Reviews
Really depressing. :(
The Touch Press edition of T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is a hybrid between a digital edition and an iPad application marketed as an “enhanced e-book”. The content has extremely high quality audio and video that was created for the purpose of this edition. Unlike most e-books however, one is unable to highlight or annotate the poem, which is one of the digital affordances of e-books on other platforms that enhance the sharing and social interaction aspects of digital media (Edwards, 2013; Leu et al., 2011). Although the multi-media aspects of the product allow one to dip in and dip out of a number of modalities, including video, audio, text and image the main thing lacking was some kind of guidance as to where to start. After reading a bit of the text, listening to audio and watching a few videos, the lack of an overview of the author and the poem and how it could be placed in historical and sociological context became obvious. In terms of curricula and program purposes, it is important to realize the different learning and reading styles of students. These could be convergent or divergent – starting from detail and creating a schema or starting with a schema and then exploring the detail. This product only allowed for the latter. In addition, some readers are linear in their approach – starting at the beginning and working their way through, whereas others are non-linear, entering and exiting at various points in an apparently random fashion (Parrott, 2011; Skains, 2010). Once again there doesn’t appear to be any path, implicit or explicit in the design of the product. In their aim to “explain, help and make difficult things accessible to the reader” the use of notes parallel to the text, the product has succeeded (Volan cited in Dredge, 2011). These are apparently also the most popular aspect. The revelation of the extensive editing process through images is a good example of implicit teaching of the importance of editing and reworking of text. However, as mentioned earlier, the static nature of an iPad app, limits the social media iterations including feedback (except for online reviews on iTunes), adaptability, archiving or sharing of personal annotations. As has been pointed out, inclusion of the possibility for an airplay tool would have been a useful digital enhancement, allowing the video or audio to be played over a TV or sound system (Richmond, 2011), something particularly useful in a classroom, although the digital rights management (DRM) of this are not clear. The product has justifiably had many favourable reviews concerning the design and presentation, (Dredge, 2011; Miller, 2011; Richmond, 2011; Sadokierski, 2013a). The sober simplicity is in keeping with the tone of the poem. It is interesting that other products of Touch Press, such as “The Elements”, include separate add on products, such as additional video and flashcards. It would be interesting to see if add-ons such as classroom notes, teachers notes etc. would be made available at a later stage. References: Dredge, S. (2011, August 8). The Waste Land iPad app earns back its costs in six weeks on the App Store [Web log post]. Retrieved August 27, 2014, from http://www.theguardian.com/technology... Edwards, J. T. (2013). Reading Beyond the Borders: Observations on Digital eBook Readers and Adolescent Reading Practices. In J. Whittingham, S. Huffman, W. Rickman, & C. Wiedmaier (Eds.), Technological Tools for the Literacy Classroom: (pp. 135–158). IGI Global. Retrieved from http://services.igi-global.com/resolv... Leu, D. J., McVerry, J. G., O’Byrne, W. I., Kiili, C., Zawilinski, L., Everett-Cacopardo, H., … Forzani, E. (2011). The new literacies of online reading comprehension: Expanding the literacy and learning curriculum. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(1), 5–14. doi:10.1598/JAAL.55.1.1 Miller, L. (2011, June 15). “The Waste Land”: T.S. Eliot takes the app store [Review]. Retrieved August 27, 2014, from http://www.salon.com/2011/06/15/the_w... Parrott, K. (2011, July 18). 5 Questions to Ask When Evaluating Apps and Ebooks [Web log post]. Retrieved August 31, 2014, from http://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2011/07/... Richmond, S. (2011, June 15). The Waste Land iPad app review [Review]. Retrieved August 27, 2014, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology... Sadokierski, Z. (2013, November 5). Master craftsman: how TS Eliot led the way in the digital publishing revolution [Web Log post]. Retrieved August 27, 2014, from http://theconversation.com/master-cra... Skains, R. L. (2010). The Shifting Author--Reader Dynamic: Online Novel Communities as a Bridge from Print to Digital Literature. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 16(1), 95–111. doi:10.1177/1354856509347713
Maybe this is a masterwork, but I blue-screened through the whole thing. The funny thing is, John Donne makes more sense, and he wrote three hundred years prior. Maybe I just don't have an eye for poetry!
When many people think of Eliot, they expect to read something like this: "Polyphiloprogenitive The sapient sutlers of the Lord Drift across the window-panes. In the beginning was the Word. In the beginning was the Word. Superfetation of τò eν, And at the mensual turn of time Produced enervate Origen." We're all cringing, I know. but he also wrote gems like this: "The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways. Six o’clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days. And now a gusty shower wraps The grimy scraps Of withered leaves about your feet And newspapers from vacant lots; The showers beat On broken blinds and chimney-pots, And at the corner of the street A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps. And then the lighting of the lamps." The more I read Eliot, the more moving I find his imagery, even when I don't understand it. But I think being moved is a kind of understanding. "These fragments I have shored against my ruins". The understanding most of us can have of Eliot is a fractured at best; but the poetry is potent nonetheless. My favorites of this selection: Portrait of a Lady, Preludes I, The Hippopotamus, and The Wasteland III: The Fire Sermon.
