Education will need to re-evaluate which writing skills teachers should pass to their students. Digital graphic writing is one genre students need to be fluent. Comic Life is the "word processor" of Digital graphic writing. Easy to Learn Students and teachers need only a short time to learn the basics of Comic Life. It's easy to add images from Digital cameras, computer web-cameras, clip art from CD's and the web, stills from QuickTime movies, scanned photos and drawings -- just about any on-screen image can be used in Comic Life. Adding captions and word balloons is as easy as drag and drop.
