The last minute nature of this post is indicative of my passive aggressive rebellion against the changes to the weekly course requirements. I understand the benefit of reading my fellow students’ posts and referencing them, creating links between the different MediaFactory sites like a big old spiderweb, but I really enjoyed writing about other things not specifically relevant to the subject. I’d rather be required to do this, than make links to other students blog and comment on how much I enjoy their writing style and suggest kindly that maybe they could include some more funny cat GIFs?

Having said that… I really enjoyed Louis’ response to the week 6 reading. The educational possibilities of hypertext are endlessly exciting, yet we have barely scratched the surface in uncovering and harnessing the power of the technology. I love the concept of the Titanic-esque classroom, IMAX theatres in schools and technology that allows for more experiential learning. The whole thing reminds me of The Magic Schoolbus, an educational TV show we watched in primary school that also had a game we got to play on floppy disk in the computer labs. What made the program so effective and addictive was the sense of competition and reward it presented, and the narrative continuation that allowed you to start at one point and make your way through to an end point, with effective stimulation throughout the process.

I agree with Apple that its quite bizarre to think that humans prefer an open-ended and ongoing conversation as opposed to closure. I can’t imagine enjoying a book that never ends, in the same way that most people would be turned off by a War and Peace-esque 600+ pager. Yet this is what hypertext provides us with, a mimicry of conversation and ongoing internal thoughts. Where is the limit? How many things can we focus on at once before we well and truly explode?

Gihan writes succinctly about the dangers of writing with a specific audience in mind, a task which is at times inevitable. I think it is important to think about why you are writing something, is it to gratify yourself or to be gratified by others? I have a diary that I jot down random thoughts and things that happen to me each day, but the thought of anybody reading this freaks me out more than anything. And yet everything else I write, I write with the notion of being gratified by a potential audience afterwards.