POLL: Digital media v traditional media

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What percentage of your learning takes places via digital & traditional media?

Almost 100% of my learning takes place through traditional media
1
2%
75% or more is through traditional media
4
9%
50-75% traditional media
3
7%
I am a rare unicorn and it is a straight 50-50 split
7
16%
50-75% digitial media
9
20%
75% or more is through digital media
17
38%
Almost 100% of my learning takes place through digital media
4
9%
 
Total votes: 45

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POLL: Digital media v traditional media

Postby Bluepaint » Mon Aug 05, 2019 1:25 pm

How much of your learning takes place through digital media such as internet, apps, videos, MP3s etc and how much through more traditional media such as books, CDs, DVDs, courses with a physical component? For the purposes of this poll a tutor or other person who helps you practise your TL counts as digital if you meet online or write via email and traditional if you meet in person or correspond by letter. By the way, I would love someone to have a TL penpal, letter writing is completely lost on people these days!

Oh, and I am talking about resources you actually use. Not the 60 books you have that you never open. *cough*Bluepaint*cough*
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Re: POLL: Digital media v traditional media

Postby SCMT » Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:35 pm

I listed 50/50, but I'm not sure I understand the distinction between digital and traditional. I've got courses that have a book and MP3 audio component; I read a real print newspaper, but I read the online addition; I watch a TV show through a streaming service; I talk to a real live traditional tutor, but I do it through Skype. I use books and notebooks and pencils and a laptop and a phone.

Digital just seems like a more efficient delivery means to access the traditional.
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Re: POLL: Digital media v traditional media

Postby Bluepaint » Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:47 pm

Skype is digital.

The newspaper just break it down how often you use hardcopy v online.

Book + MP3 crossed my mind when I made the OP but to me it's traditional because a lot of the time you have to up load the MP3s from a cd. But count it as you wish. I suppose really a book + MP3s you get online would be 50/50. So it counts as one digital and one traditional. But I very much doubt it is your only resource so really it cancels out. Unless you do only use that one item in which case it's "I'm a unicorn".
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Re: POLL: Digital media v traditional media

Postby Bluepaint » Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:48 pm

Streaming service is digital too.
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Re: POLL: Digital media v traditional media

Postby aokoye » Mon Aug 05, 2019 2:59 pm

I had trouble answering this poll - I suspect I'm more 50-60 percent digital media. If I'm reading anything that isn't the news, I prefer hard copies. I also rarely use online tutors. That said I rip all of my CDs to my computer (or my NAS) because it's just not logical for me to use CDs when there are other options. I also don't have a DVD player that can connect to my TV and there's the whole region code thing. It's also significantly less expensive for me to rely on freely (and legally) available streaming media than to buy and ship DVDs from Germany, France, etc.

So yeah, in short - 95% of my reading is hard copy, 100% of my listening/watching is via some sort of digital media (I would categorize CDs and DVDs as digital media honestly but it's your poll), and most of the time if I'm talking with people in an L2 it's in person.
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Re: POLL: Digital media v traditional media

Postby rdearman » Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:08 pm

I would have put 100% if it wasn't for the odd paperback I read. So I put 75% +
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Re: POLL: Digital media v traditional media

Postby Heiopei » Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:16 pm

Without the internet, I think self-learning a language would be many times more difficult. There are so many good resources that you only have to look for. But sometimes I need a proper grammar book that I can work through from beginning to end.

For reading I also prefer actual books out of paper over digitalised ones.

Bluepaint mentioned Skype, which is a big deal. So for me it's around the 75% digital mark.
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Re: POLL: Digital media v traditional media

Postby Bluepaint » Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:45 pm

rdearman wrote:I would have put 100% if it wasn't for the odd paperback I read. So I put 75% +


Hence the 'almost' :-P

Btw everyone, you can change your answer in this poll if you need to.
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Re: POLL: Digital media v traditional media

Postby Speakeasy » Mon Aug 05, 2019 3:46 pm

I appreciate that mp3 sound files are “digitized” and fit Bluepaint’s definition of digital media. Nevertheless, I would be inclined to view all recorded sound files (Edison’s phonograph cylinders, 78 rpm shellac records, 33-1/3 microgroove LP vinyl records, magnetic wire, reel-to-reel magnetic tapes, audio cassettes, VHS tapes, Beta tapes, compact disks, DVDs, mp3 files, et cetera) as being on a continuum within the category of “traditional media”; that is, they are simply audio files which have been prepared for use in the oral/aural practice of learning a language. Thus, whether I digitize audio files from my collection of shellac or vinyl records, audio cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes, or CDs, or download similar files from the Yojik.eu website or elsewhere on the internet, I consider their use in mp3 format to be simply more convenient than other media. However, I do not consider playing these mp3 files on my Sony Walkman to be equivalent to using “digital media” such as the internet, cell-phone apps, YouTube, FluentU, Yabla, and the like.

So then, my preference is for (physically) printed media (books) accompanied by recorded sound files in mp3 format, most particularly up to the intermediate level of my language studies. Thereafter, I prefer intermediate textbooks from the 1950’s through the middle 1970’s because they contain … text … as opposed to a lot of blank space on the page which is interrupted mostly by multi-colour photographs of smiling, cheerful, attractive young adults who are going about their wonderful lives together and, oh yes, the odd sentence or two in the L2. In the intermediate-to-advance stages of my learning, I continue to prefer printed matter, mostly native materials, but also include audio/video input in the form of film, television, and what-have-you. Given my preferences, and considering that the huge struggle in learning a learning occurs in the initial stages, I chose “Almost 100% of my learning takes place through traditional”; however, I reiterate that, from my perspective, all recorded sound files, irrespective of the recording medium, are “traditional.” Um, er, meiner Meinung nach*.

*In my opinion.

EDITED:
Typos, of course.
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Re: POLL: Digital media v traditional media

Postby Kraut » Mon Aug 05, 2019 4:05 pm

In the eighties I had local AFN TV that was beamed to American barracks in my hometown. Later in the eighties I received analog satellite TV from Britain.
Also in the eighties I received language courses via medium wave radio
from French universities (Tele-enseignement Universitaire). I still have some cassette recordings that I made at the time.
All of this was not digital nor traditional.
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