What should be taught about the
use of ODFs?
Is there something distinct about ODFs that endow them with different
functions than those of the book, the letter, the newspaper? Cole and Engestrom
quote Munsterberg:
A letter, a newspaper, a book, exists outside of the
individuals themselves, and yet it intermediates between two or between
millions of persons in the social group…. The book remembers for the social
group, and the experiences of the group, objectively recorded in it, shape
the social action and the social thought. The letter can connect any distant
social neurons; the paper may distribute the excitement from one point
of a social group to millions of others. Every objectified expression becomes
a social short cut.
If this is the case, ODFs seem little different than other print technologies,
and there is seemingly little need to teach their use, assuming that the
use of letters, newspapers and books is taught.
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