Dr. Richard Miller: This is How We Dream Part 1 and 2

In the video, Dr. Miller starts off by saying he believes, " we are living in the moment of the greatest change in human communication in human history." He says we now have the capability to communicate instantly globally. Dr. Miller says now is the time to be engaged in work of literacy. When he began in the profession, he spent his time understanding writing as a solitary activity. He loved books and has always loved books since he was a child. He talks about some incremental changes we as a culture have gone through. One of the incremental changes is how we work with laptops and not pens, pencils, and paper. Our workplace is now at a desktop. We can research the riches of the world because it is stored on the web. We can do an entire project without having to step foot in a library. It is now possible to collaborate using networking technology, not compose with text but with film. We need to try and teach our students to produce multimedia not just listen and consume it.

He says as we work we find ourselves confronting a new kind of material. On the web the material changes right before our eyes, it is updated instantly, and it is aggregated. It shows visual representation and we can compose items using iTunes U. People seemed to be please, Dr. Miller says, by the success and liability of the academic lecture. He says there are people who understand that ideas do not belong to us individually but they belong to us as a culture. He says as educators we must be in the business of sharing ideas freely.We can not just look at the material and use it, we can actually go behind it and see how it was put together. We can distribute information globally and freely.

Dr.Miller says he sees a time where students will not compose material using Word Processors, but with the kind of digital composing material that him and his colleague are learning how to use themselves. He commends Jonathan Harris' material in the video. He commends it because it's fascinating attempt to try and use the web to present the affect of the globe.

As an upcoming teacher, I believe that I am working at being able to write with multimedia, but that I am not all the way there. But I believe that with practice, hard work, and actually putting the time into it my students as well as myself will be able to use it. If you would like to listen to these videos go to Dr.Richard Miller's Videos