What Internet Invention Needs
Perhaps because Internet Invention introduces so many terms that may
or may serve as relays for people, a glossary is a good idea. Ulmer’s
approach is to include a vast array of hermeneutics and let the writers
pick and choose which ones will serve them as heuristics (as invention prompts).
But a cross-referenced glossary might help. So, we would learn how a fiscelle
resembles in form/function/feeling a punctum, and what the advantages of
one term/concept over another.
I'm thinking here something like a “time line” cartoon
type rendering of stages and steps, perhaps? And to avoid a lock-step/instruction
manual feeling, it could be done like a cross word puzzle, with two axes
(para and syn).
I like the subsections Ulmer uses. The book is divided
into sections that remediate actual F-2-F encounters between people seeking
wisdom: “studio” recapitulates a textbook’s pedagogy of assignments and
supporting readings and exempla; “remakes” are like art installations/exhibits
that dramatize how electracy reconfigures techniques and themes already
in use in “classics of arts and entertainment”; “lectures” explain after
the fashion of the sage the pedagogy of the widesite (the discovery of
a nexus linking one’s involvement across several discourses/domains of
knowledge/interpellation); “Ulmer File” revives that classic school genre,
the show n’ tell, Ulmer’s own widesite; “Office” is a simulation of office
hours, a mentoring environment where the prof anticipates difficulties/questions
and puts it in simpler terms and in a context that will help students get
the job done. But it is difficult always to know where to find assignments.
Some appear in Studio and others in Office. Perhaps I'm just used to the
"Exercises" coming at the end of the chapter in traditional textbooks?
I love this book but it would take a semester to figure
out how to grade students on their projects. Perhaps I would have to use
this as a supplementary text and mostly grade their journal reflections on
their process?
This book needs usability testing. It needs to be used
by a variety of teachers in a variety of contexts.
