Re: text/web, push/pull

diane celia hodges (dchodges who-is-at interchg.ubc.ca)
Sun, 28 Sep 1997 16:39:50 -0700

Jay Lemke writes:
>
>So, a couple further steps:
> The FAQs initially would be those the Authors thought of, but one could
>have a Form on the webpage for students to submit their own questions, and
>then a form for others (Authors, other students) to submit links to places
>where _those_ answers might be found. (Of course one could also just submit
>answers, but I want to stay with the original spirit of the approach.)

doesn't this approach merely re-center the textbook as the authoritative source?
what happens to questions that question the value of the textbook as a
source for information? where in this configuration is there room for
critique of the text?

it reminds me of the hopeless loop in hypertext sites, where any deviation
from the "pushiness" of the author's text merely brings you, irrevocably,
back to the author's stance. In my experience, hypetext sites tend to
eclipse interaction, rather than enhance it.

> Break the textbook content up into hypertext units (bite-sized
>topic-centered chunks), interlink these with hypertext cross-references,
>and include links to the FAQs pages. Doing this may tend to alleviate the
>'pushiness' of the textbook and make it an domain in which students can
>explore, following their own lines of inquiry, as well as proceeding, if
>they wish to, along the garden paths suggested by the Authors.
>
>The textbook of the future? JAY.

To bastardize Stein, a textbook is a textbook is a textbook. In the
preferred jargon of this site, it is an institutionalized artifact which
relentlessly forecloses interaction and critique.

diane