A Primer for the Student of Digital Media

A Primer for the Student of Electronic Media 1

Running head: A PRIMER FOR THE STUDENT OF DIGITAL MEDIA

A Primer for the Student of Digital Media

Shane Tilton

Ohio University of Zanesville1425 Newark Road

Zanesville, OH 43701(740) [email protected]

for consideration of the

2006 BEA Conference in the Debut Category

in the Interest Division of

Courses, Curriculum, and Administration.

This presentation requires a computer hooked up to aprojector.


Abstract

Six years ago, Rick Shriver wrote “A Primer for the Student

of Electronic Media”, which showed new students entering the

field of digital media how to survive and thrive in the

competitive marketplace that the field of electronic media

has become. This paper will seek to inform students wanting

to work in the digital media industry. Currently, the field

of digital media is in the same place that the field of

electronic media was in twenty years ago, in terms of

acceptance by society and the people working in the

industry. To help new students who want to enter this field,

this paper will look at the issues that affect the

discipline of digital media. This paper will also look at

the different ways of viewing digital media and digital

manipulation. In addition, this paper will look at

communication theory and will apply it to the digital arena

of communication and this “new era” of the media. Students

in the first week of the “Introduction to Digital Media”

class are the primary audience of this paper.


A Primer for the Student of Digital Media

About ten years ago, many of the books used in the

introduction class of electronic media/telecommunications

discussed the future impact of digital media the field of

electronic media (Dominick, Sherman & Copeland, 1993). While

the textbooks have slowly reflected the changes in the

field, the academic community and the general public have

adapted to onslaught of new technologies and new media.

“Traditional electronic media” education is now experiencing

this force. Digital media, defined as the method of

delivering information from point to point through the

encoding and decoding of the information through a computer,

could be in the form of a webpage, streaming video, mp3,

flash document, digital photography and even a computer

game. These leads to two distinct styles in this field;

interactive and delivered (Kraidy, 2002).

The interactive media has two distinct traits: a

customized experience and non-linear storytelling. The

customized experience allows the viewer to expand from the

role as a “semi-passive” viewer to an active user of the


multimedia. It also allows the user to encounter elements of

the performance that others using the same media would not

experience (Swiss & Hanna, 2004). In contrast, the non-

linear storyteller role of interactive media, allows the

user to go through all or some of the plot points of the

storyline at the pace that the client wishes. For example,

if the user is in an interactive version of “Little Red

Riding Hood”, they could run straight to grandmother’s house

without interacting with the wolf. However, the designer

would create consequences that the user would experience

(e.g. the wolf would eat both the grandmother and Red). The

user’s reaction to the story dictates how to construct the

story (Kehoe, N.D.).

The delivered version of digital media would also

qualify as an accessible version of the media. This

programming is not any different from the programming found

on television or radio. What makes this media different is

how it is encoded, transmitted and distributed. Before the

popularity of the VCR, the only way to watch a program was

to sit in front of the television when the program was


scheduled. The use of delivered digital media allows a user

to access to almost any program the user wants. The user

could either record the program digitally or pay somebody

for the rights to digitally store the program on a computer

or other storage device. The user could then access the

program anywhere. (Landau, 2002).

Walter Benjamin, a famous writer and theorist, once

wrote that “in principle a work of art has always been

reproducible” (Benjamin, 2001, p. 49). The level of

replication has always varied between the different eras of

society. In the Stone Age, an artist had to see a painting

and try to repeat it from memory. The Bronze Age allowed for

simple stamping of paintings and repeatable etchings in

metal. The printing press allowed words to escape the

confines of the writer to the waiting eyes of an audience.

The digital media allows for a further breakdown of

barriers. Time, space, even language is no longer blocking

spectators. They can enjoy programming and experiences from

other parts of the world. Therefore, not only can these


“works of art” be reproduced, they can also be translated

for a wider audience.

As students of the media, one should recognize that

this new media allows for easier access and a unique

experience for each user. This new method of communication

presents options that would not have been present in the

“structurally limited” society of the past and can help

society become “more equitable” (Poster, 2001, p. 611).

Webpages can now feature more than text and some basic

pictures. They can also exhibit video and audio elements and

enhanced graphics. By allowing more avenues of presentation,

the creator can express him or herself in ways that were

impossible with just text.

