| The great advantage to the internet as a teaching tool, according to
its proponents, is that it allows students to learn in a non-linear way.
In other words, an internet textbook doesn't have to be organized like
a printed textbook, with all the pages in one particular order. Instead,
it is more like a textbook printed on large index cards (in fact, index
cards of varying size, that can be almost indefinitely large). The
student can read them in any order he wants, without the structure of a
linear book-order being imposed on his study by the author of the textbook.
But whereas index cards would be a lousy form for a textbook (because it
would take a long time to figure out which card you want, and to find it),
the internet is a good form, thanks to hyperlinks that immediately take
the student to the correct page.
Now, to some extent this story does portray some of the advantages of the internet. But it also overstates the case. A lot of books, for example, already allow non-linear access. Think about a dictionary, or any book with an index for that matter. And lots of websites presuppose a linear progression, either due to the nature of the subject matter or due to the lack of ingenuity of the designer. But I'd like to point out to you a further way that the internet is a good model, but isn't something entirely new. When I do research for a paper, I always do it in a non-linear fashion. I start with a few books, then go to others that are referenced in the footnotes of the books I read. Or I need to know more about a topic, so I go to the library's online card catalog, or to other scholarly bibliographic aids. And before long I end up with a huge bibliography, much larger than I can ever read for the term. Then I spend a while skimming, picking and choosing from my available resources. This allows me to get a bigger picture of the topic than I ever could have by relying just on the bibliography of the first book I read, then the bibliography of the second book, etc. In other words, I always seem to write research papers in a non-linear manner. That's the idea behind this course, really. This website contains useful information about the course, and does allow a certain amount of non-linear access, but maybe it is most useful as a model for how you should study for the course. I'm trying to introduce you in a stuctured way to most of the material you need to write your final paper, and I'm telling you what that paper should be about, but you still have a great deal of flexibility in how you go about writing that paper. So treat the course as whole, and write your final paper, the way you use this website: with your own judgement guiding you every step of the way, relying on my knowledge of the material and my structuring of the course when it proves helpful, ignoring my suggestions when you think they're wrong for you. You still have obligations to the class to come every week, do the readings,
etc., but beyond that you should study in a non-linear way, so that you
get the most you can out of the semester. The course and the website
are designed to encourage this, for example the resources page that contains
a lot of advice for using the library, but only a small number of internet
links. The main point of the resources page is to point you in whatever
direction you want to go. The way weekly assignments are given
is another example of how I'm trying to encourage non-linear study (see
the link to my advice on how to prepare for
class), as is the fact that you're being graded by papers rather than exams.
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