Final Blog post

Folk learning is a type of knowledge taught through other people, to which collaboration and communication are essential principles. Although some people think that folk knowledge is in a separate category from oral, written, and print knowledge, folk learning is at the base of all types of knowledge because it can be incorporated into all forms.

Final: So long, Farewell

Knowledge institutions build upon each other. Each plays a different role in molding the human experience. You need them all to gain the ultimate human experience. Yet despite the necessity of every type of knowledge institution, the tradition with the most powerful effect on human emotion is oral knowledge.

Final: Essay Based on the Salon

Printed knowledge has been very important in history in relation to religion. The Reformation is a great example of how printed knowledge impacted many people. This being true, I argue that oral and written knowledge has had a bigger impact than that of printed words.  Oral knowledge has a power over people when delivered right. A Great speaker can move many people to action. Written knowledge solidifies what oral knowledge can’t. An idea can be preserved through writing.

Final Exam Post: All I've learned

Looking back at history we clearly see and trace how different formats for the transfer of knowledge, folk, oral, written, and printed, have each contributed to the basis of knowledge available to many today. Despite all of the knowledge that has reached the modern world, many other pieces of knowledge did not make it due to censorship in each time and unique to each medium used to preserve knowledge. Whether on purpose or not each form of knowledge has inherent cracks that can allow even the most valued knowledge to slip through, our problem is to find them and stop them before we lose more. 

Notes for the Final: Maddie

FOLK KNOWLEDGE:

Through my self-directed learning I seemed to focus on cultural folk knowledge, as opposed to things you would learn at home. I discovered that traditions are a huge part or folk knowledge.

What I learned from other’s blog posts was that not all folk knowledge is something that you would necessarily guess. Through Emily’s post on manners, we can start to see that not all knowledge is though a “learning institution” or part of the category of “classical learning” (literature, arithmetic, etc.)

During the project where we had to teach another person something that we know and when they taught us something, I taught a friend to play the harp and a friend taught me to do a French manicure at home. I learned that we don’t realize many of the things we have to teach others. It doesn’t seem like a skill to us.

These projects taught me to collaborate, which was an essential principal to learning folk knowledge.

Final Notes: Kimberly

Here are some of my ideas for the final. I am curious to see the themes that everyone else found!

Notes for Final: Erin

These are my notes for the final event/exam we are having tomorrow. I'm not sure if they are supposed to be in a table format like Emily's, but I just can't think that way. For these notes I first went through all of my posts, and tried to categorize them by focus area and then unit. My main focus for this class was to try and bring some relevance through self directed learning, so that's where most of my posts went. I then took a larger look at our blog in general. Here they are!

Notes for the Final: Emily

	Unit 1: Folk Knowledge	Unit 2: Oral Knowledge	Unit 3: Written Knowledge	Unit 4: Printed Knowledge
Self- Directed Learning	~  Taught/learned a skill ~  Research types of folk knowledge (singing, cooking, medicine, beauty) ~  Etiquette	~ Akkadia: ~ Hymns/songs ~ Myths (water theme, flood and Moses stories) ~ Origins ~ Songs brought together conquered countries by combining deity	~  Akkadian Cuneiform ~  Propaganda (cylinders) ~  Mainly religious and business ~  Adopted and modified Sumerian writing. Sumerian writing and language became obsolete ~  Sufism	~  How printed knowledge affected the Reformation ~  Propaganda ~  Books and witch burning ~  Annotated Bibliography ~  Using the library system ~  Woodcuts
Other’s Blogging	~  Braiding ~  Learning to drive stick (Erin) ~  School ground knowledge (Kim) ~  Harp ~  Manicures, beauty (Madi)	~  Myths ~  Origin stories ~  Songs ~  How languages died out (Kim) ~  Kim: Samaria ~  Erin: Navajo ~  Madi: Rome	~  Cartography ~  Codex ~  Egyptian hieroglyphics ~  Paper making	~  Typography ~  Censorship ~  Print and Religion ~  Book Binding ~  Standardization
Collaborative Learning	~  Class discussion Bryn Mawr commencement address ~  Oral group test	~  Group video ~  King Benjamin Speech	~  Group projects about writing and translating ~  I learned that if a language didn’t have a written language, it soon died out	~  Group editing of papers ~  Class discussion: Walter Ong
Projects/ Activities	Teaching/ learning a “folk” skill	~  King Benjamin Speech, group practice of speech and performance	~  Rosetta stone Project ~  Library Speaker about writings in books/ scrolls/ on papyrus	~  Written paper ~  Library Speaker about codex’s

King James Exhibit

Visiting the "Life and Legacy of the King James Bible" exhibit at the Harold B. Lee Library was an interesting experience for me. Like Erin, I did not particularly enjoy the exhibit. I visited awhile ago, and all I really got out of the experience was a slightly increased appreciation for the history and evolution of the Bible. However, to me, a book is only as important as the knowledge inside it. If you're not going to actually read and handle a book, it is worthless. Books in glass cases are therefore worth only as much as what's on the open page: just a small coin compared to the wealth of knowledge potentially contained in the pages.

The Essay

During this past week, we were given an assignment that required us to write a paper on whatever topic we chose for the annotated bibliography. The topic that I had chosen was religion and print in Germany. Luckily, I had found many books to go with my topic and I found it really interesting!