While not seeking to answer all of the questions and

issues associated with the realm of digital media, this

paper will show how the beginning student can explore this

domain. To understand how digital media effects society,

three points should be addressed. The first point is how our

discipline relates to other schools of thought in the

liberal arts tradition. The second being how the mass


audience views the digital media. The third is the future of

digital media and how those future developments could affect

society.

The first point goes back to the key question of the

student: “why should I attend college?” If all it takes to

be successful in the field of digital media is a good

computer, the right programming, and basic understanding of

design or technique why bother “wasting” two to five years

and thousands of dollars to get a degree? This is a fair

question and is maybe one of the few frequently asked

questions that gets the instructor to give a “rah, rah

school” speech to the student asking. One of the key points

to stress when answering this inquiry is to explain that the

school or university allows the student to experiment and

explore all of the careers in the field.

It is very easy to talk statistics about the current

working conditions of the economy. In a lifetime, the

average person will work seven jobs in three different

fields. However, it is also important to note why a person

would change their occupation. Beside the obvious reason of


being laid-off, people find they no longer like what they

are doing (Lehoczky. 2004). Without a good post-secondary

education, that person who hates their job would be less

likely to have the knowledge to earn a career in another

field or have the necessary connections to find a new job.

With a liberal arts education, students will find themselves

better prepared to handle “the real world”. Students will

have the tools to adapt and survive in the changing work

environment. They will be able to network and find the

connection to get a new job. This leads to the second reason

for students to remain in school and receive a degree: the

university setting is “practice for real world interaction”.

It may sound cliché, but the university is a microcosm

of the current social environment. The liberal arts

education will require the student, at one time or another,

to work in a group setting to finish a project. Group work

forces the students involved in the process to interact with

other personality types. It also requires trusting the other

members of the group to complete the parts of the assignment

and trusting that they have the necessary skills to finish


their requested takes. Success or failure on the project

depends on the exchanges between the members of the group

(Shriver, 1999, p. 4).

Finally, it is important to find out about the other

disciplines in the college. Very rarely will a digital media

project’s topic be the digital media industry. It is common

to work on a webpage for one industry (e.g. health-care

provider) one week, and then the next week work on a digital

design project for another industry. To help survive the

flux that the digital designer and producer can go through,

it is important to not only have a basic understanding of

all of the aspects of a liberal arts education, but also how

the disciplines in a university connects to the digital

media industry.

Digital Media’s Connections to Other Disciplines

Students should not only focus on the digital media

field at the university, but they should also focus on

disciplines that closely relate to the line of work that


they want to pursue. For example, if a student is interested

in being a web page designer, he or she should study

elements of design from the fine arts school. If the student

is interested in producing video for the web, the

conventions of good video production should be learned. All

students interested in digital media should take some

computer science classes. Beside the fact that most, if not

all, work that the student will create will be in front of a

computer, a student should have a basic understanding of the

hardware, software and language because he or she will be

“expected” to help out with computer problems. Often in the

private sector, the author was the only one with previous

computer experience at the workplace. Computer science will

help explain some of the interworkings involved in producing

digital media and web ready content. While the average

graphical interface allows the designer to produce the

necessary product, one should have a basic understanding on

how that interface works, to help make the process concrete

in the designers mind. It is similar to having a basic

mechanical understand of a car before one drives. Just in


case anything goes wrong on the road, the driver may not

know exactly how to fix it, but he or she will know what

part of the car is broken. Although knowledge in these

disciplines is the foundation in the student’s experience in

college, the other classes that students take, despite the

fact that seem to have no purpose in the real world, can

help the student out later on in life.

Perhaps the best connection outside the fields of

production is one of the disciplines that parallels

electronic and digital media, the theatre. Brenda Laurel, a

researcher in the field of computer games and computer

interfaces, discusses in her book “Computers as Theatre” the

similarities between designing a multimedia project and

directing a play:

“Part of the technical “magic” that supports the performance is embodied in the scenery and objectson the stage (windows that open and close; teacupsthat break); the rest happens in the backstage and“wing areas (where scenery is supported, curtains are opened and closed, and sound effects are produced), the “loft” area above the stage, which accommodates lighting instruments and backdrops orset pieces that can be raised and lowered, and thelighting booth, which is usually above the audience at the back of the auditorium. The magic


is created by both people and machines, but who, what, and where they are do not matter to the audience” (Laurel, 2001, p. 109-110).

