printing press

2011-07-07T04:02:00.000-07:00

Marinoni's Rotary Printing Press

The greatest progress that has been made in recent years in the art of printing is in the invention of the high speed press provided with continuous paper.
Three French constructors, Messrs. Marinoni, Alauzet, and Derriey, have brought this kind of apparatus to such a degree of perfection that the majority of foreign journals having a large circulation buy their presses in France. We reproduce in Fig. 1 a perspective view of the Marinoni press, and in Fig. 2 a diagram showing the parts of the same. In order to give a complete description of it, we cannot do better than to reproduce the very interesting study that has been made of it by Mr. Monet, a civil engineer.

FIG. 1.--MARINONI'S ROTARY PRINTING PRESS.
The roller, J (Fig. 2), is placed in the machine in the state in which it is received from the paper manufactory. The paper unwinds, runs over the rollers, e and e', which serve only for tautening it, and then passes between the two cylinders, A and B. The cylinder, A, carries the form, and B carries the blanket, and the paper thus receives its first impression. It afterward passes between the cylinders, A' and B', and receives an impression on the other side, the cylinder, A', carrying the form, and B' the blanket. Being now printed on both sides, it passes between the cylinders, KK', which cut it off and allow the sheet to slide between the cords of the rollers. These latter lead the sheets over the rollers, g h, on which they wind, one over the other, when the rollers, a a', are in the position shown by unbroken lines in the cut.
The part of the machine that holds the rollers, g h, and the different cords that wind over them, is the accumulator, and it is in this part of the press that the sheets accumulate, one over the other, to any number desired.
The size of the rollers, g h, and their distance apart are so regulated that when the sheet reaches the accumulator, it falls exactly on those that have preceded it. When the proper number of sheets is in the accumulator (4 or 5 being the number most employed for afterward facilitating the separation into packets on the receiving table), the two small rollers, a a', advance over the rack, N, and the sheets, instead of continuing to roll over into the accumulator, fall on the rack and are deposited by it upon the receiving table, O.

FIG. 2.--MARINONI'S PRESS.
The rack having fallen twenty times, and deposited five sheets each time, or one hundred in all, the table moves in such a way as to prevent the sheets subsequently deposited from getting mixed with them. When the rack has fallen twenty times, the table returns to its initial position.
The distributing rollers, D, come in contact with the inking rollers, I, once during each revolution of the printing cylinders, and are mounted on racking levers provided with regulating screws that permit of easily regulating the amount of ink taken up. The supports of the inking rollers are movable and can be made to approach or recede from the distributing rollers, so as to still further vary the amount of ink taken up by them.
The distributing rollers supply the ink to a roller, E, of large diameter, which, having a backward and forward motion, begins to distribute the ink and to transmit it to a second roller, F, of the same diameter. This latter then spreads it over a metallic cylinder, G, which is of the same diameter as the printing cylinders, and against which revolve three distributing rollers, H, that have a backward and forward motion.
Between the cylindrical inking table, G, and the type cylinder, there are situated inking cylinders, T, of large diameter, that constantly take up ink from the inking table and distribute it over the types.
The machine here described, when designed for printing large sized journals, has cylinders whose circumference corresponds to the size of paper for two widths of pages, and whose length is sufficient to allow it to receive two forms. Each cylinder, then, carries four forms, or eight in all, and prints two complete copies at each revolution.
The large sheet cut off by the cylinders, K K', contains, then, two copies; and this sheet, on passing under the roller, f is again cut in two by a disk which separates it in a direction perpendicular to the cylinders.
To this press there may be added a mechanical folder of Mr. Marinoni's invention, capable of folding a journal five times.--Annales Industrielles.

2011-07-06T23:42:00.001-07:00

The Printing Press

He who first shortened the labor of copyists by device of movable types was disbanding hired armies, and cashiering most kings and senates, and creating a whole new democratic world: he had invented the art of printing.
(Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, 1833)

The Renaissance spread to Germany, France, England, and Spain in the late fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. In its migration northward, Renaissance culture adapted itself to conditions unknown in Italy, such as the growth of the monarchical state and the strength of lay piety. In England France, and Spain, Renaissance culture tended to be court-centered and hence anti-republican. In Germany, no monarchical state existed but a vital tradition of lay piety was present was present in the Low Countries. The Brethren of the Common Life, for example, was a lay movement emphasizing education and practical piety. Intensely Christian and at the same time anticlerical (shades of what was to come!), the people in such movements found in Renaissance culture the tools for sharpening their wits against the clergy -- not to undermine faith, but restore its ancient apostolic purity.

Northern humanists were profoundly devoted to ancient learning but nothing in northern humanism compares to the paganizing trend associated with the Italian Renaissance. The northern humanists were chiefly interested in the problem of the ancient church and the question of what constituted original Christianity.

Two factors operated to accelerate the spread of Renaissance culture after 1450: growing economic prosperity and the printing press. Prosperity -- the result of peace and the decline of famine and the plague -- led to the founding of schools and colleges. In these schools the sons of gentlemen and nobles would receive a humanistic education imported from Italy. The purpose of such an education was to prepare men for a career in the church or civil service.

Sometime in the 13th century, paper money and playing cards from China reached the West. They were "block-printed," that is, characters or pictures were carved into a wooden block, inked, and then transferred to paper. Since each word, phrase or picture was on a separate block, this method of reproduction was expensive and time-consuming.

The extension of literacy among laypeople and the greater reliance of governments and businesses upon written records created a demand for a less-costly method of reproducing the written word. The import of paper from the East as well as "block-books" (see above), were major steps in transforming the printing of books. However, woodcuts were not sufficiently durable as they tended to split in the press after repeated use. Furthermore, a new block had to be carved for each new impression, and the block was discarded as unusable as soon as a slightly different impression was needed.

By the middle of the 15th century several print masters were on the verge of perfecting the techniques of printing with movable metal type. The first man to demonstrate the practicability of movable type was Johannes Gutenberg (c.1398-1468), the son of a noble family of Mainz, Germany. A former stonecutter and goldsmith, Gutenberg devised an alloy of lead, tin and antinomy that would melt at low temperature, cast well in the die, and be durable in the press. It was then possible to use and reuse the separate pieces of type, as long as the metal in which they were cast did not wear down, simply by arranging them in the desired order. The mirror image of each letter (rather than entire words or phrases), was carved in relief on a small block. Individual letters, easily movable, were put together to form words; words separated by blank spaces formed lines of type; and lines of type were brought together to make up a page. Since letters could be arranged into any format, an infinite variety of texts could be printed by reusing and resetting the type.

By 1452, with the aid of borrowed money, Gutenberg began his famous Bible project. Two hundred copies of the two-volume Gutenberg Bible were printed, a small number of which were printed on vellum. The expensive and beautiful Bibles were completed and sold at the 1455 Frankfurt Book Fair, and cost the equivalent of three years' pay for the average clerk. Roughly fifty of all Gutenberg Bibles survive today.

In spite of Gutenberg's efforts to keep his technique a secret, the printing press spread rapidly. Before 1500 some 2500 European cities had acquired presses. German masters held an early leadership, but the Italians soon challenged their preeminence. The Venetian printer Aldus Manutius published works, notably editions of the classics.

The immediate effect of the printing press was to multiply the output and cut the costs of books. It thus made information available to a much larger segment of the population who were, of course, eager for information of any variety. Libraries could now store greater quantities of information at much lower cost. Printing also facilitated the dissemination and preservation of knowledge in standardized form -- this was most important in the advance of science, technology and scholarship. The printing press certainly initiated an "information revolution" on par with the Internet today. Printing could and did spread new ideas quickly and with greater impact.

