Contact:cdent@burningchrome.com
Dillon, A. (1996). Myths, misconceptions, and an alternative
perspective on information usage and the electronic medium. In
J.-F. Rouet et al. (Eds.) _Hypertext and cognition_ (p. 25-42).
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Below is taken from email message sent to E. Jacob in late April of
2001. It's part of a case of "here read this and tell me what you
think." The version below is slightly edited for errors.
-=-=-
Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 23:22:41 -0500 (EST)
From: cdent@burningchrome.com
To: ejacob@indiana.edu
Subject: Dillon's Myths, Misconceptions
While I haven't yet had time to read the Hypermedia as Educational
Technology article (I have to prepare for my 505 presenation tomorrow)
I did make a quick run through the Myths and Misconceptions article.
I'll take a stab at having a position and some comments. My thoughts
aren't fully formed at this point--my exposure to the literature thus
far is fairly limited. I'll say the following with the caveat that by
tomorrow I may have completely changed my mind.
I think Dillon and I reach similar conclusions by different paths. In
the end he implies hypertext could be a valuable tool but it must be
remembered that it is in fact a tool and its effectiveness is
measurable and should be measured and adjusted in an iterative
analytic process.
That's fine. I can agree with that.
I think, though, that his presentation of the myths is a response to
the hype of hypertext instead of the real experience. While he does
mention hypertext's ability to provide and organize context later in
the paper, his foremost gripe appears to be with the belief that
non-linear access is a good thing and that hypertext somehow
transcends the constraints created by paper (creating a universe of
glorious learning?).
I would put the focus elsewhere:
Hypertext as it is generally implemented, in the hands of experienced
users, can do a good job of helping people to find, manage or create
context during their learning task. I think many, perhaps even most,
users are not what I would called experienced and therefore do not or
cannot perform this context discovery task. I agree with Engelbart
when he says that in order for us to take advantage of new
technological systems there has to be a corresponding growth in human
systems: how humans interact with technology. See:
http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/augment-81010.htm#5
To me, placing information in context is how we generate the frames which
allow us to categorize and eventually understand. If we want to know
more, we have to gain "knowing" by an iterative process. That process
can be helped if we have access to more context during our knowing.
Systems like Xanadu are so shiny-happy because they make the process
of creating and discovering context a built-in to the design. Of
course, do we see Xanadu lying around nearby? No. It's a pretty picture
that's very hard to draw.
Given that, I think "a framework for the evaluation of hypertext
applications" that "emphasizes usability as the major test" is somewhat
premature because hypertext, as a real, unconstrained beast set loose in
an explicitly public setting, has yet to see the light of day.
In Myth 1 Dillon appears to place the power of associative linking into
the hands of the author. True, the author is granted that power, but
that power is far greater in the hands of the reader and the readers
that come after the first one. The evaluation which the readers make
of the original text add value to it. See the discussion of knowledge in
evolution in the first page of Drexler's "Hypertext Publishing and the
Evolution of Knowledge" at:
http://www.foresight.org/WebEnhance/HPEK0.html
See especially the concepts of enhanced expression, transmission and
evaluation and how they can impact the creation of knowledge.
I can't really dispute Myth 2 as all that says is that paper isn't
actually as constraining as some hypertext chearleaders might want you
to think. Agreed.
At the end of that section there's a lot of talk about typical or
beginning readers and how hypertext might benefit them. I make myself
a little uncomfortable when I think: enough with this focus on the
common denominators.
Myth 3 addresses, to some extent, my feelings about context and I suspect
I'm being hit on the head by "This concern with vast information sources
over real human needs betrays the technocentric values of its proponents
even while they talk in user-centered terms." Except that I'm not
really all that concerned with the generic user-centered notion. I want a
document that expects something of me. I want it to be good enough that
high barriers to understanding are worth climbing. I like Faulkner. I
like Joyce. I want massive mountains of context because I can pick and
choose as I like.
Interestingly, a footnote to Myth 3 is the Maastricht phenomenon
wherein people who claim to read the newspaper are unaware of a topic
for which more than 9 million words were written. In my mind the
absolute topmost goal of network information resources are to free me
from having to remember things like Maastricht. If I have quick,
associative access to that information stored elsewhere, why should I
remember it? I can think other things instead. I, for example, yearn
to have the entire contents of the OED available to me, all the time,
anywhere. I think in words that I don't know. That's problematic.
I can't fight Myth 4. Nothing will solve all current problems. I do
not believe that technology will solve problems. Technology can
_maybe_ help _some_ people solve _some_ problems.
In the conclusions there's little to disagree with. "Our understanding
of learning needs to develop on the basis of our experimental work and
theoretical developments at the human rather than machine level." It's
poor form but I'll say it: Well, duh.
I think many hypertext cheerleaders get a bum rap because they see
themselves in a position where they need to convince an established
structure to make a change of religion. Unfortunately I think they
overstate the case; by several miles. We do live in a time where the
medium, to some extent, is still about the medium. People feel obliged
in some fashion to talk about hypertext when they talk about hypertext
instead of the things you can build with it. It's like talking about
hammers when you should be talking about houses.
My feeling is that hypertext can be (and is, and will be) a valuable
tool that provides another pathway by which some people, who are
inclined in that direction, will be able to enhance their knowledge
acquisition. I suspect that my own feelings on the matter are as
strong as they are because it does work for me: it suits my style. I
read more secondary information since gaining access to network
resources than I ever did before. Those secondary sources provide me
with a greater understanding of many things: my classwork, world
events, problems I am trying to solve in a professional setting. I am
able to synthesize available information in a way that, to me, is more
accurate and empowering.