Theatre promotes the separation of the performance and the

support elements, much as digital media design does. A

designer in both the digital media and theatre want the

audience to focus solely on the performance and ignore the

background production. The difference between the two in

this comparison is the idea that the members of the digital

media audience can walk on the stage and participate in the

play. By learning techniques in set design and performance,

a student can take those techniques and apply them to her or

his digital multimedia design. A theatre influence is

evident in Macromedia’s Flash and Director programs. The

different assets for the projects are placed on the “stage”

and the “timeline” of the project dictate when the elements

should act.

English, in all of its forms and functions, is also an

essential academic discipline that connects well with the

field. Creative writing teaches the undergraduate plot

development and character sketching. Both skills improve


multimedia performances with the ability to tell good

stories. Critical analysis classes can teach how to look

beyond the surface of a story, performance or any media

presentation and look for some deeper significance to the

piece. English allows the students to understand the

importance of story telling and the structure of how to tell

a story can relate to the filming of digital video and

telling a streaming audio story through a blog or

journalistic web site.

Arguably, the subject that most students in the field

of media hate is mathematics. Math exists in all facets of

everyday life. Students will deal in mathematical figures in

the industry more than would like to believe. As mentioned

earlier in the paper, a basic understanding of computer

science is a necessity to survive in the field. Computer

science requires a fair background of math. Math is also

required in the production aspects of the industry.

“Calculating budgets, timing sequences, filing expense

reports, converting seconds to frames, figuring mark-ups and


discounts, or separating the lunch check; they all require

mathematics” (Shriver, 1999, p. 17).

Views on the Digital Media

As more film and television production go digital, the

demand for training personal in not only non-linear media

editing (e.g. Adobe Premier, Final Cut Pro, Cool Edit Pro)

will increase, but people who are trained in digital imaging

(e.g. Macromedia Flash) will be needed. A current example of

both parts is the film “Sky Captain and the World of

Tomorrow”. The production crew not only consisted of

traditional videographers to capture the film digitally but

also digital animators who added the backgrounds to the film

and added the special effects. The process started with the

actors standing in front of a blue screen and adding the

effects and backgrounds later for the test shots (Fenny,

2004, p. 86). The film is a combination of the live action

and digital animation to create a new type of film that

seems to leap from a comic book – all created by talented

people with experience in digital media.


The internet is the birthplace of the digital media

development. It is now the epicenter for that genre. From a

business standpoint, it is important to present a well-

thought out message with the visual and audio elements to

support that message. A good web presentation can sell a

product, idea or service. The visual image, therefore, is

the company and how the public perceives the company. A good

graphic designer or web designer is the virtual spokesperson

for the organization they represent.

Other academic disciplines view the digital media field

as a meta-field of study. It borrows from the older research

of cyber-textual studies and fine arts exploration and it

uses cultural and social science research methods in it

academic studies. It is currently trying to find a niche in

mainstream academic studies. As of right now, there are

eleven centers and organizations exploring digital and new

media (Silver, 2004, p. 55). There are also eleven academic

journals producing new research and new studies. The

professionals and professors in the field are not the only

ones leading research; graduate and undergraduate students


are producing an enormous amount of quality research papers

and projects. Research includes content analysis, cultural

studies and online interviews. However, there are ivy-coated

walls blocking the researchers and “the artists, activists

and technologists, not to mention those working in policy,

government, and industry”. The process of turning the field

of digital media from a meta-field of study to an academic

discipline is being stopped by the academics in the field

(Silver, 2004, p. 62). Digital media is a field consisting

of many different tools and creators. Therefore, the

multimedia presentations are diverse in nature. If one were

to observe all of the digital media productions, there would

be repeated patterns in the themes of the projects.

Digital Media as an Artistic Representation

Because the creative nature of the media, the creators

of the presentations apply an artistic slant on any project.

Each element of a multimedia project will “share a common

digital representation of information” (Wagmister & Burke,

2004). Those elements exist in the environment of the


performance and are connected by the theme and the message

of the endeavor. The principles and practices of each

individual medium ultimately separate those artistic

elements. When done well, the pieces of the overall

multimedia presentation can leap from the media and connect

with the audience.