Printing stimulated the literacy of lay people and eventually came to have a deep and lasting impact on their private lives. Although most of the earliest books dealt with religious subjects, students, businessmen, and upper and middle class people bought books on all subjects. Printers responded with moralizing, medical, practical and travel manuals. Printing provided a superior basis for scholarship and prevented the further corruption of texts through hand copying. By giving all scholars the same text to work from, it made progress in critical scholarship and science faster and more reliable.

2011-07-06T23:41:00.000-07:00

Technological factors

See also: History of Western typography and Medieval technology

At the same time, a number of medieval products and technological processes had reached a level of maturity which allowed their potential use for printing purposes. Gutenberg took up these far-flung strands, combined them into one complete and functioning system, and perfected the printing process through all its stages by adding a number of inventions and innovations of his own:

Early modern wine press. Such screw presses were applied in Europe to a wide range of uses and provided Gutenberg with the model for his printing press.

The screw press which allowed direct pressure to be applied on flat-plane was already of great antiquity in Gutenberg's time and was used for a wide range of tasks.^[13] Introduced in the 1st century AD by the Romans, it was commonly employed in agricultural production for pressing wine grapes and (olive) oil seeds, both of which formed an integral part of the mediterranean and medieval diet.^[14] The device was also used from very early on in urban contexts as a cloth press for printing patterns.^[15] Gutenberg may have also been inspired by the paper presses which had spread through the German lands since the late 14th century and which worked on the same mechanical principles.^[16]
Gutenberg adopted the basic design, thereby mechanizing the printing process.^[17] Printing, however, put a demand on the machine quite different from pressing. Gutenberg adapted the construction so that the pressing power exerted by the platen on the paper was now applied both evenly and with the required sudden elasticity. To speed up the printing process, he introduced a movable undertable with a plane surface on which the sheets could be swiftly changed.^[18]

Movable type sorted in a letter case and loaded in a composing stick on top

The concept of movable type was not entirely new in the 15th century; sporadic evidence that the typographical principle, the idea of creating a text by reusing individual characters, was well understood and employed in pre-Gutenberg Europe had been cropping up since the 12th century and possibly before. The known examples range from Germany (Prüfening inscription) to England (letter tiles) to Italy.^[19] However, the various techniques employed (imprinting, punching and assembling individual letters) did not have the refinement and efficiency needed to become widely accepted.
Gutenberg greatly improved the process by treating typesetting and printing as two separate work steps. A goldsmith by profession, he created his type pieces from a lead-based alloy which suited printing purposes so well that it is still used today.^[20] The mass production of metal letters was achieved by his key invention of a special hand mould, the matrix.^[21] The Latin alphabet proved to be an enormous advantage in the process because, in contrast to logographic writing systems, it allowed the type-setter to represent any text with a theoretical minimum of only around two dozen different letters.^[22]
Another factor conducive to printing arose from the book existing in the format of the codex, which had originated in the Roman period.^[23] Considered the most important advance in the history of the book prior to printing itself, the codex had completely replaced the ancient scroll at the onset of the Middle Ages (500 AD).^[24] The codex holds considerable practical advantages over the scroll format; it is more convenient to read (by turning pages), is more compact, less costly, and, in particular, unlike the scroll, both recto and verso could be used for writing − and printing.^[25]

A paper codex of the acclaimed 42-line Bible, Gutenberg's major work

A fourth development was the early success of medieval papermakers at mechanizing paper manufacture. The introduction of water-powered paper mills, the first certain evidence of which dates to 1282,^[26] allowed for a massive expansion of production and replaced the laborious handcraft characteristic of both Chinese^[27] and Muslim papermaking.^[28] Papermaking centres began to multiply in the late 13th century in Italy, reducing the price of paper to one sixth of parchment and then falling further; papermaking centers reached Germany a century later.^[29]
Despite this it appears that the final breakthrough of paper depended just as much on the rapid spread of movable-type printing.^[30] It is notable that codices of parchment, which in terms of quality is superior to any other writing material,^[31] still had a substantial share in Gutenberg's edition of the 42-line Bible.^[32] After much experimentation, Gutenberg managed to overcome the difficulties which traditional water-based inks caused by soaking the paper, and found the formula for an oil-based ink suitable for high-quality printing with metal type.^[33]

2011-07-06T23:28:00.000-07:00

Economic conditions and intellectual climate

See also: History of capitalism and Medieval university

Medieval university class (1350s)

The rapid economic and socio-cultural development of late medieval society in Europe created favorable intellectual and technological conditions for Gutenberg's invention: the entrepreneurial spirit of emerging capitalism increasingly made its impact on medieval modes of production, fostering economic thinking and improving the efficiency of traditional work-processes. The sharp rise of medieval learning and literacy amongst the middle class led to an increased demand for books which the time-consuming hand-copying method fell far short of accommodating.^[12]

2011-07-06T23:27:00.003-07:00

For the history and technology of movable type, see Movable type.

Printing press from 1811, exhibited in Munich, Germany

Stanhope press from 1842

A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. Typically used for texts, the invention and spread of the printing press are widely regarded as the most influential events in the second millennium AD,^[1] revolutionizing the way people conceive and describe the world they live in, and ushering in the period of modernity.^[2]
The printing press was invented in the Holy Roman Empire by the German Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, based on existing screw presses. Gutenberg, a goldsmith by profession, developed a complete printing system, which perfected the printing process through all its stages by adapting existing technologies to printing purposes, as well as making groundbreaking inventions of his own. His newly devised hand mould made for the first time possible the precise and rapid creation of metal movable type in large quantities, a key element in the profitability of the whole printing enterprise.
The mechanization of bookmaking led to the first mass production of books in history in assembly line-style.^[3] A single Renaissance printing press could produce 3,600 pages per workday,^[4] compared to forty by typographic hand-printing and a few by hand-copying.^[5] Books of bestselling authors like Luther or Erasmus were sold by the hundreds of thousands in their lifetime.^[6]
From a single point of origin, Mainz, Germany, printing spread within several decades to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries.^[7] By 1500, printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced more than twenty million volumes.^[7] In the 16th century, with presses spreading further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies.^[7] The operation of a press became so synonymous with the enterprise of printing that it lent its name to an entire new branch of media, the press.^[8] As early as 1620, the English statesman and philosopher Francis Bacon could write that typographical printing has "changed the whole face and state of things throughout the world".^[9]
From its beginnings, printing was practiced also as a true art form, setting a high aesthetic and artistic standard, such as in the famous 42-line Bible. Today, incunables are among the most prized possessions of modern libraries.
The unprecedented impact of Gutenberg-style printing on the long-term development of modern European and then world history is difficult to capture in its entirety. Attempts at analysing its manifold effects include the notion of a proper Printing Revolution and the creation of the Gutenberg Galaxy. The ready availability and affordability of the printed word to the general public boosted the democratization of knowledge and laid the material basis for the modern knowledge-based economy.
In Renaissance Europe, the arrival of mechanical movable type printing introduced the era of mass communication which permanently altered the structure of society: The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and (revolutionary) ideas transcended borders, captured the masses in the Reformation and threatened the power of political and religious authorities; the sharp increase in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and bolstered the emerging middle class. Across Europe, the increasing cultural self-awareness of its peoples led to the rise of proto-nationalism, accelerated by the flowering of the European vernacular languages to the detriment of Latin's status as lingua franca.^[10]
In the 19th century, the replacement of the hand-operated Gutenberg-style press by steam-powered rotary presses allowed printing on an industrial scale,^[11] while Western-style printing was adopted all over the world, becoming practically the sole medium for modern bulk printing.

