Educational CyberPlayGround

Hypertext invented by pioneer Ted Nelson

and Online Digital Curriculum

How To Integrate Technology
into the K12 Classroom?
WATCH Alan Kay's tribute to Ted Nelson
!!!

The Machine is Us

 

Two key technologies: digital text that is movable, flexible and linkable.

 

Theodor Holm Nelson PhD Founder of computer hypertext, 1960


Fifty years fighting for a better world of rich parallel documents, visibly connected. Visiting Professor of Electronics and Computer Science University of Southampton, UK. tandmAT xanadu.net

Computer Usage Company, 1965. Wikipedia says it was the first independent company to market computer software. #TedNelsonMail

Learners using technology have a multisensory experience, by combining audio, video, text, and graphics where they can control the information they want, and control when they want it, all through Hypertext.

Theodor Holm Nelson (born 1937) ~ Ted Nelson is an American sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. Credited with coining the term "hypertext" in 1960 and published it in 1965. He also is credited with first use of the words hypermedia, transclusion, virtuality, intertwingularity and teledildonics. Ted Nelson promotes four maxims: "most people are fools, most authority is malignant, God does not exist, and everything is wrong". AND "A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds." Tuesday, November 27, 2007 The First Rock Musical Remembered To the best of my knowledge, the first rock musical was performed fifty years ago today.

HTML is precisely what we were trying to PREVENT— ever-breaking links, links going outward only, quotes you can't follow to their origins, no version management, no rights management. - Ted Nelson
(Ted Nelson one-liners )

  • “Most people are fools, most authority is malignant, God does not exist, and everything is wrong.”Ted Nelson
  • “A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds.”
  • “We should not impose regularity where it does not exist.”
  • “I hope, that in our archives and historical filings of the future, we do not allow the techie traditions of hierarchy and false regularity to be superimposed to the teeming, fantastic disorderlyness of human life.”

"Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine --- too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, 'intellectual property', the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better." ~ Stewart Brand

Technology wants to be free. Better Than Free. The internet is a copy machine. At its most foundational level, it copies every action, every character, every thought we make while we ride upon it. In order to send a message from one corner of the internet to another, the protocols of communication demand that the whole message be copied along the way several times. IT companies make a lot of money selling equipment that facilitates this ceaseless copying. Every bit of data ever produced on any computer is copied somewhere. The digital economy is thus run on a river of copies. Unlike the mass-produced reproductions of the machine age, these copies are not just cheap, they are free. ~ Kevin Kelly

Nelson co-founded Itty bitty machine company, or "ibm", which was a small computer retail store operating from 1977 to 1980 in Evanston, Illinois. The Itty bitty machine company was one of the few retail stores to sell the original Apple I computer. In 1978 he had a significant impact upon IBM's thinking when he outlined his vision of the potential of personal computing to the team that three years later launched the IBM PC.

January 11, 2009 In Venting, a Computer Visionary Educates
By JOHN MARKOFF
BEFORE the personal computer, and before the Web, there was Theodor Holm Nelson, who almost half a century ago understood how computers would transform the printed page. Mr. Nelson anticipated and inspired the World Wide Web, and he coined the term hypertext, which embodies the idea of linking a web of objects including text, audio and video.
In his self-published new book, Geeks Bearing Gifts: How the Computer World Got This Way Mr. Nelson, 71, takes stock of the computing world. The look back by this forward-thinking man is not without its bitterness. The Web, after all, can be seen as a bastardization of his original notion that hyperlinks should point both forward and backward.
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, organized all the worlds content through a one-way mechanism of uniform source locators, or URLs. Lost in the process was Mr. Nelsons two-way link concept that simultaneously pointed to the content in any two connected documents, protecting, he has argued in vain, the original intellectual lineage of any object.
One-way links can be easily broken, and there is no simple way to preserve authorship and credit, as was possible with a project called Xanadu that Mr. Nelson began in the 1960s. His two-way links might have avoided the Webs tornado-like destruction of the economic value of the printed word, he has contended, by incorporating a system of micropayments.
A generation of young computer enthusiasts who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s was deeply influenced by Mr. Nelsons ideas. In 1974, his book Computer Lib: You Can and Must Understand Computers Now, was a call to arms to reinvent computing.
The book was written as a pastiche, in the tradition of the Whole Earth Catalog and as a paper-based placeholder for the Xanadu system that he believed would inevitably take hold. The book was seductive fun. It was actually two books in one: beginning on opposite covers, it could be read forward and backward, with the book on the opposite side titled Dream Machines: New Freedoms Through Computer Screens a Minority Report.

