Creating a Semiotic Web Through Enchanted Learning

The "inventor of the Internet," Tim Berners-Lee, argues Google's days ruling the web are numbered by claiming the future is a "semantic web" functional interface:

"Using the semantic web, you can build applications that are much more powerful than anything on the regular web," Mr Berners-Lee said. "Imagine if two completely separate things — your bank statements and your calendar — spoke the same language and could share information with one another. You could drag one on top of the other and a whole bunch of dots would appear showing you when you spent your money.

"If you still weren't sure of where you were when you made a particular transaction, you could then drag your photo album on top of the calendar, and be reminded that you used your credit card at the same time you were taking pictures of your kids at a theme park. So you would know not to claim it as a tax deduction.

"It's about creating a seamless web of all the data in your life."

If we are to move beyond Google hyperlinking and a contextual indexing of our current "semantic web" -- the future is a "semiotic web" and not a "semantic web" because we're already in the midst of the Google text revolution -- we must begin to think in terms of images and ideas instead of characters and phrases.

A semiotic web requires enchanted learning and we get there by encouraging colleges and universities to revalue the Arts and the Humanities are part of their core course of educating minds.

We require writing and math but few schools honor the covenant of inspiration and the need for creating beauty in the world.

Celebrating Static Pages

There is nothing wrong with creating a plain text, static, non-MySQL webpage that serves as a personal online portal for identification and being.

Information does not need to move and wiggle and have comments in order to be important as the ARClog blog argues:

Arguably, blogs appear to have eclipsed what was once the domain of the published journal article. While I still believe in the viability of the published article as a communication vehicle and as a demonstration of one’s ability to succeed in the venue of traditional disciplinary publishing, for many academic librarians - particularly those new to the profession - that may no longer be the case. And if blogs were ever to replace scholarly journal articles as the gold standard for those on the tenure track, published journal articles would likely languish even more.

The power of the world is in the living expression of thoughts and in the association of meanings -- and the frame around those ideas must never matter.

A cave painting is just as valuable as a hieroglyph as is a crayon drawing as is a printed page in a magazine as is a personal web page that has been indexed by the search spiders, but not updated, for the last five years.

Celebrate the static page by recognizing the value in the reverence for the creation of the human word in any form.