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users, described the broadening and leveling of the educational eAgora: “There is no limit to the power of the mind. We encourage you to use OCW—learn from it and build on it. Find new ways not only to pursue your personal academic interests, but to use the knowledge that you gain—and that you create—to make our world a better place. In the spirit of open sharing, we also encourage you to share your scholarship with others, as hundreds of other universities are already doing through their own OCWs.” In other words, IT opens doors, and it opens them via shared pathways, just like OT (Online with OT). So . . . the state government of Massachusetts and the MIT faculty—what do these groups have in common? Briefly stated, they’ve decided that the way forward is not to hoard ideas but to distribute them as widely as possible, not to try to corner the market but to trade with everyone else, and on as equal a footing as possible (Getting Published or Getting Sequestered). They see their best opportunity for sustained contribution as members of a radically open community of makers and users—indeed, a community wherein the (essentially proprietary) distinction between “makers” and “users” really doesn’t apply in the customary tAgora sense. Instead, and again as in OT, all involved become in one way or another participants, actors or doers participating in a process of mutual exchange. And the strength of their joint work, as well as the richness of their joint experience, derives from morphing and innovation. That’s what’s meant by a truly public domain—an eAgora, an IT-based community in which ownership has given way to sharing. And sharing is in turn a recognition that ideas just don’t hold still, that they’re ever-evolving. In such circumstances, is it really any surprise that open-source software and open courseware have begun to take on more prominence? As with OT, people are once again starting to understand the advantages of pathways. All tAgora claims to the contrary, innovation and sharing help insure continuity and sustainability through growth. That’s how you grow the public domain and keep it vital. Like the oAgora, the eAgora recognizes that reality remains in play (Reality Remains in Play). L Indigestible Words Sometimes, curiously enough, textual words provide no nourishment whatsoever . We don’t expect that, of course, since the dominant ideology insists that handwritten or printed or pixel-imaged content is always and forever “there,” ever ready to be consumed and digested (Ideology of the Text). All cultural expectation to the contrary, however, texts and their tWords (tWords) can prove to be merely empty calories. Indigestible Words . 133 What can riddles do? Consider one such scenario from early medieval England, from a period on the cusp of OT and textual technology. Riddle 45, as it’s known, was probably composed and perhaps performed orally before being committed to the Exeter Book manuscript, the grand miscellany of Old English poetry compiled by Bishop Leofric before the end of the tenth century. There are about 90 of these enigmata69 in the collection, covering a wealth of subjects, and they’re much more than facile games or harmless amusement for children. The Anglo-Saxons seem to have used riddles as vehicles for storing and transmitting cultural observations and discovered truths, as well as for pondering such thorny matters as the interrelationship of Germanic paganism and Latin Christianity. To put it another way, riddles could serve as dynamic thinking spaces, as virtual arenas (Arena of Oral Tradition) for reflecting on important cultural issues. No exception to that rule, the following six-line riddle (translated) poses a puzzle for you to solve, a mysterious phenomenon that the speaker is asking you to step forward and explain. Just one hint before you begin: Anglo-Saxon riddles typically disguise an animal, object, or natural process in human garb, playing off its eccentric or even inexplicable behavior against everyday human traits. See whether you can come up with the answer, which—here’s a hint— involves both a creature and a process: Riddle 45 A moth ate words—that seemed to me a curious event when I learned about the wonder, that the worm, the thief in darkness, completely swallowed a certain man’s song-poem, his glory-bound speech and the basis of his strength. But that thieving stranger wasn’t a whit the wiser after he swallowed those words. Did you...

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