Artists working in the media represent a new generation

that are now working towards their own definitions of how to

use the media and how it can define their existence. The

merger of the media allows artists to create worlds and

themes that could not have existed before the conception of

multimedia formats. Individual artists could work on the

individual medium pieces and have the final project put

together by another designer. As one artist put it “the

solitary, inspired author may be replaced by the de-centered

collector, the appropriation artist, the webmaster” (Jones,

2003, p. 2).

Perhaps, in a broader sense, it is important to place

the digital media in its correct contextual function in the

socio-economical structure of the communication mainstream.


Digital media and the grandparent of the medium,

photography, becomes a lens on the society. The visual

images presented in the ether of the information

superhighway allow the audience to experience events that

the user would not have access to or the expertise to find.

Therefore, the media is an extension of “the human nervous

system, particularly when coupled to electronic

distribution” (Hossani, 2003). It is the artists in the

field who shape the images, which are viewed by the unseen

masses. The multimedia experience becomes the canvas for the

artist to display their work.

The visual display has been the foundation of society

to advance beyond the caves and outdoor fires of the Stone

Age. The Sumerian and Egyptians used picture writing to

describe the events of the day. The language needed to be

simple in order for the populace to understand the meaning

of the drawings. Therefore, those pictures had a deeper

textual connotation beyond the simple illustration. While

most of the images and sounds used for multimedia production

and digital media lack the social understanding of those


Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic markings, those new elements of

media still present a text for the viewer to interpret.

The beauty of the digital media is that it expands the

vision of the artist. The presentation of the digital media

creates a shared social experience among the users that

encounter the production. It allows the user go beyond the

truth of the image, it permits the user to understand the

“relevant nature of the presentation”. A creator can simply

place the proper elements on the stage of the media and

allow a form of “interaction” between the presentation and

the user.

Two lines of thinking lead to the development of the

digital media. Much like its predecessor, photography, the

first line of its development is the mechanical nature of

the industry. The tools used in the field are an extension

of the dichotomy of humans’ attempt to apply the certainty

of mathematics for the purpose of mechanical reproduction,

and humans’ wanting to capture the “nature world” through

artist means. Both of the axes of this linear, concrete

method of communication strengthen the other axis. The


necessary force of the development in this field comes from

the push to advance both axes (Jones, 2003).

The second line of the thought is the creative push

that comes from the artists in the field. Without their

ability to push the tools of the trade to perform beyond

what was thought possible, the interest in those tools and

the whole field of digital media would not be as strong as

it is today. It is through this development that digital

media can maintain its artist nature by being available to a

general audience.

Digital Media as an Informative Statement

Cyberspace is the brave new world that has ships of

fools entering the docks every hour. It is through the

processes of vetting and outside sourcing that a story comes

out. The term story was chosen as opposed to the truth

because of the ability of the World Wide Web to tell many

different stories about one event. The truth normally lies

somewhere between the minutiae. Creative women and men can

use the digital media to report what is happening in their


areas. These reports can go beyond simple blogging, they can

be short flash movies, interactive web pages, or other

imaginative designs. It does not matter what format the

creator uses, the idea is to deliver the information that an

audience can understand. Users can then use upon this

knowledge and act upon it. They may choose to inform others

about the information. They may also choose to refute the

information by creating oppositional presentations.

In this era of computer-mediated communication (CMC),

the creator of digital media can dissect, trisect and

isolate the key issues of the day. It is through this

analysis that the “pure issues” can be explored. Similar to

the grammar used in any language, the issues of the day are

generative, transformational, and universal. The issues are

generative because of the almost “mad-lib” style of news

that comes from the world of the paparazzi and the political

arena. A sex scandal occurs and the reporter can fill in the

blank with the victim, the accuser and the type of crime.

The issues are transformational because they can force the

audience to judge the issue based on the “hidden” social


norms. These abstract rules can become the center point of

the story. The issues are universal because the stories can

exist in almost any country regardless of how “strict” the

country is.

Under normal circumstances before the digital media and

the realm of the modern internet, the news and information

were controlled by the elite news organizations. With the

advent of the modern internet, many of the once locked out

groups now have “free access” to a large audience (Herman &

Chomsky, 2001, p.280-281). CMC allows free flow of

information, but problems occur because there is so much

information on-line that it is hard to filter out the

useless and unnecessary, there are not enough resources to

properly maintain every website and people will tend to rely

on older established media as a guidepost. These may not be

causes for concern for the individual author as they

typically are not focused on the larger populace, but a

select group of people. This select group could be opinion

leaders that could feed the presentation to others.


