This is a terrific article digging into an insight that is notoriously difficult to grasp. Here it is: "The meaning is underdetermined by the data." Text alone cannot tell us the author's intent. Data alone does not contain its own interpretation. It is only from a point of view that we can extract meaning from data. In this article, Michael Feldstein defines that point of view as 'pedagogical intent', which is one way of doing it. But of course, there are many other players in the system than just the teachers. Most notably, there are the students, who will (no matter what the pedagogical intent) perceive, recognize, and interpret the data in their own way. Feldstein draws a number of other insights out of this one basic fact - for example, that "interoperability without intent creates chaos," and "the 'semantic web' is all about intent." There's more - but this is enough for now.
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