AT A GLANCE:

2011-07-06T23:26:00.000-07:00

In 1440, German inventor Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press process that, with refinements and increased mechanization, remained the principal means of printing until the late 20th century. The inventor's method of printing from movable type, including the use of metal molds and alloys, a special press, and oil-based inks, allowed for the first time the mass production of printed books.

Invention:

printing press

Function:

noun / print·ing press

Definition:

A machine that transfers lettering or images by contact with various forms of inked surface onto paper or similar material fed into it in various ways The device is used for printing many copies of a text on paper.

Inventor:

Johannes Gutenberg (aka Johann Gutenberg)

Criteria;

First practical. Modern prototype. Entrepreneur.

Birth:

c1400 in Mainz, Germany

Death:

February 3, 1468 in Mainz, Germany

Nationality:

German

Milestones:
888 The Diamond Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, was the first dated example of block printing.
1041 Bi Sheng in China invented movable clay type
1423 Europeans use xylography (art of engraving on wood, block printing) to produce books.
1430 Gutenberg moved from his native town of Mainz to Strasburg
1436 Gutenberg begins work on his printing press.
1437 Gutenberg was sued for "breach of promise of marriage" by a young lady of Strasburg
1440 Gutenberg completed his wooden press which used movable metal type.
1440 Laurens Janszoon Koster (Coster) is credited, by some, with inventing movable metal type
1444 Gutenberg returns to Mainz and sets up a printing shop
1446 Gutenberg prints the "Poem of the Last Judgment"
1448 Gutenberg prints the "Calendar for 1448"
1450 Gutenberg' formed a partnership with the wealthy Johann Fust
1450 Gutenberg begins work on a Bible, the first is 40 lines per page.
1452 Gutenberg begins printing the 42-line Bible in two volumes.
1454 Gutenberg prints indulgences (notes sold to Christians by the Pope, pardoning their sins)
1455 First block-printed Bible, the Biblia Pauperum, published in Germany.
1455 Gutenberg completed work on what is estimated to be 200 copies of the Bible
1455 Gutenberg was effectively bankrupt. Investor Johann Faust gains control of print business
1457 First known color printing, a Psalter (a collection of Psalms for devotional use) by Faust.
1460 Gutenberg reestablished himself in the printing business with the aid of Conrad Humery
1461 Albrecht Pfister printed the first illustrated book Edelstein which featured a number of woodcuts.
1465 Gutenberg is appointed to the court of Archbishop Adolf of Nassau
1476 Two hundred woodcuts were used in a edition of Aesop's Fables
1476 First use of copper engravings instead of woodcuts for illustration
1476 William Caxton sets up his printing press in Westminster, England.
1499 Printing had become established in more than 2500 cities around Europe.
1499 An estimated 15 million books have been press printed, representing thirty thousand book titles
CAPs: Johannes Gutenberg, Johann Gutenberg, Bi Sheng, Laurens Janszoon Koster, Johann Faust, Peter Schoffer, Albrecht Pfister, Conrad Humery, Archbishop Adolf of Nassau, William Caxton, Gutenberg Bible, 42-line Bible, Mazarin Bible, Diamond Sutra, Poem of the Last Judgment, Calendar for 1448, Psalter, Aesop's Fables,
SIPs: printing press, movable type, xylography, metal type, indulgences, typography, letterpress printing, invention, history, inventor of, history of, who invented, invention of, fascinating facts.

The Story:
In the mid-15th century Johannes Gutenberg invented a mechanical way of making books. This was the first example of mass book production. Before the invention of printing, multiple copies of a manuscript had to be made by hand, a laborious task that could take many years. Later books were produced by and for the Church using the process of wood engraving. This required the craftsman to cut away the background, leaving the area to be printed raised. This process applied to both text and illustrations and was extremely time-consuming. When a page was complete, often comprising a number of blocks joined together, it would be inked and a sheet of paper was then pressed over it for an imprint. The susceptibility of wood to the elements gave such blocks a limited lifespan .

In the Far East, movable type and printing presses were known but did not replace printing from individually carved wooden blocks, from movable clay type, processes much more efficient than hand copying. The use of movable type in printing was invented in 1041 AD by Bi Sheng in China. Since there are thousands of Chinese characters, the benefit of the technique is not as obvious as in European languages.

In China, there were no texts similar to the Bible which could guarantee a printer return on the high capital investment of a printing press, and so the primary form of printing was wood block printing which was more suited for short runs of texts for which the return was uncertain

It is not clear whether Gutenberg knew of these existing techniques or invented them independently, though the former is considered unlikely because of the substantial differences in technique. Europeans use xylography (art of engraving on wood, block printing) to produce books and used by European textile makers to print patterns on fabric.

Gutenberg began experimenting with metal typography (letterpress printing) after he had moved from his native town of Mainz to Strassburg around 1430. Knowing that wood-block type involved a great deal of time and expense to reproduce, because it had to be hand carved, Gutenberg concluded that metal type could be reproduced much more quickly once a single mold had been fashioned.

When Johannes Gutenberg began building his press in 1436, he was unlikely to have realised that he was giving birth to an art form which would take center stage in the social and industrial revolutions which followed. He was German, his press was wooden, and the most important aspect of his invention was that it was the first form of printing to use movable type.

His initial efforts enabled him in 1440 to mass-produce indulgences -- printed slips of paper sold by the Catholic Church to remit temporal punishments in purgatory for sins committed in this life, for those wealthy enough to afford indulgences. Although Laurence Koster (Coster) of Haarlem, Netherlands also laid claim to the invention, scholars have generally accepted Gutenberg as the father of modern printing.

Gutenberg left Strasburg, presumably about 1444. He seems to have perfected at enormous expense his invention shortly afterwards, as is shown by the oldest specimens of printing that have come down to us, the "Poem of the Last Judgment", and the "Calendar for 1448"). The fact that Arnolt Gelthuss, a relative of Gutenberg, lent him money in the year 1448 at Mainz points to the same conclusion.

Legal documents indicate that Gutenberg probably began printing the Bible around 1450. It was in this year that Gutenberg entered into a partnership with Johann Fust who lent him money to finance the production of a Bible. Gutenberg certainly introduced efficient methods into book production, leading to a boom in the production of texts in Europe -- in large part, owing to the popularity of the Gutenberg Bibles, the first mass-produced work, starting in 1452. Even so, Gutenberg was a poor businessman, and made little money from his printing system. The earliest dated specimens of printing by Gutenberg are papal indulgences (notes given to Christians by the Pope, pardoning their sins) issued in Mainz in 1454. In 1455, Gutenberg demonstrated the power of the printing press by selling copies of a two-volume Bible for a price that was the equivalent of approximately three years' wages for an average clerk, but it was significantly cheaper than a handwritten Bible that could take a single monk 20 years to transcribe.

In 1455, just as the project was nearing completion Johann Fust sued Gutenberg, taking possession of his printing equipment and the almost completed edition of the Bible. Fust subsequently entered into partnership with Peter Schoffer, who had been Gutenberg's assistant, and the project was finally completed in 1456 whereupon Fust undertook the task of marketing the bible. Fust first attempted to sell the Bibles as manuscripts but once potential purchasers observed the uniformity of the volumes, he had to reveal the means by which they were produced.

