This reading contained many ideas about hypertext and like I have said in a previous blog, not all of them sink in. Certain things stand out to me that are of interest, I write them down and have a think about them. One point that got my attention was that ‘hypertext becomes experiential’. This might seem strange but I really like this word, EXPERIENTIAL. Meaning we don’t just absorb passively but we gain something from an experience.

‘Experiential learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience’

Landow explains in this reading that idolatry of the author is limited because the reader participates in the text and therefore multiple beginnings and endings are created. I see it like the reader being an editor and can create new meaning from the text by placing emphasis on the particular parts they want to make meaning from.

This sparked the thought in my mind about Barthes’ theory. Death of the Author.

“To give a text an Author” and assign a single, corresponding interpretation to it “is to impose a limit on that text.”

Hypertext’s physical function is allowing the user/reader to click on a highlighted text with their mouse and it will take them to another webpage, which may contain more text or images. The psychological function of hypertext is simply that it makes life easier for humankind. When I read often my mind will wander, some things that I read will sink in and some things won’t. The parts that sink in might spark an interest or an idea and unlike reading a book, with hypertext I can continue exploring that idea or thought in one click of a button.

When reading Nelson’s Literary Machine’s I pictured him as someone wanting to make the world a better place, to make it easier. This seems to be the same motivation that Douglas Engelbart had, he was the inventor of the computer mouse and developer of hypertext. Also Aaron Swartz who was involved in the development of RSS, Creative Commons and Reddit. Aaron’s goal was to make the sharing of information easier and make knowledge more accessible to the world.

So, rather than trying to understand the nerdy diagrams in this reading, one thing I took from it was the passion and motivation to move beyond the floppy disk (and thank God we did), to move into the world where offices become paperless and your thoughts and ideas you wrote on that fluro green post-it note this morning don’t get lost amongst the piles of rubbish on your desk.

‘Computers should bring simplification not complication’.  Ted Nelson

There is that old saying it’s not what you know it’s WHO you know. How do you get to know more people? Network. The definition of networking is ‘a supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interest’. Of course this is key in the media industry (although what you know is important too) the more contacts you have the more doors become open (or slightly ajar) for you. Blogging is a tool we as students can use to engage and explore this world of networking- online. In the reading Network Literacy: The New Path to Knowledge, Adrian describes network literacy is as much contributing to sharing the knowledge as it is to consume it. Network Literacy is about DOING, so as I didn’t have a Flickr account I decided I would get one and work out how to connect it to my blog like Adrian does. While having a look around the site I saw that Flickr Commons has two main objectives, one of which is:

‘To provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. (Then watch what happens when they do!)’

This ties in nicely with what Adrian was talking about.

Stay tuned for my Flickr debut.