Paul Otlet, invented an international classification scheme called Universal Decimal Classification used for books, photographs and other documents. He invented microfilm and the ubiquitous index card catalog used in most libraries. His most amazing invention (in retrospect) was his invention of hypertext, multi-media, and the web. He didn't use these words of course. He called it the International Network for Universal Documentation. In his 1934 "Treatise of Documentation".

The idea of "surfing on the net" was then popularized by Jean Armour Polly. Surfing means being able to click on a word that is linked to another page of information on the internet, or on the same site, or even on the same page. Here are some Hot Curl Surfers of the 1930's Woody Brown, Wally Froiseth, Fran Heath. November 5, 1957 Waimea Bay was "successfully" ridden by surfers following the Hot Curlers. The mostly Californian group of "Coast haoles" considered themselves the first to ride Waimea and the North Shore.

Our children are growing up in the world of computers.
This environment offers them a different way of interacting with information compared with their parents and grandparents. These older folks are used to television, movies, radio, newspapers, magazines, and books which presents information in what called a "linear learning style" they never had control over how they were given the information. The flow of information was predetermined by the providers of the information, those days are over, now it's all about convergence.
Well, just like the industrial revolution, the factory model of education is over, we all learn very differently now, if we want to. Technology allows the learner to be interactive and control how and when they take in the information. Learners can direct the flow, modify speed, complexity and manner of presentation, allowing for collaborative learning. Collaborative teamwork is what is used as the business model today. Online Curriculum gets children prepared for the future and everyone off on the right foot.
Hypertext is a non-linear way of presenting information, hypertext allows learners to follow their own path, what they are interested in and when they want to know about it. This is done with "links" between information, which allow people to "jump" to a specific topic being discussed which has more links, leading each reader off into a different direction. For instance, if you are reading an article about "Music Education" you may even be interested in finding out how "music makes you smarter" and may want to listen to some music right now. You might even want to find out more about music sites online, taking you on a completely different path. Every person is unique and has a different learning styleeach person will be interested in something particular to them, and as a result whoever is "browsing," will generate a different path and naturally different text gets generated.

Hypertext is not limited simply to text. It can incorporate pictures, sound even video.

Hypertext is also known as hypermedia.

This is a multimedia approach to gaining information.
The content provider isn't in control over what path a learner will take. Now the learner is in charge and making connections for themselves and on their own.
All your life when discussing something with your friends you have supplied the next idea and the simple connection with the next idea is what we call hypertext. This is why online curriculum is an interdisciplinary medium. Hypertext is a system where a user can click on something and immediately be transported to something else, We've been doing this forever. Right? Right.
Administrators must lead with vision, model "Life Long Learning", and produce an educated workforce for their community. Collaborative, Interdisciplinary Online Curriculum prepare students for the changing nature of the economy and work. Corporations depend on collaborative technologies which have fundamentally changed the economics of the world. Superintendants that leverage online curriculum and community learning will deliver the skilled workforce employers demand worldwide and provide the foundation for global transformation.

Karen Ellis
Educational CyberPlayGround

Educational CyberPlayGround provides fresh, accurate, and culturally relevant online content and curriculum where errors can be fixed immediately and information can be updated on a daily basis if necessary. Unlike big print publishers we can update information daily, even hourly, so that our learners can be assured that they won't be stuck with outdated and mistake ridden material.

TEACHERS CAN . . .

Help children develop the use of technology as a tool for learning and for use in all sorts of career related ways in the real world, by teaching "skills" with a learner-centered constructivist approach.
Skills are important, and you are helping your students develop them if you are providing learner-centered/constructivist events, and hands-on (experiential), facilitated discovery. Anyway you approach it, the learner almost always develops both a knowledge base of skills and/or concepts along with the ability to make critical and/or creative decisions about the uses of those skills/concepts when the learning is student-centered and constructivist based.
Teachers can facilitate learning environments and learning events that lead to the eventual use of higher order thinking and the very very important assimilation and ability to transfer those skills out of the initial learning environment, but knowledge must precede application which precedes all important higher level thinking skills.

On The Web a Video is Worth a 1000 Words
and much more fun!

Video by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of
Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University.
 