The mortgage covered the copious stock of type which had evidently been already prepared for the edition of the Psalter, which was printed by Fust and Schoffer in August, 1457. This included new type in two sizes, as well as the world-famous initial letters with their ingenious contrivance for two-color printing.

In 1457 Fust and Schoffer published a large Psalter, known as the Mainz Psalter, which featured printed red and blue intitials along with the black text. There is some debate about how these coloured letters were printed. They were either printed from two part metal blocks that were inked separately, re-assembled and then printed with the text, or they were stamped on after the main text was printed. Either way the process was time consuming and expensive so for several years it was more common for such decorative elements to be added by hand. The Mainz Psalter was also the first book to bear a printer's trademark and imprint, a printed date of publication and a colophon.
About 1457 Gutenberg also parted with his earliest-constructed founts of type, which he had made for the 40-line Bible,.Long before this Bible was printed the type had been used in an edition of the "Poem of the Last Judgment", and in the "Calendar for 1448", in editions of Donatus, and various other printed works. Most of this type fell into the possession of Albrecht Pfister in Bamberg.1460

The first person to print illustrated books was Albrecht Pfister. Around 1460 he published a book titled Der Ackermann von Bohmen (The Farmer from Bohmen). The only surviving copy of the first edition contains no illustrations but space has been left for them. A second edition printed in 1463 does include images. In 1461 Pfister printed an edition of Der Edelstein (a series of fables in German) which contained 101 woodcut illustrations. The woodcuts were in simple outline and were probably intended to be hand colored. (Most surviving copies have in fact been colored.)

Gutenberg next manufactured a new printer's outfit with the assistance he received from Conrad Humery, a distinguished and wealthy doctor of law, leader of the popular party, and chancellor of the council. This outfit comprised a set of small types fashioned after the round cursive handwriting used in books at that time and ornamented with an extraordinary number of ligatures. The type was used in the so-called "Catholicon" (grammar and alphabetic lexicon) in the year 1460, and also in several small books printed in Eltville down to the year 1472 by the brothers Echtermünze, relatives of Gutenberg. The Elector of Mainz, Archbishop Adolf of Nassau, presented him with a benefice (an ecclesiastical office in 1465) yielding an income and various privileges.
Gutenberg's invention spread rapidly after his death in 1468.. It met in general with a ready, and an enthusiastic reception in the centers of culture. The names of more than 1000 printers, mostly of German origin, have come down to us from the fifteenth century. In Italy we find well over 100 German printers, in France 30, in Spain 26. Many of the earliest printers outside of Germany had learned their art in Mainz, where they were known as "goldsmiths". Among those who were undeniably pupils of Gutenberg, and who probably were also assistants in the Gutenberg-Fust printing house were (besides Schoffer), Numeister, Keffer, and Ruppel; Mentel in Strasburg (before 1460), Pfister in Bamberg (1461), Sweynheim in Subiaco and Rome (1464), and Johann von Speyer in Venice (1469).

The blocks used to illustrate early printed books were small and the images were often generic. There is evidence that printers exchanged blocks, with the same images being used in different editions of books. For example, two hundred woodcuts were used in a 1476 edition of Aesop's Fables and appear again in an edition by a different printer in 1480. There are also examples where the same image has been used to represent different subjects. In early illustrated books the text and illustrations were printed in separate operations, possibly because the type and the wood blocks were of different heights, but later examples were printed in one impression.

The first use of copper engravings for illustration occurred in 1476. Early experiments in using engraving for illustrations were not successful because the two different methods of printing not only required two operations; they required different types of equipment. As a result registration problems occurred. The solution was to print the images on separate sheets of paper and bind them into the book or to print on thin paper and cut out and paste the images in place.
William Caxton learned the printing trade in Europe and set up his press in Westminster, England. 1476 Many early printing types were calligraphic - they imitated handwriting. Caxton used and was famed for his Black Letter type which imitated the writing of the Haarlem monks. Artistically, he was perhaps the finest printer of his day although, as a man of politics and letters, he was an amateur.

The new printing presses had spread like brushfire through Europe. By 1499 print-houses had become established in more than 2500 cities in Europe. Fifteen million books had been flung into a world where scholars would travel miles to visit a library stocked with twenty hand-written volumes. Scholars argue about the number. It could've been as few as eight million or as many as twenty four. But the output of new books had been staggering by any reasonable estimate. The people had suddenly come into possession of some thirty thousand new book titles.

While the Gutenberg press was much more efficient than manual copying, the Industrial Revolution and the introduction of the steam powered rotary press allowed thousands of copies of a page in a single day. Mass production of printed works flourished after the transition to rolled paper, as continuous feed allowed the presses to run at a much faster pace.

Gutenberg's invention did not make him rich, but it laid the foundation for the commercial mass production of books. The success of printing meant that books soon became cheaper, and ever wider parts of the population could afford them. More than ever before, it enabled people to follow debates and take part in discussions of matters that concerned them. As a consequence, the printed book also led to more stringent attempts at censorship. This was a sign that it was felt by those in authority to be dangerous and challenging to their position.
Gutenberg's Movable Metal Type
In the Far East, movable type and printing presses were known but did not replace printing from individually carved wooden blocks, from movable clay type, processes much more efficient than hand copying. The use of movable type in printing was invented in 1041 AD by Bi Sheng in China. Since there are thousands of Chinese characters, the benefit of the technique is not as obvious as in European languages.

It is not clear whether Gutenberg knew of these existing techniques or invented them independently, though the former is considered unlikely because of the substantial differences in technique.The print technology that produced the Gutenberg Bible marks the beginning of a cultural revolution unlike any that followed the development of print culture in Asia.

Gutenberg was a goldsmith, a worker in metals, and a lapidary, and his invention both in conception and execution shows the worker in metals. Gutenberg multiplied the separate types in metal molds. The types thus produced he built in such a way that they might be aligned like the manuscript he was copying.
His aim, technically and æsthetically so extremely difficult, was the mechanical reproduction of the characters used in the manuscripts, i.e. the hand lettered books of the time. The works printed by Gutenberg plainly prove that the types used in them were made by a casting process where the letter-patterns were cut on small steel rods termed patrices, and the dies thus made were impressed on some soft metal, such as copper, producing the matrices, which were cast in the mold in such a manner as to form the "face" and "body" of the type at one operation.

The printing type represents therefore a multiplicity of cast reproductions of the original die, or patrix. In addition to this technical process of type-setting, Gutenberg found himself confronted with a problem hardly less difficult, namely, the copying of the beautiful calligraphy found in the books of the fifteenth century, constantly bearing in mind that it must be possible to engrave and to cast the individual forms, since the types, when set, must be substantially replicas of the model.

The genius of Gutenberg found a brilliant solution to this problem in all its complicated details. Even in the earliest types he made (e.g. in the Calendar for 1448), it can recognize not only the splendid reproduction of the actual forms of the original handwriting, but also the extremely artistic remodeling of individual letters necessitated by technical requirements.

The type reproductions were the work of a calligraphic artist of the highest order. He applied the well-tested rules of the calligraphist's art to the casting of types, observing in particular the rudimentary principle of always leaving the same space between the vertical columns of the text. Consequently Gutenberg prepared two markedly different forms of each letter, the normal separate form, and the compound or linked form which, being joined closely to the type next to it, avoids gaps. It is significant that this unique kind of letter is to be found in only four types, and these four are associated with Gutenberg.

