From Pencils to Pixels

.  I found myself struggling with being able to follow and understand Dennis Baron’s article,” From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies”, more than others we have read.  From what I did understand, I would say that I am mostly indifferent about his arguments.  I think that throughout the piece Baron definitely “shrugs” at technology but at the same time talks fondly of it.  In the beginning he mentions how technology has come to influence his literacy knowledge, but then there are also parts where he emphasizes the flaws of technology.  One thing that I noticed in particular, which has me leaning more towards disagreeing with the prompt, is that I often notice Baron mocking, by using humor, the traditional methods of writing.  When speaking of early writers, Baron jokes by saying, “Surely the walked around all day with a bunch of sharp styluses sticking out of their pocket protectors, and talked of nothing but new ways of making marks on stones” (WAW 427).  This leads to me to believe that Baron is not someone who thinks that only the traditional methods are the best.  In fact, I think that he just might believe that new technologies are fundamentally changing the shape and nature of writing all the time.  He spends a lot of time in his article talking about the way new technology is always influencing literacy and I would say that he almost speaks well of it just as often as he shrugs at it.