Computer Teacher Candidates' Metaphors about the Internet.
2010; Project Innovation Austin; Volume: 131; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0013-1172
Autores Tópico(s)Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods
ResumoIntroduction The internet has been around for about three decades now. Its reasonable starting date is 1982, when the current internet protocols were formally introduced (Thomas & Wyatt, 1999). Currently, a growing number of people from a variety of fields like education, entertainment or business are coming into contact with the internet. As far as its functions are concerned, the internet is changing the way people relate to one as well as the ways they communicate, live, work, do business, or entertain themselves. Through the for example, people from all over the world can talk and exchange ideas with one and even build close relationships without physically meeting each other. Hence, faced with this not-very-familiar phenomenon of internet, many people try to make it familiar by means of As Butler (1998, p. 617) explained: Systems (such as the Internet) must be able to generate descriptions (or images) of concepts defined in their domain. The use of carefully selected dynamic images--metaphors-may be a key to the explanation, retention and application of the insights and skills inherent in the system being described. The nature of Metaphor describes one thing by another. refers to comparing two unrelated phenomena and, by doing so, it creates of the phenomenon that is unfamiliar to us by linking it to the phenomenon with which we are familiar. In this regard, employs a cross-domain mapping in the conceptual system. To put it in Quale's (2002, p. 447) words: It is a descriptive analogy; serving to illuminate whatever phenomenon A is being considered, by drawing 'lines of association' to some other phenomenon B that we feel we already understand. The qualification 'already understand' is essential here: the is asymmetric, in the sense that in the context of explaining A, the referent phenomenon B is assumed to be understood! Thus, some (not all) characteristics of B are used to explain some corresponding characteristics of A. According to Wyatt (2004), metaphors can assist us to think about new phenomena and hence alter our understanding of the world and reality. Lakoff and Johnson (1980), the two pioneers in studying from the cognitive science perspective, state that our conceptual system is fundamentally metaphoric in nature. In their seminal book of We Live By published in 1980, Lakoff and Johnson (1980, p. 3) maintain that most of what we think, experience and do is very much a matter of metaphor. Hence, metaphor is not particularly about language at all, but rather about thought in the way that we understand one conceptual domain in terms of another (Isomursu, Hinman, Isomursu, & Spasojevic, 2007, p. 260). Yet, metaphors are not only descriptive; once expressed, they also project a form of argument or a genuine preference for something over (Saban, 2010). For example, different people and organizations use different internet-metaphors to promote their own interests and desires for the future. As Thomas and Wyatt (1999, p. 695) exemplify: Retailers promote the shopping mall in the interest of extending their markets, for which they need to be able to provide secure and reliable methods for funds transfer. Librarians and other information providers rely on the images of libraries with which they are familiar. The Internet as library would place greater demands on the processing speed and storage capacities of hosts and servers ... [T]raditional media providers deploy broadcasting metaphors to support their commitment to one-way communication and push technologies rather than using the notion of webs of interactivity. Metaphors about the internet In recent years, studies of in both national and international literature have increased considerably. For example: for the metaphors related to the concept of teacher see Guerrero and Villamil (2002), Saban, Kocbeker and Saban (2007); for the metaphors related to the concept of school see Cerit (2006), Saban (2008a); for the metaphors related to the concept of knowledge see Saban (2008b); for the metaphors related to the concept of student see Bozlk (2002), Saban (2010), for the metaphors related to the concept of inspector see Toremen and Dos (2009). …
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