A Paper on Censorship (part 3)

This is it! The final draft of my little paper on censorship! Thanks for all of your help and hindrance along the way! As the semester draws to a close most of the authors will begin fading out of writing as our self-directed learning shifts in different directions. Hopefully we'll all help you to continue to follow us on our adventures on the web.

Visiting King James

Found here. 

The other day I too visited the exhibit on the King James Bible in the Harold B. Lee Library on the beautiful campus of Brigham Young University. But rather that post solely my impressions of the exhibit, I want to share what my classmates have said. Below the break is a list of the classmate's name and a couple of words about what they said. For the picture at right I took the phrases my classmates used and put them in a Wordle. (I would take 2 min and explore wordles, they are the word pictures you never knew you needed for your next blog post.)

Learning Outcome + Thesis

So I think for my paper, I'm going to look at whether the Reformation was spread by preaching or printing. This ties to learning outcome three:

COMMUNICATING KNOWLEDGE
Students recognize differences in the forms through which knowledge is preserved, communicated, and experienced and can interpret the consequences of these differences historically and personally.

My paper will explore (hopefully) the consequences of the printing press, and how it communicated the Reformation more quickly and effectively than just preaching alone. What do you guys think?

A Paper on Censorship (part 2)

As the due date looms nearer I have posted my very first rough draft of my paper on a Google doc here. I have also ventured to post some of my notes from the reading/research I have done with this paper here.

How to Help:

1. Look for errors! (I am not the worlds best speller!)
2. Find ways to expand/clarify my arguments.
3. Find ways to expand/clarify the opposition.
4. Think of how I can include a learning outcome.
5. Add general comments either here or on the docs on how I can improve.

Thanks People of the Internet!

Clarification

Hey guys, can we work on not giving all of our posts the exact same title? Maybe thesis: *insert your topic here*? Thanks!

Thesis: Print and Reform Movements

As you know, our class was assigned a paper for the unit capstone project. I am trying to come up with a thesis and was wondering what you guys think about this, or if you have any other ideas. My bibliography can be found here.

Posiible thesis: Though the Catholic Church had powerful leverage, the printing press limited the influence and allowed the spread of many reform movements.

Thesis

Hey guys! Think I could get some feedback on my thesis for the paper? And just for reference, my bibliography can be found here and was on the art of book binding..

Thesis: "Although many people think that binding books only had an effect on the general cost and long term preservations of books, few know that the strengthening of the Bible and church was aided by book binding since Bibles were more portable and light weight, could be searched through more effectively, and were more economical."

A Paper on Censorship (part 1)

Yesterday our instructors announced a paper as our final unit project for this unit.  Madison did a good job of capturing nearly everyone's reactions in the beginning of her post yesterday. So now that it has settled in that I am actually going to be writing a formal paper for this class, I asked myself, "Self what are you going to write about in this paper?". Myself then answered, "Something about censorship". And that's about as far as I've gotten. Now I need your help!


People of the internet I am asking for ideas/sides to argue in a paper themed on censorship. There is the obvious how much should we allow censorship/freedom of speech topic, but I am looking for something that has more to do with what I've already researched. (The books I've read in research can be found in my bibliography.) Probably it will focus more on how effective censorship was in the early days of printing, focused  in England. Look for updates and send thoughts my way!


Thanks!
Erin


P.S. This paper is also supposed to address one of the learning outcomes for this course.  And I'm thinking it will be number 3: COMMUNICATING KNOWLEDGE
Students recognize differences in the forms through which knowledge is preserved, communicated, and experienced and can interpret the consequences of these differences historically and personally.

(updated 2/12/11 11:30am with learning outcome)

Book binding paper

Well, that was unexpected! This morning in our Civilizations class at BYU we were assigned a paper for our final! (A more detailed description of the assignment can be found here.) How unconventional of Zina Peterson and Gideon Burton to do something as conventional as a paper. It's so filled with irony.

Alright, so it won't be so bad, but what

do I argue?? The paper is supposed to be about the recent bibliography assignment where we had to find 5-10 books about a certain topic revolving around printed books. I picked the "art" of book binding because I'd never thought of book binding in this way, and it interested me. I'd never really considered it an "art", let alone given much thought to the binding process at all.




So near the end of class I decided to have a little talk with Dr. Peterson, and see if she had any ideas on the pretty straight forward topic. She reminded me to search the Harold B. Lee Library website for sources, and told me that, although it doesn't seem so, there are many people who feel strongly about what book binding has brought about. Bound books were more durable and cost efficient, but more specifically, they could be used to do such things as missionary work abroad since they were more cost efficient, durable, and compact. This is what I plan to do my paper on. I'd love hear suggestions, and if anyone has any ideas on what I should write about or what they might like to know more about concerning book binding, please, do tell. I'd also love to hear what you guys are planning for your papers.

More on Censorship

After posting my annotated bibliography on my initial research into censorship I kept thinking about part of the story I didn't share. So in a spare moment today I looked further into the idea and this is what I found. (yes these are all online resources, but that's what you get for asking a child of the digital age!)

The Story (Part 2):

So as I was researching and flipping through books about censorship I kept thinking about a book that I had read in the 9th grade, which I was told had a central theme of censorship, Fahrenheit 451. To be sure I had the right book I checked in out on Wikipedia, where I found this: