Demanding Creativity: A Production-Oriented Approach to Teaching the Comedia :: Essays Papers

Demanding Creativity A Production-Oriented Approach to Teaching the Comedia For a growing number of people in the twentieth nose candy joined States, the phrase xx-first century evokes the current prominence and future herald of information-age technology. The wonders of e-mail, Web browsing, and wired classrooms have descended upon all of us, and these developments have made relentless contributions to the way we think, organize our time, plan our activities, and interact with other people.1 With each loss year, more and more groups and individuals embrace computer technologymost notably, the networkfor personal and professional purposes, and teachers, scholars, schools, and institutes seem to be at the forefront of this movement. In general, this trend remains in an incipient stage, as the mystique of the Internet has not fully given way to the established use of it, and as fleshy socio-economic disparities within our society keep the promise and implementation of any comput er-based action at law out of the reach of some educators and many students.2 Even in the colleges, universities, and permit school districts where the technological revolution has been solidly institutionalized for teaching and question purposes, thither exist among todays studentsDon Tapscotts sack Generation or N-Gensignificant disparities in interest and familiarity with the medium that defines them.3 The twenty first century as a special moment in the history of the technologizing of society may indeed be overstated, but it is sealed that Internet technology exercises a direct influence on grant aspects of our society, and this phenomenon has affected and continues to affect the people and institutions of society that have remained at the margins of technologization.4 In particular, the process of creation and consumption of Internet technology in true circles of United States society has emerged from and reinforced an image culture established during this century by the mass popularity of blockbuster cinema and broadcast television.5 The predominantly opthalmic spirit of information, ideas, and epistemology of cinema and television has defined image culture in the United States, and image culture, in turn, has transformed and marginalized the primarily verbal nature of information, ideas, and epistemology of print culture. As image culture has established itself in our society, there has been no lack of cultural historians who have taken to print in order to lament the demise of print culture. Neil Postman argues in diverting Ourselves to Death that this centurys triumph of television over books has corrupted the quality of public discourse and thus has rendered education ineffectual.