Textbook Industry

MakeTextbooksAffordable.org Website for a national student campaign to reduce college textbook costs. Features a discussion of why textbooks are expensive (such as new editions and supplementary material), suggestions for finding cheaper books and saving money (such as buying or renting online), reports on topics such as publishers' pricing tactics, and links to news about legislative activity. A joint campaign of various student organizations throughout the U.S.

2007 >Why Congress should require publishers to curb practices that drive up the cost of a college Text Books
Students spend an average of $900 a year on textbooks which is 20% of tuition at an average university and half of tuition at a community college. Textbook prices have increased at four times the rate of inflation since 1994 and continue to rise, but is NOT necessary. Publishers produce new editions of textbooks every 3 and a half years—even in fields where information hasn't changed significantly like math and chemistry. New editions prevent faculty and bookstores from using the old edition. As of spring 2006, textbook rental services were offered by only about 1% of institutions whose bookstores are members of the National Association of College Stores. The association does not have a formal position on rental programs because each situation is unique, according to FAQ on its Web site.

SCIENCE BOOK ERRORS Twelve of the most popular science textbooks used at middle schools nationwide are riddled with errors, a new study has found. Read about the horror of science book errors.

Textbook Publishers and the role they play in Censorship and Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

Textbook Revolution for free educational materials is run by Jason Turgeon. This is a student-run, volunteer-operated website started in response to the textbook industry's constant drive to maximize profits instead of educational value. TBR exists for two reasons. First, it offers one-stop shopping for students and teachers looking for free textbooks and related materials. Second, it promotes the need for and availability of these resources.

College Libraries Set Aside Books in a Digital Age 5/14/05 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/14/education/14library.html
"Students attending the University of Texas at Austin will find something missing from the undergraduate library this fall. Books. By mid-July, the university says, almost all of the library's 90,000 volumes will be dispersed to other university collections to clear space for a 24-hour electronic information commons, a fast-spreading phenomenon that is transforming research and study on campuses around the country."

Backpacks and Back Injuries

Recommended safe sites for children and adults learning about computers, internet, and technology.

And wouldn't it be nice to get the 25 pounds of books carried in those book bags off your childs back? We think so - read about backpacks and back injuries.

40-pound packs on the back of a 70-pound middle-schoolers hurt their backs.
Oversize textbooks, rolling backpacks, sub-zero mountaineering parkas: The gear required to equip today's student is getting bigger. But the school locker, that shrine to adolescent personal space, is not. A typical school locker is one foot wide, one foot deep and six feet high, reports Daniel de Vise in the Washington Post. The dimensions are meant to balance the needs of students -- who desire sufficient space for their books, jackets and Justin Timberlake collages -- and the concerns of school officials, who don't want lockers so large as to hold an entire wardrobe or an entire student. Crowd-control issues have led principals to restrict the times students may go to their lockers and to shorten periods between classes; some students at sprawling high schools have stopped using lockers altogether because of that. Similar crowding concerns have led administrators to ban backpacks in classrooms and common areas; a 40-pound pack on the back of a 70-pound middle-schooler creates something administrators call the "turtle effect," causing collisions and the occasional fight. Rolling backpacks, road hogs of the halls, are particularly unwelcome. All this makes kids more dependent on the locker as a place to unload. Middle school students, some principals say, are especially prone to treat a locker much as a Southern Californian would a car: as a second home.

Get Off My Back!
We see students lugging them around every day at school- backpacks that sometimes seem to weigh almost as much as the students who carry them.
Have you ever wondered how the weight of overfull backpacks is affecting your students' backs and how you might be able to convince them to "lighten up"?
"Get Off My Back!" is an online collaborative math project for Grade 5-9 backpacking students from all over the globe. The focus of the project is to explore the affects that heavy backpacks have on the growth and development of student posture and to identify safe backpack weights. This project will join students from other places in a common investigation about backpack safety while studying about statistics, graphing, percentage and ratio. Classes will complete the project activity and submit their data, which will be posted on the project web site. Teachers have access the collective data in order to have a larger sample group from which to make observations and draw conclusions.
Those interested in joining "Get Off My Back!" should contact project coordinator, Linda Dyck at lidyck@masters.ab.ca up until April 30, 2004.
Project web site: http://www.masters.ab.ca/bdyck/back/

Original Backpack Injury Post
http://isb.ri.ccf.org/biomch-l/archives/biomch-l-1999-01/00052.html
Avoiding the backpack blues. A child shouldn't carry more than 10% - 15% percent of his or her body weight between the backpack itself and its contents, depending on the child's level of fitness and own weight. PT -- Magazine of physical therapy 9(9 Suppl), 2001, 17

Article Citations Regarding Backpack Injuries:

Wall, Eric J. MD *. Foad, Susan L. MPH *. Spears, John DO +. Backpacks and Back Pain: Where's the Epidemic? Journal of Pediatric Orthopedics.
23(4):437-439, July/August 2003.

