Ted Nelson
From IAE-Pedia
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- A user interface should be so simple that a beginner in an emergency can understand it within ten seconds. (Ted Nelson; American sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology; 1937–.)
Ted Nelson. Quoting from the Wikipedia:
- Theodor Holm Nelson (born 1937) is an American sociologist, philosopher, and pioneer of information technology. He coined the term "hypertext" in 1963 and published it in 1965. He also is credited with first use of the words hypermedia, transclusion, virtuality, intertwingularity and teledildonics. The main thrust of his work has been to make computers easily accessible to ordinary people.
Here is a 6-part rough outline for a Pioneer page. As you create such a page, please make appropriate use of main headings (surrounded by == on each side) sub headings (surrounded by === on each side) and, if you feel it to be appropriate, sub sub headings (surrounded by ==== on each side).
1. General demographic types of information such as birth date and place, education, employment, and so on.
2. Setting the scene. This might go all the way back to the Pioneer's childhood. Try to capture the essence of how the world was before the pioneer began to do his or her pioneering work. Pay particular attention to the levels of Information and Communication Technology, and their use in education, at the time.
3. Major pioneering efforts and contributions. Try to capture the essence of the Pioneer's legacy contributions to the field of ICT in education. Be factual. Provide references if possible.
4. Up close and personal stories about the Pioneer. These can be contributed by many different authors. Try to flesh out the pioneer as a person and his or her contributions as part of the overall human endeavor of developing the field of ICT in education.
5. Autobiographic materials written by the pioneer in the past and/or written especially for this IAE-pedia document.
6. Interview. If the Pioneer is not deceased, try to gather interview information via face to face meeting, phone, or email. Here are three sample interview questions:
Q. Looking back over your pioneering activities, which do you feel best about? What is your legacy?
Q. Drawing upon your years of experience and accumulated wisdom, what do you think are some of the very best ways to improve our current informal and formal educational systems?
Q. What else do you want to say to today's students, teachers, parents, and other people?
References
This includes references to sources of information about the Pioneer as well as references to some of the published works or and other activities of the Pioneer.
Author or Authors
You are encouraged to include your name as the initial author of the document.
Here is a 6-part rough outline for a Pioneer page. As you create such a page, please make appropriate use of main headings (surrounded by == on each side) sub headings (surrounded by === on each side) and, if you feel it to be appropriate, sub sub headings (surrounded by ==== on each side).
1. General demographic types of information such as birth date and place, education, employment, and so on.
2. Setting the scene. This might go all the way back to the Pioneer's childhood. Try to capture the essence of how the world was before the pioneer began to do his or her pioneering work. Pay particular attention to the levels of Information and Communication Technology, and their use in education, at the time.
3. Major pioneering efforts and contributions. Try to capture the essence of the Pioneer's legacy contributions to the field of ICT in education. Be factual. Provide references if possible.
4. Up close and personal stories about the Pioneer. These can be contributed by many different authors. Try to flesh out the pioneer as a person and his or her contributions as part of the overall human endeavor of developing the field of ICT in education.
5. Autobiographic materials written by the pioneer in the past and/or written especially for this IAE-pedia document.
6. Interview. If the Pioneer is not deceased, try to gather interview information via face to face meeting, phone, or email. Here are three sample interview questions:
Q1. Looking back over your pioneering activities, which do you feel best about? What is your legacy?
Q2. Drawing upon your years of experience and accumulated wisdom, what do you think are some of the very best ways to improve our current informal and formal educational systems?
Q3. What else do you want to say to today's students, teachers, parents, and other people?
References
This includes references to sources of information about the Pioneer as well as references to some of the published works or and other activities of the Pioneer.
Anthes, Gary (3/2/09). Information architect Alex Wright talks about the lessons of IT history. ComputerWorld. Retrieved 3/11/09: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=333889. Quoting from the article:
- Can you give an example of the kind of thing we might learn from IT history? If you look at the history of hypertext that preceded the Web, there were some very promising ideas that were left by the wayside. If you look at the work of people like Ted Nelson or Doug Engelbart or Andries van Dam, you'll find some really interesting alternate ways of thinking about how networked information systems could work. Especially Ted Nelson. He laid out an incredibly thoughtful vision of how hypertext would work. His great project, Xanadu, has some important ideas in there. One was the idea that all hyperlinks should be bidirectional. When you get to a document, you should be able to see not only what it points to, but also what points into it. That can add an important layer of meaning. You can even trace that idea back to Vannevar Bush's famous essay "As We May Think," in 1945. [Unidirectionality] is a fundamental limitation of the Web today, but it's interesting to see how some developers have tried to approximate bidirectionality in things like TrackBack and Facebook.
Author or Authors
You are encouraged to include your name as the initial author of the document.
