A different vision of the web

by | Jan 12, 2009 | Blogging, Design, Engineering, Evolution, Good | Bad Design, Philosophy, Technology, Worth Reading

T. H. Nelson coined the word “hypertext” and more than anyone else, and much earlier than anyone else, truly understood how computing technology would change the text and print. One of my most treasured possession is a copy of his double-book (“Computer Lib: You Can and Must Understand Computers Now” and “Dream Machines: New Freedoms Through Computer Screens — a Minority Report”) that I bought from a garage sale back when I was a student at Illinois. These books in their choppy, “cut-n-past” and fragmented design seem to invite browsing (rather than reading) and in some strange way (at least it seems so in hindsight) foreshadow the kind of reading we do on the web today.

However, there is one significant way in which the web today is different from TH Nelson’s original idea.

A recent NYTimes article on Nelson (In Venting, a Computer Visionary Educates) says:

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, organized all the world’s content through a one-way mechanism of uniform source locators, or URLs. Lost in the process was Mr. Nelson’s two-way link concept that simultaneously pointed to the content in any two connected documents, protecting, he has argued in vain, the original intellectual lineage of any object.

One-way links can be easily broken, and there is no simple way to preserve authorship and credit, as was possible with a project called Xanadu that Mr. Nelson began in the 1960s. His two-way links might have avoided the Web’s tornado-like destruction of the economic value of the printed word, he has contended, by incorporating a system of micropayments.

Hmm… two way links, what a powerful idea. Trackbacks on blogs seems to serve some of that purpose but that is an add-on, not inherent in the design of the HTTP protocol.

A few randomly selected blog posts…

Handbook of TPCK

Handbook of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) for Educators, Edited by The AACTE Committee on Innovation and Technology
A Co-Publication of Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group and the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education

Buy it at Amazon.com (Now available!)

This handbook addresses the concept and implementation of technological pedagogical content knowledge — the knowledge and skills that teachers need in order to meaningfully integrate technology into instruction in specific content areas.

EPET @ SITE in New Orleans, the video

Sandra Sawaya has created a video from photographs taken during our recent sojourn to New Orleans for SITE2013. I think it captures a bit of what we did over there - lots of photos of food and friends, and some presentations. Enjoy.

Kenya sings India for Pangea Day

NYTimes technology columnist, David Pogue, has a recent blog entry about Pangea Day, a global film festival coming up in a few days. As he says in his note: Pangea Day endeavors to bring the world together and promote understanding and tolerance through film. Over...

TPACK Newsletter, Issue #15, March (Special Conference Issue) 2013

  TPACK Newsletter, Issue #15: March 2013 Special Spring 2013 Conference Issue Below please find a listing of TPACK-related papers/sessions that will be presented at the SITE conference in March in New Orleans, Louisiana; at the AERA annual meeting in April in...

E-Leadership & Teacher Development: New article

Mishra, P., Henriksen, D., Boltz, L. O., Richardson, C. (2015). E-Leadership and Teacher Development Using ICT. In R. Huang; Kinshuk; J. K. Price (Eds.). ICT in Education in Global Context: Comparative Reports of Innovations in K-12 Education. Berlin: Springer. pp....

A (Wheatstone) bridge to the past

A (Wheatstone) bridge to the past

This is a story of serendipity. Of how an out-of-the-blue email request, about an article I had written over two decades ago, led me to rediscovering authors, books and ideas that I had first encountered back in my high-school days in India and have been deeply...

Using AI to digitally clone myself (AKA creating a Puny-Punya)

Using AI to digitally clone myself (AKA creating a Puny-Punya)

Note: The photo-manipulated image of me holding my own head was created almost 20 years ago by Paul Kurf, a student in my learning by design, class! Image design & layout, Punya Ethan Mollick is a professor at Wharton and he has been doing some of the most...

Following up on lunar distance

A followup to my previous posting about the Italian kids calculating the distance to the moon using recordings from the Apollo Space program. As I read the story on the technology Review website, I came to the comments made by readers. One stuck out. This is what...

Reflecting on reflections (TE150)

The entire TE150 team joined together to make a presentation to the College today as a part of the Online Teaching and Learning Colloquia. These sessions are sponsored by the MA-APPC, Center for Teaching and Technology, and the Center for the Scholarship of Teaching....

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