You might think that coloured pencils would enhance the 35 cent laptop but you'd be wrong. Colour subverts the task. Instead of thinking about content, by using colour we start thinking about design, and only a very limited aspect of design. Just as beginning writers overestimate the readers desire for "language" when their readers really want information and detail, beginning computer users think that their audience wants design when they really want content. Content has always been king. It is not about the font, the colour, or the layout, it's about the information, the meaning. The message.
So don't give the kids the coloured pencils, get them to focus on the ideas, the content.
Nabokov's synesthesia meant that his letters were already coloured in his mind. I'm not sure if this was a help or a hindrance.
ReplyDelete