For this assignment, I read the article “Technology tools for visual thinking: What does the research tell us?” by Catherine McLoughlin and Krzysztof Krakowski of The University of New England. I am not sure if this came out of a journal or if it was presented at a conference. I looked it up online and tried to find information about it on the University of New England’s website, but I didn’t find anything. I am not sure when the article was written either. When I initially set out to complete this project, I think that I may have begun with the wrong mindset. I read the article with the hopes of understanding it before I began to write my critique. After reading the article for the first time and becoming extremely frustrated, I put it down to work on something else in hopes of coming back to it with a clear head and ready to understand everything that the authors were trying to say. I read through it again hoping to find parts that I found to be enlightening or profound. Then I thought that perhaps I was incorrect in looking for what I liked and I began looking for what I didn’t like or agree with. Eventually I began reading it with the notion that this was not about what I liked or did not like. It was about reading the article critically and then responding to it. I think that I may be a bit dense, because that was really the point all along. Sometimes I simply have to figure things out on my own. I wish that I could say that no matter which angle that I approached this assignment from that I was able to understand the article. I found it difficult to get through some of the language that the authors used and follow their train of thought. The flow of information that they presented made me feel at times as if the train was jumping tracks. The grammar left much to be desired as well.
I think that the title and the abstract fail to make the authors’ message clear. The abstract only mentions technology in the last sentence. Upon finding the title in a Google search, a student may think that they hit the jackpot if he or she was trying to write a paper about technology and visual literacy. That student would probably be disappointed once they read or rather attempted to read the article. The information about technological tools is meager compared the time the authors spend defining visual thinking, visual literacy, and the differences between visual and verbal thinking. When the article did mention the research on technology it felt a bit biased toward Apple Computers. I happen to be a huge fan of Apples but other representations would have been nice. For example, the conclusion fails to bring closure to the article and instead becomes a plug for Apple’s Quick Time. The conclusion also introduces the topic of VR technology. This should have happened long before the conclusion. In addition to the introduction of a new subject, the definition that was provided for VR technology was vague at best.
As I read through the article, it struck me as odd that the grammar just did not look appropriate coming from individuals who worked at the university level. I make mistakes all the time when typing and I have trouble proofreading my own work, however, I expect a published article to have few or no errors in grammar. I did not mark the first error that I saw because I thought it was either my imagination or that I was somehow ignorant of the way that someone who is smarter than me may compose text. As I read further, I found what I think may be more example of misprints or typos. Part of a sentence on page five states, “They has to substitute…” The word “They” is a plural pronoun and needs a plural verb. Maybe there is a special way of writing that I am unfamiliar with, but I think I may be correct about this. I was hesitant to bring this up because I am by no means an expert in grammar and if it were not for spell check, I would be hopelessly lost. I found at least four or five more errors as I read. On page eight, it says, “students used language a means of articulating and expanding their understandings of how to investigate octagon loops.” I think that it should say that, “they used language as a means of articulating their understandings” (McLoughlin and Krakowski). I could be wrong. Is there some special technical way of writing in academics that I’m not familiar with? Other errors were found on pages five, eight, and nine.
Another problem that I had was that the research mentioned on page six was from a school in Western Australia. I would have been more interested in reading about the findings from schools in this country. Again there was what seemed like a plug for Macs.
I don’t feel that this is the best example of my ability to analyze and critique information because I simply had such a terrible time following the information in the article. Despite the fact that I read the article multiple times this week, I don’t feel that I could have derived a deeper understanding of the content. This has been one of the most challenging assignments that I have completed thus far, however; it did remind that I have a lot more to learn. The prospect of that is exciting to me.
Reference
McLoughlin, C. and Krakowski K., Technological tools for visual thinking: What does the research tell us?
This is what I did for my Zoho Writer. It was very simple and easy to use.
No comments:
Post a Comment