From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies

Sometimes Baron seems to shrug at technology and suggest that it's hard to imagine new technologies as fundamentally changing the shape or nature of writing. Do you agree that this seems to be one of his messages? If so, why do you agree with it?

After reading “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies” by Dennis Baron, I partially agree with you when you say that he “seems to shrug at technology and suggest that it's hard to imagine new technologies as fundamentally changing the shape or nature of writing.”  I do agree that he suggests that it’s hard for him to imagine new technologies that will arise.  However, I don’t think that he suggests that these new technologies won’t fundamentally change the shape or nature of writing.  In fact I think he suggests that changes in technology will absolutely change writing.  Baron says that writing on paper is a technology and then the computer came along and word processing fundamentally changed the way we write.  I don’t see him arguing that new technologies will not fundamentally change the way we write.  I just think he seems to suggest that he doesn’t want to waste his time imagining which technologies being researched will eventually be made public and change the way we view communication.  Although he does seem to suggest this kind of when he gave the example that Samuel Morse the creator of the telegraph didn’t see the use in Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone or how it would shape the way we communicate.  So, maybe I do agree with both of these points.