Literary Education and Digital Learning: Methods and Technologies for Humanities Studies

Citation

Fourie, I. (2011), "Literary Education and Digital Learning: Methods and Technologies for Humanities Studies", Online Information Review, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 165-166. https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521111113678

Willie van Peer, Sonia Zyngier and Vander Viana can be congratulated in putting together Literary Education and Digital Learning. It is a useful addition to the subject literature, bringing together many ideas for discussion and even argumentation (e.g. the suggestion to bring more mathematics into the humanities curriculum and the variety of methods and technology suggested for studies in the humanities).

The collection consists of 7 chapters, a forward, preface, compilation of references, brief information about the authors and a very basic index. The chapters are divided into two parts: Research, and Education. The four chapters under Research cover, respectively, authorship attribution and the digital humanities curriculum, a case study of multivariate analysis of stance in fiction (specifically the prose of Samuel Beckett), and a chapter on literary onomastics bringing in the use of new tools for the analysis and intelligent access to the digitised cultural heritage collection in the form of Swedish classical works. The fourth chapter in this part concerns language technology and collocation as instrumentation for meaning. Here the author reinforces the claim for collocation as a science by addressing a number of new discoveries.

The part on Education includes a chapter on tEXtMACHINA and how to account for the methodological particularities of the humanities in the e‐learning field. The focus is on a set of techniques to allow for the collaborative, discursive and analytical interpretation of texts, which may enable students to acquire the practical and theoretical scientific competencies of their field. Another chapter deals with the value of developing multiplayer digital game spaces for literary education and the necessity to “play well with others” in interactive video games at university level. The last chapter in this part concerns a case study on the teaching of Shakespeare in elementary school through dramatic activity, play production and technology. It demonstrates how Vygotsky's zone of proximal development exposes the limitations of measuring only what students can demonstrate under testing conditions, and how Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences offer a variety of options for learning intelligently.

In an afterword, reading through the machine (still to be developed) is addressed. This is in addition to the foreword titled “Lost and found in the reading machine”. Both the foreword and afterword (of which the essence cannot be captured here) offer the reader considerable food for thought and succeed in contextualizing the seven chapters.

As a whole, Literary Education and Digital Learning; Methods and Technologies for Human Studies offers the serious humanities scholar and educator much to reflect on, and ideas for enhancing classroom practices through technology. It is not presented as easy reading, but certainly justifies the time spent on pondering the wealth of innovative arguments and practices suggested. In the preface the authors captures well what the volume may achieve:

All in all, the volume offers a survey of the potentials of inviting technological innovation to the realm of literary research/education. This survey is still inherently brief, as the area still lacks more solid production into the confluence of technology and literature. Ultimately, we hope the present book contributes to a change of attitude and a new way of using technology in education.