Patterns of Hypertext 10/29/04 - Article by Mark Bernstein
Patterns of Hypertext is a clear, concise summary of structures found in hypertexts. The stated purpose of the article is to provide terms for patterns currently found in order to enable and foster discussion of structure in hypertexts. I read it for exactly that purpose, and it did well enough that I've taken notes to come back to later in other projects. Patterns seems to be a touchstone for much later work on narrative, pedagogy, and design in the field.
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Structural terminology is important to hypertext
Patterns
We can't visualize these yet
Hypertext Now: Span of Attention 9/16/04 - Article by Mark Bernstein
I think this made some good points, but I couldn't get through it... I kept getting distracted. (kidding) Briefly: when critics complain that current (visual or digital) media are debasing our storytelling talents with 30 minute episodes or sound-bites or music videos, they're conflating a few issues and not really giving the authors (or we readers) proper credit for the epic narratives that are out there.
I think an enduring point the article makes is that a short presentation format does not equal a short narrative, either for the author or the reader. If we can be swept up in the multi-year arc of Babylon 5, or Hill Street Blues, or Buffy the Vampire Slayer despite receiving those stories in 40-minute segments, then perhaps we're getting ready for sweeping literary or multimedia arcs composed of short disconnected segments. Readers are keeping up (or expanding) the skills necessary to perceive and maintain large narratives over many small 'readings'.
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Do web texts work like Babylon 5?
Large stories from small scattered texts
Isn't a DVD boxed set a single text?
We're developing our skills, really.
Discover Magazine: What Remains to Be Written? 12/28/05 - Article by Discover Editors
In the 25th Anniversary issue of Discover (Oct. 2005) there's a neat article in the reviews section asking scientists whether there are any science books that remain to be written, and what uncharted territory they (the scientists) would cover in the book.
Vera Rubin, astronomer and Senior Fellow in the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie institution of Washington had this to say, and I love it:
I would like to see a multilevel book, written for toddlers, schoolchildren, college students, and adults, that would look at the world around us and answer questions that youngsters may or may not ask as a day progresses. ... Each page off a tall book might have four sections, top to bottom, with the first answer being for the child, the second answer for those a little older, the third a "scientific explanation," and the final one a philosophical discussion of pertinent concepts like forces or brains or animals. Alternatively, there could be four pages per question, each page hidden behind the first...."
I read this just as I was hitting the midpoint of Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age (more on that soon), and the convergence was frustrating. Exhilirating, too, but 'frustrating' because this multilinearity would be so easy to do, so valuable, and yet it really isn't done. For lack of a better term, I'm going to call it 'tiered engagement' and attempt a definition.
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Tiered Engagement
Print Challenges for Tiered Engagement
Hypertextual Advantages for a Tiered Textbook
Where is it?
Citation
Blogs and social networks and wikis, oh my! 5/18/05 - Article by Joshua Jaffe
An article in CNet looks at how corporations are beginning to adopt easy web-publishing tools in their businesses... and how they're not. The article almost avoids clueless sensationalism.
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Why now with blogs and wikis?
Syndication decentralizes
Sidenote: Emergent Structure
Lindsay's Story: Hypertext and Liberation in High School 9/17/04 - Article by Pamela Taylor
I love this article. That's not in the past tense for a reason-- I know I'll be coming back to this article as I have every time I'm in need of a boost of enthusiasm about hypertext. In the article, Pamela G. Taylor tells about how concept mapping and writing within Storyspace enabled a student to find her voice, to get a sense of her own authority and agency in a school that had largely encouraged passivity, and to connect her studies and her life by seeing how the ways that she thought for each corresponded and connected.
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Thoughts don't always fit
One voice of many
Good tech practice in the classroom
