“PowerPoint Assignment”
Multimedia Applied to the ELT Lecturer: Susana Trabaldo Students: Andrea Verónica
Cabrera María Soledad CajigalCamila Guadalupe Cortea
Deadline: June 19th
Aporia
A crisis of choice, action, identity and belief
Lacking a path and not knowing how to go on
Feeling lost It affects us on many levels at once:
we doubt ourselves
Link
A transition, a bridge, a means of connection
An association of elements, also in our minds
Implies a semiological transformation: the elements are joined and also changed in the process
It leads us to an unfamiliar location, to the unknown
Rule
Indicates a direction to follow
It is ambiguous and clear: it requires us to make a guess
Implies obligatoriness, judgement and choice
We must follow it blindly By understanding a rule
we know how to go on
Methods for organizing information
Hierarchical Rhizomatic
It spreads in all directions, without centre nor hierarchies, organizing information laterally. It is like a labyrinth of criss-crossed pathways.
It is centrally organized, and like a root system its branches are displayed in a lineal pattern. It has a beginning and end.
Recognition
Think again, in a different way According to Plato, this is the
anamnesis, the recolection of what is latent within us.
Something clicks in our minds We feel right, we experience the ‘joy
of recognition’
Real questions
Puzzle, confuse and interest Lead to different kinds of aporias We have to see the real question
within the doubt to make a new understanding possible
Learning how to ask a good question is the central educational task
Matrix
Questions drive Neo into the Matrix Neo faces a crisis of choice: Shall he
follow an ‘odos passage’ (towards the known) or a ‘poros passage’ (towards the unknown)?
He opens his eyes to see the truth
Allegory of the Cave
What we know as life is only a reflection, a mere shadow of the truth: We are prisoners of that reality
We only see ‘shadows’ on the wall, whereas the truth is the light outside the cave
It is difficult to go out of the cave, and when we do it, the light blinds us
Life is a dreamLa vida es sueño
Segismundo, the protagonist, lacks a free will. Therefore, he cannot take wise and right decisions
He suffers a transformation: not only a moral awakening, also a realization of his social role
The conception of life as a dream and the opposition between destiny and liberty appear as main themes
Conclusions
Neo experiences aporia, when he is removed from the “dream”(the virtual reality of the matrix in which he was trapped) and sees the real world, his eyes hurting. This is similar to Plato’s cave allegory; he is blinded by the sun, that is, the painful truth.
As he takes decisions and moves in his quest for answers, Neo is under a process of semiological transformation, similar to Seguismundo is, after doubting his identity.
Both characters are obligued to comply with the rules of their environments, this signaling the way they can take and restringing their choices.
Doubt and choice play a major part in their path to achieve their final goals.
Bibliography
Burbules papers on ‘Aporia’ The Matrix Allegory of the Cave Life is a dream Notes on MM applied to ELT