A Question

Prior to 1988 the most significant technological breakthroughs were half a century in the past. Before the last decade of the 20th century it was reasonable to assume that as an editor you would work with the same technology for your whole career. Then, that Spring the art and craft of film editing was subjected to the most dramatic change in half a century: the introduction of computers in the form of an Apple Macintosh with Avid Media Composer software. Suddenly one had to learn anew and think anew.
The introduction of computers changed the social aspect of the editing room Editing was a team effort. The lead editor worked with a team of assistants and apprentices. The editor worked away on cuts; assistants logged clips, rewound film and searched for missing frames. Apprentices ran errands to the lab and carried film back and forth to the vaults. As Rosenblum noted, this was how one learned to be an editor (Rosenblum and Karen 1980). The process of learning was what could be called legitimate peripheral participation(Lave and Wenger 1991). With the splendid isolation of the computer only one person could work at a time. Assistants shifted to independent night work to load the materials in the computer. Apprentices were left to get coffee. The editing room became a solitary place. The informal educational process was greatly curtailed if not eliminated.
My question is quite simple. What was the impact of the introduction of computers to the task of learning how to be an editor? How does it happen without the traditional social setting of the editing room?


Lave, J. and E. Wenger (1991). Situated learning: Legitmate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.
Rosenblum, R. and R. Karen (1980). When the shooting stops.the cutting begins. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK, Penguin Books.

A Good Class

For the most part I've been frustrated with graduate school for the past few years. The first M.A. was inspiring, the second Ed.M. tiring and the final push to the Ed.D. just a bit to disconnected from actual practice for my taste. There are exceptions of course, but for the most part I've been accumulating very good grades and a ton of debt without really being passionately inspired or feeling like a part of a community. It's been like dating was in the late 70's. Heat, friction and absolutely no sense of commitment, and by that I include the faculty and my classmates too. The classes in the field of technology have been the worst. Sitting in the back of a room while professors talk about how important computers are while students play Tetris on their laptop or check out the web on the wireless network just seems like, well, a betrayal of sorts. And many of them seem to have no respect or love of school, not to mention teachers. They want to revolutionize education; they want to "improve" education; they want to be the hero who saves the day. What they don't want to do is understand it or respect it. (Of course that isn't true of HB. He is a real hero and he respects teachers.)

Any Vygotsky or Bruner I read on my own, unassigned. With one class the book was right out of the business section of an airport bookstore. Absolute nonsense. It's been a tough run. I've been frustrated. One of the true belivers told me if I feel this way why don't I just drop out. Needless to say, I will not.

But I finally have a good class. Maybe even a great class. It is on research methods in the Organization and Leadership program. I'm very happy and I think my passion might be coming back...

A New Semester

A new semester is starting at my graduate school of education and for a change I'm coming in with a sense of optimism. I am down to my last six credits, which might be a part of that, but I also have a real good feeling about the instructor. She seems to be really on the ball.

The course is a research methods course that is designed for school leaders and administrators more than it is for researchers. Being an administrator I think this is going to be quite helpful. I think it is a course for practicioners who want to both produce and make use of research in an effective manner. So far, so good.

We've been asked to identify three books or articles that have influenced us. Mine are:

Orality and Literacy by Walter Ong
Legitimate Peripheral Participation by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger
Culture and Inference: A Trobriand Case Study by Edwin Hutchins

I'll have to expand on why these books are important to me when I have more time, but basically they all have in common some concerns I have with technology. Ong is something of a determinist who holds that technologies have a decisive impact on us, including our very psychology. I don't quite agree, but the scope and scale of the argument is breathtaking, and as a technologist it is something like a call to arms. Lave and Wenger with their idea of communities of practice and Hutchins with his refreshing immersion in Trobriand culture are a bracing blast of cold water to this perspective. They place technology and related issues of use within culture and community. It is about mutation and evolution of communities, not about destiny and design. Hutchins knows that just as Trobrianders might look stupid to us with our iPods and logical assumptions we ourselves probably wouldn't last more than a few days in Papua New Guinea. Or maybe not a few hours...

More later.