No typographer in the fifteenth century was able to follow the ideal of the original inventor, and consequently research attributes to Gutenberg types of this character, namely, the two Bible and the two Psalter types. Especially in the magnificent design and in the technical preparation of the Psalter of 1457 do we recognize the pure, ever-soaring inventive genius of Gutenberg.
Gutenberg's Printing Press
The spread of literacy and the development of universities meant that by the 15th century, despite an assembly line approach to the production of books, supply was no longer able to meet demand. As a result there was widespread interest in finding an alternative means of producing books.Before books could be mass produced, several developments were necessary.

A ready supply of suitable material that could be printed on was required. Manuscript books were written on vellum and this material was used for some early printed books, but vellum was expensive and not available in sufficient quantity for the mass production of books. The introduction of the technique of making paper and the subsequent development of a European papermaking industry was a necessary condition for the widespread adoption of print technology.

Although a number of people had previously attempted to make metal type or had experimented with individual woodcut letters, it was not until a technique was devised for producing metal type in large quantities that printing with moveable type became economically feasible. Gutenberg, who had initially trained as a goldsmith, was to devise a means of producing metal type in sufficient quantities at a reasonable cost. This involved the design of a type-face and the production of molds used for making the individual pieces of type, as well as the development of an alloy that was soft enough to cast yet hard enough to use for printing.

It was also necessary to develop suitable inks for printing with the new type. The water-based inks used for hand lettering and for block printing will not stick to metal type, therefore a viscous oil based ink was required.

Finally, a press was needed for transferring the image from type to paper. Precedents existed in the presses used for making wine, cheese and paper and one of Johannes Gutenberg's innovations was to adapt these presses for the printing process. An operator worked a lever to increase and decrease the pressure of the block against the paper. The invention of the printing press, in turn, set off a social revolution that is still in progress.

AB Dick 320 Printing Press

2011-07-06T16:19:00.000-07:00

AB Dick 320 Offset Printing Press

printing press

2011-07-06T16:15:00.000-07:00

1998 Heidelberg Speedmaster Model CD 102 6+LX

Product: CD 102 6+L1998 Heidelberg Speedmaster Model X

Description:

Six-Color Offset Printing Press; S/N 540310, 28” x
40” Plus Tower Coater & Extended Delivery, Equipped
With CPC1.04 Remote Control Console, CP Tronics,
Alcolor Dampening, Auto Plate, Chromed Plate Cylinders,
Auto Wash Roller, Blanket & Impression Cylinders, Pre Set
Feeder, Non Stop Feeder & Delivery, Pre Loader, Electronic
Sheet Detection, Grafix IR Dryer, Royse Refrigerated
Recirculating, Ternes Plate Punch, Shows App. 101MM
Impressions (New 1998)

Equipped with:

>Alcolor Vario continuous dampening
>CP 2000 - Digital machine control and diagnosis
>Preset feeder (autom. paper size setting)
>Coating unit with chambered doctor blade system
>Perfecting 4:0/2:2
>IR-Dryer
>WashStar (central washup solution disposal)
>CombiStar (ink unit temperature control + cooling)
>Alcosmart (alcohol measuring technology f IPA)
>Ink unit temperature control
>Powder sprayer - Grafix Exatronic Plus
>Hot air dryer

printing press

2011-07-06T16:10:00.000-07:00

Printing Press = Internet Press?

The invention and coming forth of Guttenberg’s printing press was a monumental pivot point in history. No longer would reading be confined to monks and rich scholars. No longer would a book take days to copy. No longer would it be difficult to read based upon the handwriting of the copier. The printing press made reading available to even the lowliest of persons. The printing press was a key element to a religious reform starting. It was a key element for people beginning to stand up to monarchic governments. It was a key element in many Revolutions, especially the American Revolution.

“In the late fifteenth century, the reproduction of written materials began to move from the copyist’s desk to the printer’s workshop. This shift, which revolutionized all forms of learning, was particularly important for historical scholarship. Ever since then historians have been indebted to Gutenberg’s invention; print enters their work from start to finish, from consulting card files to reading page proofs. Because historians are usually eager to investigate major changes and this change transformed the conditions of their own craft, one would expect the shift to attract some attention from the profession as a whole. Yet any historiographical survey will show the contrary to be true.”
(Cambridge University Press 0521845432 - The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, Second Edition; Elizabeth L. Eisenstein. Excerpt)
http://bilder.buecher.de/zusatz/22/22283/22283883_lese_1.pdf

Is this true for the information revolution of our day, the internet? Do most of us look at it as an anomaly, or do we really consider the impact that it is having on society, and the learning process of today? Can we consider the internet as big of an impact on the future as the invention of the printing press was in Guttenberg’s day?

Consider the way the internet has revolutionized learning. Consider the fact that the internet has made information and reading of materials more readily available to the world. Consider the fact that the internet is fueled a lot by commercial interests of our day, much the same as printing was fueled in Aldus Manutius’ day. (See Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance)

I hope you can see the interesting correlation that I see.

Funny Moments with my Wife 2

2011-06-17T14:13:00.000-07:00

So, this episode happened a while ago when Jenny and I were still in school and not off enjoying our summer break. But, it is hilarious, and I need to write it down somewhere so that I won't forget it, and so others can enjoy it.

Scene set up: It's late at night (around 11:00pm) and night has fallen. Jenny and I look at each other tiredly and collectively decide it is time for bed. As we are getting ready for a wonderful night of sleep, horror strikes... I realize that I have an online quiz due before midnight, and I haven't taken it yet. Jenny is so tired that she talks me into taking my laptop to the bed with me so that she can sleep by my side while I work on the quiz. We retire to the bedroom where Jenny quickly slips under the covers and falls asleep. I get comfy, open my laptop, wait for it to load, wait for the internet connection, and then log into the website where I have to take the quiz.

I didn't study much for the quiz, but I was able to make some educated guesses on all of the questions, with enough confidence that most of my answers were right. However, there was one question that I really had no idea on. I was able to eliminate two of the answers, and I was left with either B or C as the correct one. Not knowing which answer was correct, and looking to make a wild guess, I asked my wife for advice (not realizing that she was dead asleep next to me).

"Jenny, B or C?"
Jenny looked up bleary eyed at me. "Huh?"
"B or C?"
"What...??"
"B or C? Pick a letter."
"...L..."
At this, Jenny laid her head back down on her pillows and closed her eyes again. I giggled for a while about her answer, and then tried to ask her again.
"Jenny." She once again looked at me with squinted, tired eyes.
"...What...?"
"Not L. I need you to pick either B or C for my quiz. So pick a letter."
"...seven..."
After this answer she laid down again, and I just started cracking up. As I was laughing, Jenny gets up, still looking really tired, and stares at me disdainfully.
"Why are you laughing at me??"
While giggling, I spluttered out, "Because I told you to pick a letter and you told me 'seven.'"
"...Huh...???"
"Never mind, just go back to sleep. I love you." With that I kissed her goodnight.
She smiled dreamily, laid back down, and drifted right back into dreamland.

With that, I made a guess, I can't even remember which letter I picked, because I was still giggling too hard. The really interesting part about this story was when I asked her if she remembered the episode. She said all she could remember was feeling confused that night, then a little angry for some reason, and then a sense of pleasure. That was it.

Luckily, Jenny just laughs about it along with me now. I love her so much!

Funny Moments with my Wife

2011-06-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

So, normally I try to be really considerate as a husband. I hold doors open for my wife. I tell her I love you as much as I possibly can. I get her car door for her. I try and honestly make my wife feel that she means the world to me, because she really does.

