Active Reading and Learning
Possibility of Medium as a platform to encourage our learning
Täka said about the importance of taking the time to think as below.
We can not have our own thoughts unless we read stories or contents on the internet with thinking on our own head. This is the same as reading a book.
This is my motivation to start Medium, so I sympathized with his idea.
How to read a book written by Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren also showed the relationship between reading and thinking.
Active Reading
In this book which is famous in the world, the importance of active reading is described in the introduction. Especially, I love the following analogy which explains the communication between writer and reader by reading a book as a playing catch.
It is the inert thing that is put in motion or stopped whereas the players are active, moving to pitch, hit, or catch. The analogy with writing and reading is almost is perfect. The thing that is written and read, like the ball, is the passive object common to the two activities that begin and terminate the process. — M.J. Adler, C.V. Doren
We understand stories in our mind (catch a ball) with referring to our knowledge or other stories on Medium. Then sometimes, we interpret stories into our own words (slide a mitt into our own strike-zone). Of course, if sliding too much, logic would be leap.
Reading as Learning by Instruction and Discovery
Additionally, Adler and Doren said that an essence of reading a book is learning. They point out that active reading leads to our discovery in addition to education.
Instruction occurs when one person teaches another through speech or writing. We can, however, gain knowledge without being taught. If this were not the case, and every teacher had to be taught what he in turn teaches others, there would be no beginning in the acquisition of knowledge. Hence, there must be discovery — the process of learning something by research, by investigation, or by reflection, without being taught. — M.J. Adler, C.V. Doren
Then, Joi Ito also said about the difference between education and learning.
“Education is something that is done to you. Learning is something you do for yourself.” — Joi Ito
Learning is a play that we can enjoy in our life. Therefore, I would like to keep learning by carefully reading stories on Medium.
Quotation as a Response
I also deeply sympathize the following mention written by Täka.
On Medium, we can just bookmark when something on a story catches our mind. Then, we can organize our thought and respond to it after carefully thinking. These functions enable us to easily dive into our own thoughts by inspiring from other stories.
Response on Medium means returning the thing we have learned (new ball) to original authors. Therefore, Medium would be a platform to promote our learning.
On the other hand, we can not respond each author from a story we wrote on Medium. This makes me disappointed. Quoting a story is also the important response in the same way as an academic paper. Therefore, reflecting numbers of response or responding all authors I quote would make a circle of stories. If you are not good at direct communication with others, this would be nice to express your appreciation and respect for original authors.
There may be a room for improvement to link our stories on Medium. Actually, I tend to think how to improve user experience from a designer’s point of view...:)
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