30 Day Question Challenge – Day 2 – Hyperlinked Course

Yesterday, Enoch Hale started us on a 30-Day Challenge to post an out-of-the-box question about teaching and learning each day for thirty days.  I responded yesterday with a question about design and whether it was complicated or complex.

reimaginetextMy question today really dates back to a wonderful book by Tom Peters, who in 2003 published Re-Imagine!: Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age.  Tom crossed the Atlantic to find a publisher (Dorling Kindersley) that would publish the book the way he wanted.  And what Tom wanted was a print book that acted like a hyperlinked website.  Every page had sidebars with dashed lines linking to points in the text.  Every page had a variety of fonts, colors, and icons…drawing your eyes and moving you in different directions.  Tom recognized back eleven years ago that the world was morphing into a hyperlinked world.

So my question: Day 2: What would a course look like if its premise was the hyperlink rather than a linear chronology?

Michael Wesch in a delightful Youtube video “Information R/evolution (embedded below) noted that digital text is different from print text.  Hypertext has the ability to separate form from content on the Internet. Once form and content have been separated, users on the web with no previous coding experience are able to upload content (text, photos, video, etc.). Hyperlink fundamentally changes user interaction with digital media. Think about the implications of this as a premise for a course.

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For me, a hyperlinked course would be a course of discovery.  It would use as a foundation a constructivist approach…but shift into connectivism as networks were built out.  It opens up new opportunities for dialogue and new challenges for assessment.  It would also shift the power structure in the course, empowering students for more self-directed learning.

And it could be a blast to teach!

Thoughts?  What are your questions for today?

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2 thoughts on “30 Day Question Challenge – Day 2 – Hyperlinked Course

  1. What cardinal virtues does technology emphasize – how? What cardinal virtues are not emphazied and is that important?

  2. “Cardinal virtues”…wow, roomie! Are you taking the Plato slant or the St Augustine slant? 🙂

    But great questions to ponder in the #30day challenge!

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