I think everyone has put a lot of thought into all of the work. Although,
Joy, I couldn't get the lines to click, but I'm always doing something wrong
when it comes to computers.
I also want to thank Nancy for posting the web address at MSU. It is really
helpful. I'm wondering if those of you who are more literte than I in
modern things could help me think about some matters. (Glenn commented that
I apparently wrote the haiku in a linear sequence first. And he's right! I
find it very difficult to overcome fifty years of conditioning.) One of the
comments made on the web page which Nancy suggested was that hypertext
"blurs distinctions between reception and production". If that is so,
shouldn't hypertext allow for the reader to not only manipulate organization
but to also physically add comments or notes? In that case texts would
always be fluid, never ending, etc.
Another comment found on that web page was that hypertext makes "schemas
difficult to form; inferences difficult to make; and texts difficult to
reconstruct from partial memories". Now this may sound odd considering the
aside I made earlier, but is that necessarily a negative? Isn't the
difficulty of hypertext one of its charms? Obviously I have no clue. But
the two projects we've down so far have me very excited, if not confused. I
am seriously trying to consider how to add some ideas about hypertext in my
Theory of Communications course this fall.
Any comments you have would be most helpful. Thanks.
Bill W.
William Weiershauser
Iowa Wesleyan College
wweiersh@iwc.edu