Sheir-Neiss, Geraldine I. PhD *. Kruse, Richard W. DO +. Rahman, Tariq PhD
*. Jacobson, Lisa P. ScD ++. Pelli, Jennifer A. MS *. The Association of Backpack Use and Back Pain in Adolescents. Spine. 28(9):922-930, May 1, 2003.

Orloff, H 1. Warren, B FACSM 1. THE EFFECT OF FATIGUE AND LOAD ON CHILDREN
WEARING BACKPACKS. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 35(5)
Supplement 1:S21, May 2003.

Children and Backpack Injuries. Nurse Practitioner. 28(5):57, May 2003.

Mackenzie, William G. MD. Sampath, Jayanth S. MD. Kruse, Richard W. DO.
Sheir-Neiss, Geraldine J. PhD. Backpacks in Children. Clinical Orthopaedics & Related Research. 1(409):78-84, April 2003.

Forjuoh, Samuel N. MB, ChB, DrPH. Lane, Bryan L. DO. Schuchmann, John A. MD. Percentage of Body Weight Carried by Students in Their School Backpacks. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. 82(4):261-266, April 2003.

Most backpack injuries in children do not affect back. Nursing Standard.
17(23):10, February 19, 2003.

Mehta, Trupti B. PT, MS. Thorpe, Deborah E. PhD, PT, PCS. Freburger, Janet
K. PhD, PT. Development of a Survey to Assess Backpack Use and Neck and Back Pain in Seventh and Eighth Graders. Pediatric Physical Therapy. 14(4):171-184, Winter 2002.

Goodgold, Shelley ScD, PT. Corcoran, Moira DPT, MSPT. Gamache, Diana MSPT.
Gillis, Jennifer MSPT. Guerin, Jennifer MSPT. Coyle, Jennifer Quinn MSPT. Backpack Use in Children. Pediatric Physical Therapy. 14(3):122-131, Fall 2002.

LaFiandra, M E. 1. Harman, E A. 1. Prykman, P N. 1. Pandorf, C E. 1. WHAT PERCENTAGE OF A BACKPACK'S WEIGHT IS SUPPORTED BY THE HIPS?. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 34(5) Supplement 1:S159, May 2002.

Negrini, Stefano MD. Carabalona, Roberta DIPEng. Backpacks on Schoolchildren's Perceptions of Load, Associations With Back Pain and Factors Determining the Load. Spine. 27(2):187-195, January 15, 2002.

Chansirinukor, Wunpen 1. Wilson, Dianne 2. Grimmer, Karen 2. Dansie,Brenton 2. Effects of backpacks on students: Measurement of cervical and shoulder posture. Australian Journal of Physiotherapy. 47(2):110-116, 2001.

Veicsteinas, A 1. Merati, G 1. Negrini, S 1. EFFECT OF SCHOOL BACKPACK ON CARDIO-RESPIRATORY ADJUSTMENTS, ENERGY COST OF WALKING, AND LOW BACK PAIN IN CHILDREN. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 33(5) Supplement 1:S35, May 2001.

KNIGHT, CHRISTOPHER A.. CALDWELL, GRAHAM E.. Muscular and metabolic costs of uphill backpacking: are hiking poles beneficial? Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 32(12):2093-2101, December 2000.

Carabalona, Roberta. Sibilla, Paolo. Backpack as a daily load for schoolchildren. Lancet. 354(9194):1974, December 4, 1999.

Grimmer, Karen A. PhD. Williams, Marie T. PhD. Gill, Tiffany K. M App Sc.
The Associations Between Adolescent Head-on-Neck Posture, Backpack Weight,
and Anthropometric Features. Spine. 24(21):2262, November 1, 1999.

Mehta TB. Thorpe DE. Freburger JK. Development of a survey to assess backpack use and neck and back pain in seventh and eight graders. Pediatric Physical Therapy. 14(4):171-84, 2002 Winter.

Nelson C. No evidence that backpacks cause childhood back pain. Backletter. 17(9):98, 2002 Sep.

Goodgold S. Corcoran M. Gamache D. Gillis J. Guerin J. Coyle JQ. Backpack use in children. Pediatric Physical Therapy. 14(3):122-31, 2002 Fall.