Digital Media as a Reflective Mode

When dealing with the varied nature of digital media,

the idea of the creator seems to permeate the core of the

issue. By extension, the concept of identity and how one

defines their own existence is called into question. It is

very easy to change identities and create different “masks”

that suits the needs and desires of the creator and can be

presented to others via the Internet. The mask exists on two

levels; the cyber-handle (username) and the cyber-

personality (Stone, 2001). The username is the means of

identity that the cyber-community can recognize and uses to

create relationships. Cyber-personality is beyond the

typical self-awareness of inclusion to a social

organization. It is how the individual views her or his

world of existence in his or her own plot of the World Wide

Web. The use of digital media allows the creator a free

avenue of expression that may or may not reflect their real

world experiences.

A single person can exhibit several cyber-

personalities, similar to an artist going through a change


of style (e.g. “a blue period”). The difference is all of

these personalities can exist at the same time. One could

develop a retrospective of a single creator over several

cyber-personalities that took place over a year or two. One

cyber-personality could focus on the creator’s love for the

outdoors and her or his green ideology through a series of

multimedia journalistic pieces. Another could focus on the

creator’s interest in the modern gothic culture with a flash

movie on H.G. Lovecraft. Normally, those two choices of

interest are not placed together very easily to describe one

person. However, it can be done through the anonymity of the

Internet.

The idea of digital media as a reflective mode is

important on two counts. The first point is the idea of

self-reflection. People create images and cultural products

based on their perceptions of the world. People seek to

place importance on the filter they use to sort out their

world and use those filters in presentations. It is this

idea of self-projection that has led to the rise of

blogging. The other more subtle point to consider is the


idea of cultural reflection. Many researchers have discussed

cultural imperialism, the theory that one culture (e.g. the

United States of America) can overtake the natural

development of another culture (e.g. a “third-world”

country) through the bombardment of cultural products that

show that one culture is the “superior culture” and the

native culture is inferior. Other theorists (Sanes, 1996 &

Baudrillard, 1993) have argued that certain cultures take

the new media content presented to them and evolve it to

match the culture, thus the programming becomes

“transparent”. Because of how fast digital media and

multimedia presentations change, it would seem that cultures

can “mutate” the cultural works in cyber-space environment

to reflect what is happening in their society. The

individual artist-creators can best reflect what is

happening.

Reflection can take place over a long period of time.

These active decisions of style and presentation create a

series of “cultural precedents” that are accepted by the

community as whole and agreed to be “good design”. These


precedents are especially present in the realm of digital

media, were the technology and creativity allow the

presentation of information to occur in a clear and condense

state. The best example that shows this change is the design

of graphic basic websites. When the mass audience was

becoming exposed to the information superhighway for the

first time, many of the choices presented to the audience

were very “amateur” (e.g. neon colors for the text, no

consistency in the text selection, the picture chosen for

the web had no relation to any of the other material on the

page, etc., etc.). When WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You

Get) software was created for web design, many of the design

techniques used in traditional design could be used with out

worrying about how to code.

Another example of a cultural precedent is the concept

of “visual language”. Within this discursive formation, one

can place all of the scientific observations about design

(the best example of this is the Rule of Thirds). However,

where this form of representation is exhibited is the

methods of success that other designers have shown in other


medium and how that can be translated into the digital

media. It is also constituted in terms that are easily

understood and duplicated. After the creator has mastered

the literacy of design, she or he can then choose how

closely the “grammar” of the visual language is followed. It

is then that the creator turns the cultural reflections into

self-reflection.

The Future of Digital Media

Even the casual observer of the digital media can

notice some trends developing in the field. One of these

tendencies is towards digital archiving or the ability to

mediate content through the computer. The most popular

version of this was peer-to-peer networking or P2P. Examples

of this style of trading are BitTorent, KaZaa, Morpheus and

the previous incarnation of Napster. The idea was that a

user could rummage around for a song, picture or a video

with a large search engine designed to find the requested

media on other computers. Legal problems not withstanding,

there were two major problems with this method of gathering


media. The first one was that it is intrusive. In order to

use this system, one would have to agree to allow the

network to have access to the media store on one’s computer.