However, every once and a while I slip up and do something a little dumb, even when I don't mean to.

Jenny and I love to share things. We share stories. We share time with each other. We share books together. And we especially love to share food. One of our most favorite things to do is to go to restaurants, order two different things, and then split them so that we each get to try two different dishes. It's a tradition that started way back when we first met. We just love to share with each other.

Friday's when I work on BYU campus with my boss Karla, she buys brownies for us after we go down and get the money out of all the video game machines in the Games Center. I wanted to share the brownies we got today with my wife, so I loaded mine on a napkin and clocked out from work. I went and found my lovely wife sitting on a couch drawing a really cool picture of an Adobe/Arabian Palace thing in the desert, and showed her the treats I had brought to share with her. I sat down next to her on the couch she was on, and proceeded to bite into the 7-layer brownie bar. After I ate half of it, I gave the rest to my wife who thoroughly enjoyed it. I then began to eat some of the Mint Brownie (the brownies that BYU are famous for), and got thinking about life in general. "I wonder where I'll get a job...I wonder if I will end up teaching at a university..."

It was at that moment that I heard a pleading "Um...???" from my wife. I looked at her, and she looked back at me imploringly with big puppy-dog eyes. I tried to figure out what it was she wanted, and then looked down at the brownie I had been munching on. All I had left was a small bite of the brownie that I was actually just about to pop in my mouth. I had managed to eat almost the whole brownie without even thinking about it. Not meaning to at all, because I really did want to split it with her and share.

I gave my wife the bite and apologized. She said that she really only wanted a bite, and that she loves me. I really do have an amazing wife, and I am so glad she teaches me to laugh at mistakes.

Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration

2011-05-02T11:30:00.000-07:00

Just taking some time today to marvel at the countless opportunities that we have with the technological tools that we possess in our day and age. I can contact people on the exact opposite side of the world in less than a minute, even instantaneously! I can publish my thoughts and feelings online to a worldwide audience if I want to. I can keep in contact with people that I have met from all over the world through tools like Facebook and E-mail. I can surf the internet from the palm of my hand! Do you ever just sit back and think about how much of a "science fiction" world we live in today? If you would have told the inventor of the internet that we would be able to surf the internet on a device no bigger than the palm of your hand 3 decades later, do you think he would have believed you?

And how is it all possible? Why do you think that so many wonderful technologies have been developed within the past 50 years? One answer is that we have the resources and some AMAZINGLY smart people who use those resources to better the world around them. But I think there is an even deeper reason to this jump in technological advancement. I truly and honestly believe that God has inspired men to develop these technologies in order to further His work here on earth. Yes, the Adversary is going to use those technologies in any way he can to his advantage (pornography, violent games and movies, etc.), but all good and all truth come from one source, and that source is our Heavenly Father. The technology we have today is a huge blessing, and it gives us so many opportunities to connect with people from around the world. It gives us the opportunity to continue friendships all over the world. And, most importantly, it gives us the opportunity to spread God's word and the love of God to all of His children on the earth today. It just boggles my mind, and it makes me so grateful for the wonderful blessings and opportunities that we have here in this digital age.

Just as a small example, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has already posted the Joseph Smith movie on the internet! I was waiting for it to come out on DVD, but they have done something even more productive, and instantly more global by posting it online. This is an amazing video for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and those who don't know anything about us. Watch this video, and you will see why it is not very hard to believe that Joseph Smith was a living prophet on the earth, and that he restored the fullness of the Gospel to the earth.

Plea for a Grade

2010-12-17T11:54:00.000-08:00

I have to admit, when I have to do a reflective essay or write to the professor(s) at the end of the semester, it feels like I'm pleading for a grade. It's almost as if all I'm doing is trying to justify why the teacher should give me an A. Do I like doing this... not really. The problem with these kind of assignments is that I can be extremely rough on how I would grade myself. And, especially in this Digital Civilization class, I would have a hard time judging what grade I should receive when I compare myself to other students in the class, mostly because the posts of all the students in the class have been so different from each other.

However, reflect I must, and reflect I will do.
I did my best in this class. I spent as much time on it as I possibly could. I did the required reading for each class period. I kept up on all the blog posts we were supposed to do. I focused on my own self-directed learning and learned many tools to help me Consume, including Google Reader, IceRocket blog search, and other searches like Curriki. As I used the many different tools that I learned for Consuming, I learned how to tie in History into the world of today. I have never been able to do that in a history class before. The self-directed learning of this class was wonderful! Because of it, I actually enjoyed learning history, which has never happened before. With the assigned readings, and my own studying, I learned more about, and will be retaining more information about, the historical content of this class.
The computing concepts that we learned in class were wonderful to learn as well, because they are concepts that are important in our day and age, and that tie history to the Digital World we live in today. With the computing concepts, I have learned many new ways of creating content on the web, and many new ways of connecting through the internet.

Now, as far as the class event went, I thought it was great! I thought there were a lot of people there who benefitted from the things shared. As for my contributions...I WORKED HARD! Dr. Zappala and Dr. Burton said that I should try to do more digital literacy labs, and with my group doing Backpack 2.0, that came extremely naturally. The Wiki site was definitely spearheaded by me, and I was able to contribute to every part of the Backpack 2.0 project. (Just check out my blogs about the project updates: This one, or That One)

In all honesty, I worked really hard on this class. Out of all my classes, I devoted the most time to this class. I loved this class! I wish it was going to be offered again to give others the chance to take it. I believe that I did the very best I could. It might not have been as incredible as some of the other students, but for the time available, and the time I devoted to this class, I truly gave it my best. So, what do I think I deserve? In all honesty...

Or just an A will do :-) Thanks so much Dr. Burton and Dr. Zappala! This class was awesome.

P.S. The things I have learned in this class will continue to be useful for the rest of my life. I hope to do more research in the future on how these digital tools and the things we have learned online can be used in teaching mathematics. I also hope to keep up on this blog, because it is a wonderful way to express my ideas, and for others to learn from the things that I have learned. Happy Blogging!

Oh, and

Digital Revolution Event

2010-12-08T14:49:00.000-08:00

This is no final project presentation. This is an event and a showcase for showing how learning in the digital world we live in today is very different. Even this event will be different. Here are three reasons why:

1. This event will be HIGH energy. Those giving the presentations only have 5 MINUTES to present their material. It makes it very fast paced, and very engaging. Each group will be presenting on a way they have used the Digital World and History to enhance their own learning in many different topics. (Plus, there will be refreshments served at the end... How can you go wrong with that?)

2. For those who might not be able to make it to our event, we will actually be broadcasting the event LIVE on JustinTV. The Event will be tomorrow, Thursday December 9, 2010, from 7:00pm to 9:00pm in room 3108 of the Jesse Knight Building on BYU campus. If you can't make it, but would still like to watch the event, go to http://justin.tv/digiciv. This should be really cool.

3. We will also be giving people the opportunity to Backchannel, or carry on a live conversation on a separate, "chatlike" projector screen. We are using Poll Everywhere to accomplish this. Those attending the event or watching the event online will be able to use their cell phone to send a text message to Poll Everywhere, which will then appear on the "chatlike" projector screen in the room we will be in. People will be able to use this service to talk to each other, ask questions, or even make simple comments.

This event will not be just a bunch of presentations. It will be an EVENT of EVENTS to help you learn how to become more digitally literate. PLEASE COME! You won't regret it.