Negrini S. Isokinetic assessment in schoolchildren with low back pain. Isokinetics & Exercise Science. 8(4):203-12, 2000.

Goodgold S. Mohr K. Samant A. Parke T. Burns T. Gardner L. Effects of backpack load and task demand on trunk forward lean: pilot findings on two boys. Work. 18(3):213-20, 2002.

Negrini S. Carabalona R. Backpacks on! Schoolchildren's perceptions of load, associations with back pain and factors determining the load. Spine. 27(2):187-95, 2002 Jan 15.

LaFiandra ME. The effects of carrying a backpack on trunk dynamics during walking. Boston University ** Sc.D. (102 p) 2001.

Hamilton A. Sounding board. Prevention of injuries from improper backpack use in children. Work. 16(2):177-9, 2001.

Mackenzie WG. Sampath JS. Kruse RW. Sheir-Neiss GJ. Backpacks in children. Clinical Orthopaedics & Related Research. (409):78-84, 2003 Apr.

Shoaib A. Mehraj Q. Jepson F. Injuries of the sterno-clavicular joint in backpackers. Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps. 148(3):267-9, 2002 Sep.

Wiersema BM. Wall EJ. Foad SL. Acute backpack injuries in children. Pediatrics. 111(1):163-6, 2003 Jan.

Negrini S. Carabalona R. Backpacks on! Schoolchildren's perceptions of load, associations with back pain and factors determining the load. Spine. 27(2):187-95, 2002 Jan 15.

Guyer RL. Backpack = back pain. American Journal of Public Health. 91(1):16-9, 2001 Jan.

Grimmer K. Williams M. Gender-age environmental associates of adolescent low back pain. Applied Ergonomics. 31(4):343-60, 2000 Aug.

Pascoe DD. Pascoe DE. Wang YT. Shim DM. Kim CK. Influence of carrying book
bags on gait cycle and posture of youths. Ergonomics. 40(6):631-41, 1997 Jun.

Negrini, S. Isokinetic assessment in schoolchildren with low back pain. Isokinetics and exercise science 8(4), 2000, 203-212

Backpacks may not cause kids's back pain. Sports medicine digest 24(9), Sept 2002, 108

Iyer, S.R. Backpacks and musculoskeletal pain: do children with idiopathic scoliosis face a greater risk? Journal of school health 72(7), Sept 2002, 270-271

Nickens, T.E. Oh, my achin'... What better way to get a backache than to strap 40 pounds to your spine? Here's how to avoid trouble. Backpacker 27(6), Aug 1999, 23-24;26

Schoolchildren and backpacks. Author: Iyer, Shruti R. Source: The Journal of School Health v. 71 no. 3 March 2001 p. 88

Lugging heavy backpacks hurts children, study says. Author: Galley, Michelle.
Source: Education Week v. 20 no. 23 February 21, 2001 p. 5

Comparison of hiking stick use on lateral stability while balancing with and without a load. Author: Jacobson, Bert H.; Caldwell, Bryan.; Kulling, Frank A.
Source: Perceptual and Motor Skills v. 85 August 1997 p. 347-350

Injury prevention Author: Finnegan, Maureen A.
Publication: Hagerstown, MD : Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2003

The effects of backpack load on reports of low back pain in school aged children Author: Boh, Benjamin.; Casasanta, Marianne., and others
Publication: 2001 Document: English : Book : Thesis/dissertation/manuscript

A survey on backpack carriage and the occurrence of neck and/or back pain in 7th and 8th grade school children Author: Mehta, Trupti B.
Publication: 2001 Document: English : Book : Thesis/dissertation/manuscript

Are K-12 students at risk of back injuries due to overloaded backpacks?
Author: Hamilton, Renee. Publication: 2001 Document: English : Book : Thesis/dissertation/manuscript

Backpack Injuries and Pain: Behind the Headlines http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/backpack.html

Getting Hurt by a BackpackIt May Not Be What You Think
http://www.healthinschools.org/ejournal/2003/jan03_4.htm

Preventing kids' injuries from heavy backpacksBy Jim Dryden
http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/272.html

BACKPACKS AND CHILDREN http://www.chiro.org/LINKS/backpacks.shtml

Are Backpacks Making Our Children Beasts of Burden?
http://education.umn.edu/kls/ecee/pdfs/BackpacksMakgChldrnBeastsofBurden_Jacobs.pdf