An S.O.S. To the World
Sting: Mum, I don’t want to be called "Gordon" anymore.
Mrs. Sumner: Wot’s wrong wiv "Gordon?"
Sting: Nuffink’s wrong wiv it. I’ve got a new name, is all.
Mrs. Sumner: Oh yeah? How’s at?
Sting: I want you should call me "Sting" now, mum.
Mrs. Sumner: "Sting?" Loik a bee’s arse?
Sting: No, not a bee’s arse. Just "Sting."
Mrs. Sumner: Ooh. . .wait’ll your da ‘ears about this.
—Adapted from an improvised comedy bit a friend of mine came up with. Sorry for the poorly transcribed accents; I think Sting and his mum oscillate between Cockney and Scottish at different points throughout.
File the following under the "nothing new under the sun" category:
- 1970, the Software exhibition. Part art show, part technology convention. Theodor Nelson exhibited the first publicly accessible hypertext, in the form of? A catalog of short texts. The user linked to other texts by typing in codes marked with asterisk connected to linking terms. At the end of the exhibit, the user could get a hard copy of the text they had created through browsing. The name of the catalog? Labyrinth.
- Nelson also wrote an article about Computer Aided Instruction and the dangers of blindly implementing CAI along the lines of other educational models. Nelson saw great danger in the teacher’s role as the official dispenser of knowledge rather than letting sudents explore how they chose. Further, Nelson condemned the division of information/knowledge into taxonomied "subjects" that created a sense of boundaries between bodies of knowledge.
- Nelson (what I’ve read so far) doesn’t address the question of personal experience, but it’s easy to see how it fits in here. Traditional models of pedagogy/composition (I’m starting to be confused over where the boundary [ah!] exists between the two. If it exists.) encourage "objectivity"–another division between the student and his object of study.
- As Nelson explains, hypertext can work to break down these boundaries by encouraging idiosyncratic connections between subjects. So hypertext is not only a compositional theory (how to connect ideas through text) but also a pedagogical one (how to recognize and manipulate those links). I’m starting to see how the mystory works as new media now.
A question: Which came first, pedagogy or rhetoric? Did rhetoric arise as a field of study because it was an effective way to teach? Or did pedagogy develop as people wanted to learn to use rhetoric more effectively? Are these in fact the same question just reworded?
The potential of hypertext: http://www.tiddlywiki.com. A "reusable, non-linear, personal web notebook." It acts like a merger of wiki and everything2.com–you add tiddles as necessary, make links, explore. Stupidly easy, with great potential. It all gets stored in one html file, so it’s portable too.
