This week’s mind map is, I believe, a week late. I really didn’t think about posting until I saw others post theirs, and it dawn on me that I should have added some nodes and connections in my map. So I did, but I didn’t try to add anything more specifically related to ANT. Instead, I found video visualizations that applied to the three theories we’ve most recently studied: CHAT, hypertext, and ANT.

Mindmap #8: Adding Video Visualizations for CHAT, HT, and ANT

The ANT video demonstrates the need to reassemble the social that inspired Latour: a willingness and desire to discuss social as a “thing” that exists rather than as a networked relationship that leaves traces but only exists in the moment of connection.

The hypertext video demonstrates the hype of hypertext without exactly demonstrating how that hype actually, well, improves or changes the way we think about reading, writing, and texts.

And the CHAT video takes a very concrete approach of applying activity theory to a project aimed at developing custom user experiences for autistic students and their teachers and parents.

This time around, having spent a week of Spring Break taking a little break from the daily grind of class preparation, I just wanted a little bit of the concrete. The videos offered an opportunity to think more practically, or at least more visually, about topics that are swirling around my head in ever-more-complicated eddies and vortices.

[Feature Image: Visualization Wall – Molecular Data. CC licensed image from Flickr user Andrew Lenards