Collaborative Spaces and Education
Early Modern Studies, Pedagogical Theory and Computer-Instruction
Roger Chartier's dynamic between author, object and
text can be used to think about students and authorship in MU* environments.
Roger Chartier's 'Order of Books' provides some insight into creating new
relationships between student and text. Chartier claims:
The invention of the author as the
fundamental principle for the designation of a text, the dream of a universal
library, real or imaginary.....and the emergence of a new definition of the
book...are some of the innovations that transformed people's relationship with
texts, both before and after Gutenberg.
The hope is that by redefining or repositioning the student in relation to the
author, then perhaps they will develop a new relationship with the text,
hopefully one that will encourage deeper reading practices with the students.
MUSH spaces are especially useful for helping redefine Chartier's dynamic between author, object and text,
serving as the mediating object to connect students to the text, by placing them
in the position similar to that subject author. Instead of
acting as outside observers, as students are want to do when reading...MUSHes
provide a different link between the student and a work. The space developed in
MUSHes are text-based universes, where participants define the space and
themselves..through their text, descriptions, their interactions, their traces,
and created objects and artifacts, left for others to examine and to further
interact.
As these are text based realities, students *must* be deeply involved with a text
for the realities of the space to exist. In effect, MUSH space can serve to place
the student in the subject author position through its user-defined nature.
Daniel Anderson
Joi Lynne Chevalier
2/26/97