Therefore, the user would lose some privacy and give others

an opportunity to have access to the computer and plant

viruses and spy-ware. The second problem was that the search

engine only looked for specific types of files

(.mp3, .mov, .jpg, etc.). It did not allow for other forms

of digital media and multimedia production. Consequently,

new artists were left out of the sharing process and their

product would largely be ignored.

There is a new, centralized view of digital archiving.

At archive.org, it not only archives selected music and

videos, but it also archives whole websites. With their

“Wayback Machine”, they have created an ‘Internet library’

that allows people interested in how websites have evolved

to view older versions of websites. By giving access to

these cultural artifacts, people can understand how the

field has changed over the years and what techniques were

used to generate those cultural products. Through the


evaluation of these older web sites, we can learn more about

the direction the Internet culture has taken. (Kahle, 2004).

However, if the businesses involved in the production

of digital media want to continue to be viable and

profitable, the question of will be compensation for

creators of digital media products for their work will have

to be addressed. Two distinct lines of thoughts have emerged

regarding this question; expanded licensing vs. sweatshop.

The idea of expanded licensing comes in two forms. The first

right comes from the right to present. The creator can

present on the web and the audience can view the work for no

or minimal cost (www.sfwa.org, 2003). If they want to save

the work on their hard drive, they would have to pay a fee.

The project would then be “unlocked”. The person could not

save it on their hard drive because of electronic measures;

the creator could allow the person to save it though a

password and username system. If the audience member would

want to use the project and edit the content, they would

have to pay other license fee.


The idea of the sweatshop production is an extension of

the “starving artist”. One would produce many “low quality”

materials and sell them at a low price. There could be a

dozen of these creators selling their ware on one website.

It is a very simple way to display their talents. The

problem occurs because this method forces the artists to

produce in quantity and not quality. Therefore, their talent

might be wasted to make a few dollars. However, if there

were products the artist could use that would allow them to

easily go between projects without a lot of hassle, then

they could work on the quick projects and express themselves

on larger projects at the same time.

In order for digital media to evolve, software

companies will need to allow for open source development of

the tools of production, the software used to produce

digital media. First, by allowing third parties to have

access to the source code (the language used by programmers

to create programs) it allows for outside review of code.

This allows more people a chance to "debug" the software.

This free workspace can be rewarded by develop add-on that


will enhance the performance and usability of the software.

Another side benefit to open source is the influx of

interest in the field of digital media. Coders, people who

work on computer codes, may not necessary have artistic

talent but can still their own mark on the field.

The final trend that will affect digital media is a

trend that has repeated itself numerous times in the history

of communication technology. It is the idea that a new

medium will develop through the degradation and breakdown of

older forms of media. Some other media will supercede the

conglomeration of the Internet/home theatre/gaming system.

It may be hard to predict what form this media may take and

what hardware this new media will use. More likely than not

it will borrow content, formats and other established

conventions from the older media.

Conclusion

While the field of digital media has a “mysterium

stupendum” associated with it, there are clear paths laid

out for anybody interested in pursuing a career in this


field. In order to become a success in digital media, it is

important to know how to find and follow these roads. Making

contacts in the industry is the best advice for students

interested in this field. One of the best ways of doing this

is by attending college. College will allow students not

only to build up their knowledge and understanding of the

field, it will allow them to find alumni of the school who

are in the field. Professors, more likely than not, will

know industry professionals and put them in contact with

interested students.

In addition, there are many different ways to look at

the digital media industry. Digital media, much like its

established brethren, the electronic media, has many

different career paths and many different ways the cultural

products produced by the industry can be perceived. Digital

media can be translated, sorted, and redistributed into

numerous formats and avenue of allocation. This resortment

of data allows the digital media to become malleable to the

future creators. By seeing how their predecessors utilized

the cultural tools and materials of the time, the future


artists and architects will have a text to develop their own

talents.

Finally, it is important to note that no matter how

much training students have, there are going to be

situations that are beyond their control. No amount of

preparation can get them ready for all emergencies. It may

sound trite, but it is a necessary reminder. Students should

be told that, at least once they would fail at a part of a

project. That failure is a learning tool. By learning why

the method did not work, the students can correct the

mistake(s) and avoid it in the future. Failure is part of

the learning process. To quote Paul De Palma, an associate

professor of mathematics and computer science at Gonzaga

University: “no experts exist in the sense that we might

speak of an expect machinist, a master electrician, or an

experienced civil engineer. There are only those who are

relatively less ignorant” (De Palma, 2005, 74).


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