Final Developments in our Final Project

2010-12-07T07:47:00.000-08:00

One of the biggest developments that has occurred over the weekend is the decision to leave the "Consume, Create, and Connect" pages open on the Backpack 2.0 Wiki site open. I was slightly reluctant to do this, but in the end, I realized this was the best way for people to collaborate on our website and add their own tools. Anyone with our website URL can go to one of these three pages, and hit the "Edit" button at the top of that page:

This is SCARY for me. It means that anyone (I don't know why they would, which makes my fear a little irrational) could come online and maliciously change the page for their own purposes! I know, it's a bit of a ridiculous fear, but it is genuinely one I have.

Now, if any of you have AMAZING digital tools that are available online, and would like to add them to our website, please visit: backpack2.wikispaces.com. Collaboratively, this could become an extremely useful website to anyone who visits it.

If you have feedback, you can E-mail me at: sparax88@gmail.com

Nominations for STELLAR Blogs

2010-12-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

Ok, so here are my nominations, really quickly:

Historical Content: Danny Patterson http://pucksonice.blogspot.com/

Does a great job of using his personal knowledge and tying it into the concepts we are learning about history
Shows that he understands the historical content we are studying in each of his posts.

Computing Content: Rhett Ferrin http://imrhettferrin.blogspot.com/

Great posts that tie in the Computing Content to the historical topics that we are studying
Doing a great job of keeping us up to date with the Missionary final project
Extremely informative posts that really expand my understanding as I read them

Self-Directed Learning: Jeffrey Chen http://mrbasics.blogspot.com/

Lots of Digital Literacy Labs
Uses the Digital Labs to relate them to the topics at hand
Great posts about how he is learning new and exciting things on the internet

Though, in all honesty, I've enjoyed reading all the class blogs that I have over the course of this semester. We have a lot of wonderful writers in this class, and it really is hard to just pick a few. In all honesty, I would nominate all the blogs that have kept up with every blog post this semester for one of these categories.

Video Posting in Blogger

2010-12-02T13:40:00.000-08:00

Just as another quick update concerning our group project, I figured something out that I really wanted to know how to do.

Normally, when I just want to embed a video from YouTube, I grab the embed code, and then insert it into the "Edit HTML" section of the blog editor. However, sometimes the video is too big, and actually goes outside the blog post, which always looks really tacky. I had this problem again when trying to add a post to our group's Backpack 2.0 blog website. I wanted to embed a video in one of my posts (namely my post about Dropbox) and the video was always too wide, and looked really bad on the website.
However, I did some experimentation, and found out how to shrink the movie to fit the blog! In the embed code, there is a place at the beginning that determines the height and width of the video box, AND there is a place at the end of the embed code that determines the width and the height of the box. If you go in and change those heights and widths to smaller values, you get a smaller video window.

Here's an example of a video without doing the height and width change:

And here it is again with the height and width changed:

Ouila! Much better!

Education 2.0 and our Digital Tool Sites

2010-12-02T13:23:00.000-08:00

When we talk about Education 2.0, our final project falls perfectly into this topic. Education used to be going to class, reading your textbook, doing assignments, and then taking tests, with the final result being a diploma or a degree. How much does that degree really mean in our world today? Yes, it does usually give you a higher salary, but what does it have to do with your abilities? Does it mean that you are proficient in the field you studied?

The fact is, having a degree doesn't mean that you know everything in your given field. What it means, (hopefully), is that you have learned how to learn, and that you can continue your own education outside of the classroom by your own motivation. Does the schooling we receive nowadays help us accomplish that? Hopefully, but I'm afraid that there are still many classes across the country, and around the world, that are still stuck in the traditional form of classrooms.

This is why you HAVE to take your own education into your own hands. You need to become proficient in your field, AND you need to learn how you can continue to learn throughout your life. Without the ability of continuing your own education, you will be left behind in this rapidly changing world.

Enter: Our group's final project. The tools that we are organizing on our blog and wiki sites are there as a source for others to continue their education on their own through the many wonderful tools available online. Without being able to consume (intaking useful and usable information through use of the internet), create (adding new, and noteworthy contributions to the internet), and connect (making connections with others in your given field so that you can continue to learn and collaborate with others throughout your life), you will never be able to truly be a help to your given field, or to the world in general.
We are hoping that these websites will eventually help others to learn many of the wonderful tools that we have learned to use in this class. We are hoping that they will also give others the ability to contribute the tools they have found useful to our sites, so that this project can be ongoing.

Web 2.0: Collaboration of Billions of People

2010-11-30T21:01:00.000-08:00

The reason why Web 2.0 is becoming such a popular phrase in our day and age is because there has never been this many users of the internet all at once since the internet was born. And that number continues to grow. It allows BILLIONS of people to collaborate on projects, connect with each other, consume information, and create all kinds of new "stuff" for people to look at, play with, and remix. The Web really hasn't changed, it's the fact that the way we are using it has been expanded, because, with BILLIONS of people, come TRILLIONS of ideas.
Hence, the reason why our group is working on creating a couple different websites where people can go to find useful tools to help them Consume, Create, and Connect in our digital world.
As I've been working on our Wiki site (Which, by the way is found here: http://backpack2.wikispaces.com/), I have started to become familiar with a bunch of tools. First of all, wikispaces has become a huge tool in bringing this all together. It is really quite an easy way to design a basic website, and I've never worked with ANY web page designing tools, so it has been a lot of fun. Second, I found a cool website that will quickly create a jpeg logo for your website or company, which I used to create our Backpack2.0 logo on the wiki site. Check out the Logo Maker at http://cooltext.com/. Third, I've never worked collaboratively on a project mostly online, and it has been a new, and interesting experience. A lot of E-mails, and a lot of work on Google Documents is bringing this all together. Hopefully this all turns out looking great for the presentations next week! :)

A Model for Future Classrooms?

2010-11-18T07:17:00.000-08:00

For those of you who read my blog, I mostly do this for an assignment that I have in my History class (Digital Civilization, Honors 202 course at BYU.) We have been studying history from about 1400 AD to the present day, and then linking it to the effect that modern Media and the Internet have changed the world we live in now. It has been a wonderful, and challenging, class to be a part of.
I have also seen it become a model of what classrooms in the future might be like. Our teachers Dr. Gideon Burton and Dr. Daniel Zappala have focused a lot on "Self-Directed Learning". I see this as a direct result of Media Theory. The fact that electronic and mass media are so readily available at our fingertips with television and the internet is changing the very way we learn. Going to college is not the only way we learn anymore. Books are becoming less and less authoritative. The fact is, because information and ideas change so quickly in the world we live in, we need a medium that can keep up, and that is where Self-Directed learning becomes so important. WE have to take the initiative to go out there into the "mass media" that we have available to us, and be able to intelligently search for the wonderful information that is available to us on every topic.
This class has been a great model for what is available to us, and how classrooms in the future might function. As we have learned how to blog, search other blogs, use tools like Diigo, Prezi, and Slideshare, and the many other tools available out there, it has opened my eyes to the world of Education 2.0. The fact is, in today's world, YOU are responsible for your learning. It is not enough just to go to the classroom anymore.

This is one of the major reasons I am in the Digital Scholarship Wiki group. We are trying to make a user friendly website that people can go to to learn about the different tools available to them out there. Hopefully it will be beneficial to all who visit our website when we are finished.

Aviation

2010-11-16T13:56:00.000-08:00

Do we realize how amazing flight is? Or, like many other of the technologies we have today, do we just take it for granted and even complain about it at times?