Am I a liberated reader because of hypertext? No. Am I free from
contraints? No, certainly not. Am I participating in an information
revolution. Sure, but it is nothing new. The information revolution
has been in progress since the first day one human spoke to another
and exchanged some advice. To call hypertext not revolutionary is to
undervalue the power of human interaction, in any form.
(Well, that certainly went on much longer than I intended.)
Back to the Index
Contact:cdent@burningchrome.com
Norman, D.A. (1988). Chapter 3: Knowledge in the head and in the
world. In _The design of everday things_ (p. 54-80). New York:
Doubleday.
-=-=-
From the 597 mailing list:
After reading "Knowledge in the Head and in the World" I'm curious
what other folks in class think of what might be classed as personal
information recorders. I'm thinking of a device that would record you
and your life as you went through it and would then (through some
technological marvelousness not yet developed) index all the info so
you could "think" with/about it later. (I suppose Steve Mann (the
wearable computing luminary) is going in this direction.)
Putting aside for the moment (a dangerous thing to do) issues of
privacy do you feel, based on Norman's notions of information in the
world and information in the head, that there would be benefits to
freeing your head from doing memorization?
"Procedural knowledge is largely subconscious." Is it possible to dump
some of the knowledge into the environment and assuming good access,
get it from there instead of your head?
I personally feel that this would be a benefit. Not necessarily because it
would leave room in my brain, but because it would facillitate the type of
reinterpretations mentioned in the motorcycle turn signal anecdote. When
remembering a particular event, the little electronic buddy could provide
a more robust context than your head, shining a brighter light to create
better reflection (as in reflective thinking).
Robust and deep context is, I think, what separates rote learning from
learning which associates reasons for actions with the actions. When
we can see into and around an action we can see patterns that can be
compared to more than just one event.
Back to the Index
Contact:cdent@burningchrome.com
Zerubavel, E. (1991). Islands of meaning (p. 5-20). The great divide
(p. 21-32). In _The fine line: making distinctions in everyday
life_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Description of how people turn the natural world into a social world
by making distinctions amongst things and events. The first chapter
describes the chunking of things. The second chapter describes the
gaps between the chunks and how those gaps inform social proceedings.
-=-=-
"Most of the fine lines that separate mental entities from one another
are drawn only in our head and, therefore, totally invisible. And yet,
by playing up the act of "crossing" them, we can make mental
discontinuities more "tangible." Many rituals, indeed, are designed
specifically to substantiate the mental segmentation of reality into
discreet chunks."
My 11th grade physics teacher once described genius as the ability to
draw connections between apparently dissimilar concepts. A friend of
mine (who gained a 1600 on the SAT) once demonstrated insanity as the
ability to draw connections between everything.
There's a fine line, then, as has always been said, between genius and
madness. The genius crosses over Zerubavel's great divides and discover
that mass and energy are intimately associated, the frame of stuff and
not stuff dissolving in a tasty bit of math that violates
expectations. The mad stand admist a scatter of many things seeing,
understanding, knowing the arbitrary nature of frames, granting
reality to connections that violate norms.
The teacher was able to show that interdisciplinary knowledge creates
context from which new, potentially life-changing, knowledge can be
born. The friend was unable to choose any path, unable to distinguish
what priorities should attain action in the face of knowing that with
enough thought any frame was permeable, any perspective available and
valid.
Back to the Index
Contact:cdent@burningchrome.com
Winograd, T. & Flores, F. (1986). Chapter 6: Towards a new orientation
(p. 70-79). Chapter 7: Computers and representation (p. 83-92).
Chapter 8: Computation and intelligence (p. 93-106). Chapter 9:
Understanding language (p. 107-124). In _Understanding computers
and cognition_. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing.
-=-=-
(This one gets a little slippy, but seemed worth writing down.)
The question we now have to deal with is how to design computers on
the basis of the new discourse about language and thought that we
have been elaborating. Computers are not only designed in language
but are themseleves equipment for language. They will not just
reflect our understanding of language, but will at the same time
create new possibilities for the speaking and listening that we
do--for creating ourselves in language.
My return to academics was motivated by a desire to find terms in
shared language that I could use to describe ideas that I had been
chewing on, without labels, for many years. Winograd & Flores are
helping that process a great deal by providing a philosophical and
cognitive context that informs and shapes the ideas.
Knowledge acquisition is a process of information transmittal and
evaluation (see:
http://www.burningchrome.com/~cdent/sliswarp/biblio/index.cgi?word=21)
where the evaluation itself is also a form of transmittal. The
transmittal occurs in the medium of language. Not simply spoken words
(such as the English language) but also images, gestures, all the
things which are available in the context of the knowledge acquisition
process.
In traditional settings knowledge is shared between people who are
communicating. The computer becomes a special tool because of its
ability, born of its nature as a tool for manipulating
respresentations, to augment communication; with oneself, with ideas
and with others.
If new knowledge is created by comparing, contrasting and linking
between existing representations the computer is helpful in the way in
which its generation of alternate representations is somewhat
arbitrary: it can be, if desired more or less constrained than the
somewhat socially and psychologically contrained representation
generation and management that humans do.
This is not to say, by any stretch, that the computer is intelligent.
The computer can't do much with these representations it is
generating, other than showing them to the user. But that is the key:
the user can evaluate the representations that have been transmitted
to it, by language, and discover or create new knowledge.
Back to the Index