Here's a quick timeline of some of the major developments of aviation in history:

December 17th, 1903--Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully make the first powered flight with the flying machine they had built, in Dayton, Ohio. Wilbur made the best sustained flight of the day, covering 852 feet of ground in 59 seconds.

(Here's a blog about a documentary on Orville and Wilbur Wright)

World War I

1919

End of World War II--In 1942, Adolf Galland of Germany flew a prototype of one of the worlds first jet engine propelled airplanes. The invention of the jet engine came too late to effect the outcome of the war, but its impact on the future of airplanes was immense.

Computers--As computers enter the scene of flight, more sophisticated airplanes and control towers develop, and commercial and private flying become widespread. Today, airplanes make the world a smaller place, giving us the ability to be on the other side of the world within 24 hours. Isn't it wonderful?

Real life application!!

2010-11-13T10:51:00.000-08:00

So, in light of talking about passwords the other day, today I had a very unpleasant surprise. I got on my computer this morning, after a wonderful Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting, and tried to log into my E-mail. What I got instead was a message from Google saying I had had some suspicious activity on my account, and that I needed to type in a phone number for them to send me a verification text message. I did this, and then the account had me change my password. When I got on my Gmail account, I found an interesting E-mail that had been attempted to be sent, that I never sent. It only had a link to a website, and I deleted it immediately, because I'm pretty sure it was something malicious. Luckily Gmail had actually stopped those E-mails from being sent, and had shut down my account. This was why my Gmail was not immediately logging in, and why my blog was down earlier this morning. What it looks like is someone hacked into my E-mail in order to send something scary to my contacts. This was very troublesome, so I took the time this morning to go through and change my passwords on many different websites. Hopefully this won't happen again. :)

It just reaffirmed to me that Dr. Zapala knows what he is talking about, and that it's a good idea to have different passwords, and to change them often. It is frightening what people can do through the internet with malicious intentions, but it is also one of the most wonderful tools we have nowadays. Just be careful out there.

The Blog of Rhett Ferrin

2010-11-12T23:26:00.000-08:00

As part of our midterm evaluation, we are supposed to do a review of another student's blog, and I was assigned to look at Rhett's blog. All in all, he does an amazing job of accomplishing all of the course outcomes. He has amazing posts that show he really reads and understands the historical concepts that our presented in class. He definitely understands the computer concepts that we are studying in class, and ties them together with the historical concepts in his blog posts.
The most impressive part about Rhett's blog is his self-directed learning. He takes the concepts of each class period, and does an extensive amount of research on his own, to be able to post very scholarly articles on the topics at hand. He does a wonderful job of combining pictures, videos, and scholastic information to help the reader gain a great and deep understanding of specific historical concepts. Take a look at his post on Fusion Vs. Fission as an example; by the time you are done reading Rhett's posts, you have gained a greater understanding of the topic he posts about.
For improvement, I think two things could be done:
1. Rhett could do a few more digital literacy labs, and try a few different blog post types. I think this would give a little more variety to the kinds of posts that Rhett has. Although Rhett has fantastic posts, I would like to see more of a variety.
2. Rhett could also give us some more of his own thoughts. I would like to see him write a post of what he thinks and feels, as opposed to his frequent articles that focus on scholarship. His scholarly posts are wonderful, but again, I think it would be nice to see a little more variety.
As far as the course outcomes go, I think Rhett is doing an excellent job, and I think his blog is one of my favorites to read.

Reflections on life...and my Digital Civilization Class

2010-11-12T22:47:00.000-08:00

This semester has been crazy. It's my first semester as a married student. I'm working two jobs, with a total of around 30 hours a week. I'm trying to spend time with my wife and both our families. I'm serving as the Ward Mission leader in my ward. We live in Springville, and haven't had a car, so we have been taking the bus, which takes longer than driving. And on top of all of this, I'm taking 16 credits here at BYU and trying to keep my head above water. It's been rough. But I've been doing alright.
Having said all that, this class has probably taken up the bulk of my time to do homework. I think I work on this class more than any other class I'm taking. The only one that is close behind it is my Linear Algebra class, which also takes up a considerable amount of my time. So, all in all, I have been doing my best to keep up with this class, and learn all I can, and it has been a very difficult, but wonderful experience. I really have learned a lot, and it has stretched me more digitally than any other class I have ever had.
Lately I have been trying to focus on connecting to other blogs within our class, and building off of others' ideas. I have also been trying different blog types, such as my Rant, or the fact that I have figured out how to embed videos in my blog and have been using this as a wonderful tool.
The best part has been the learning in this class. I have loved reading the assigned readings, and using them as a catapult into the digital sea of information. Understanding the historical concepts has taken on a whole new meaning, because I get to find more information on my own on each historical event, person, or period of time. The computing concepts have also been a wonderful thing to study along with the historical concepts, giving me a completely different view of history, and of todays computers. Diigo has become one of my favorite tools, giving me the ability to see what others have found on the class topics. I have also started to love Google Reader, which gives me a tool where I can see things happening all over the internet in one place. As I have grown better and better at my self-directed learning, it is becoming quite enjoyable, and I love being able to connect to things that you would never connect to in a normal class.
Although I may not be the best blogger in the class, or the most involved, I have done the best I can, and I have kept up with the reading and the blogging. It has been a wonderful class experience, and I have learned so very much.

Diigo and a Movie Review: The Atomic Age

2010-11-11T11:44:00.000-08:00

Normally, I have been using Diigo in order to show that I am doing outside researching other than the materials that we are given to read as a class. But I thought this probably wasn't the best or only use of Diigo. I don't know how many of you actually look at the bookmarks that others in our class put on Diigo, but I found it quite wonderful to just look at the information that others had posted about the Atomic Age on Diigo recently. It led me to a great overview of a bunch of different topics in the Atomic Age. I would recommend that others use it as a tool to finding information about the topics in class.

For my blog today, I felt it would be good to do something different, and do a Movie Review of an older movie titled, "Above and Beyond" from 1952.

"Above and Beyond" is the Hollywood version of the story of Colonel Paul Tibbets, who was the pilot of the B-29 bomber that dropped the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima. (Here's a great blog about Col. Tibbets) "Above and Beyond" gives us an interesting glimpse into more of the personal life of Colonel Tibbets. Imagine being married and having a family, getting called to do a job that would take you away from your family months at a time, and you couldn't tell your wife or kids ANYTHING about what you were doing. It creates great anxiety and tension within Col. Tibbets' family, and puts a huge strain on Col. Tibbets himself. On top of all of this, Col. Tibbets also has to struggle with the fact that he will be killing THOUSANDS of people by dropping this bomb over Hiroshima. Having a family of his own, Col. Tibbets struggles greatly with realizing he will be killing families just like his own, in order to stop the war and save MILLIONS of lives. The personal story of Col. Tibbets comes to life in this film, which gives you a very different, and personal view of war. I would give the movie 7 out of 10 stars for portraying the reality of the brutality and emotional strain of war, and for the wonderful character development of Col. Tibbets and his family.

The Atomic Age, in a way, has focused more on people collectively, rather than the individual. The thing I love about this movie is that it focuses on individuals, and the interactions among them. In today's world, as a result of the Atomic Age, and of the internet, there are many times that we focus on people in general, and how PEOPLE act. However, I think it is also important that we realize that we are also all individuals, and each one of us is important. This is where our Father in Heaven, and Jesus Christ, are great models for us. They care about people collectively, but they also know, and care about, each of us INDIVIDUALLY. It is important, then, that we care about people collectively, but also care about each other individually. We need both in our lives to stay balanced.