Hypermedia in Education

In contrast to printed books, newspapers and magazines, hypermedia is a fusion of computer text, audio, video, graphics and hyperlinks that combines to present information in a non-linear fashion while facilitating the active engagement between users and technology. The term hypermedia was coined in 1965, two decades before the invention of the worldwide web. Beginning in the 1990s, schools were wired for high-speed broadband Internet access, which enabled them to not only access the web, which has become the greatest embodiment of hypermedia ideas, but to take full advantage of a rich bounty of hypermedia in the form of linked online multimedia content requiring higher bandwidth. Today hypermedia drives variants of e-learning such as blended learning, computer-based learning, online learning, and distance education.

Keywords Aspen Driving Tour; Blended Learning; Blog; Broadband; Computer-Based Learning; Distance Education; E-Learning; HyperCard; Hyperlinks; Hypermedia; Hypertext; Internet; Online Learning; Web-Base Instruction; Wiki; World Wide Web

Technology in Education > Hypermedia in Education

Overview

In his seminal Atlantic Monthly article "As We May Think" that "Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex [an early conception of the Internet] and there amplified" (Bush, 1945, sec. 8). Two decades later in 1965, Ted Nelson coined the term hypermedia in his equally seminal 1965 article "Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate." Reflecting on his work decades later, Nelson wrote: In 1960 I had a vision of a world-wide system of electronic publishing, anarchic and populist, where anyone could publish anything and anyone could read it. (So far, sounds like the web.) But my approach is about literary depth-- including side-by-side intercomparison, annotation, and a unique copyright proposal. I now call this "deep electronic literature" instead of "hypertext," since people now think hypertext means the web (Nelson, 2006, para 3).

Nelson's conceptualization became realized through a community of contributors to the global, distributed and multi-sensory knowledge base residing on the worldwide web. The worldwide web itself was not invented until 1989.

What Is Hypermedia?

Hypermedia took hypertext's simple, established concept of linking from one text page on the Internet to related pages - which itself was patterned after the human experience of one thought leading to another - and extended it beyond the passive exercise of reading words on the (digital) page. As Hughes (1994) put it, "Hypermedia is hypertext with a difference -- hypermedia documents contain links not only to other pieces of text, but also to other forms of media -- sounds, images, and movies. Images themselves can be selected to link to sounds or documents. Hypermedia simply combines hypertext and multimedia" (Hughes, 1994, para 3).

Hypermedia encourages the consumer of electronic information to become an active participant in the quest for connections between related pieces of information -- even as that information cuts across the boundaries of text, audio and video. By appealing to more of our senses simultaneously, hypermedia promises a richer intellectual experience through a deeper engagement with technology and the experience it can deliver.

Any discussion of hypermedia must get beyond the realm of abstractions and theory. Hughes (1994) provides some examples of hypermedia:

? You are reading a text on the Hawaiian language. You select a Hawaiian phrase, then hear the phrase as spoken in the native tongue.

? You are a law student studying the California Revised Statutes. By selecting a passage, you find precedents from a 1920 Supreme Court ruling stored at Cornell. Cross-referenced hyperlinks allow you to view any one of 520 related cases with audio annotations.

? Looking at a company's floor plan, you are able to select an office by touching a room. The employee's name and picture appears with a list of their current projects.

? You are a scientist doing work on the cooling of steel springs. By selecting text in a research paper, you are able to view a computer-generated movie of a cooling spring. By selecting a button you are able to receive a program which will perform thermodynamic calculations.

? A student reading a digital version of an art magazine can select a work to print or display in full. Rotating movies of sculptures can be viewed. By interactively controlling the movie, the student can zoom in to see more detail (Hughes, 1994, para 3).

This hypermedia engagement is simpler in the sense that this multi-sensory approach is more akin to how we interact with our environment -- our brains creating a rich, three-dimensional and coherent virtual reality from innumerable bits of sensory inputs -- yet it is dependent upon a whole series of advances in computer technology that needed to be made before the dream of hypermedia could become a reality. One of those advances was the prevalence of increasingly inexpensive broadband Internet connections that enable bits of data to be exchanged at rates that were once experienced only within government or university computer networks. Because images, audio and video take up more physical computer bits than text, hypermedia has blossomed as more and more users, particularly in the West and in Asia, have begun to use broadband.

Hypermedia in Education

Hypertext and hypermedia have been used in education in the United States since advances in computer technology and Internet connectivity made it possible. First came the personal computer. By the 1980s, computer technology had advanced to the point where more and more Americans were buying personal computers. Popular models such as the Apple IIe, the Apple Macintosh Plus/SE, and various IBM PC clones began to transform how students and their parents lived and worked. Educational software began to proliferate as increasingly powerful computers found their way into K-12 classrooms.

While examples of hypermedia date back to the Aspen Movie Map (a virtual driving tour of Aspen, Colorado made at MIT in 1978), the first popular use of hypermedia in education came in 1987, with the introduction of Apple's HyperCard application for the Macintosh, a widely used computer in schools. HyperCard consisted of a series of electronic index cards that contained related pieces of text and images. Most notably, it also featured a collaborative tool that later would become known as a wiki, but naturally this pre-Worldwide Web version lacked the online collaborative functionality.

Therefore, despite the advances made by computer technology in the 1980s, there were limitations to be overcome. Hypertext and hypermedia still had not yet arrived in force, though HyperCard and educational software titles such as "Reader Rabbit," "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" and "Oregon Trail" incorporated a limited version of the hypermedia in terms of their multi-sensory approach to conveying information to a student audience.

In the early 1990s, a new phenomenon known as the Internet began to transform hypermedia and e-learning, making it web-based rather than simply computer-based. Using the Internet, students were able to tap into a global community -- a worldwide web -- of teachers and learners to expand their educational horizons. In addition, textbooks that once had been limited to the contents contained between the covers were augmented with online resources for use by students and teachers. Some cultural critics however, noted that many textbooks were becoming more visual, and they argued that the growing number of photos and other illustrations per page was "dumbing down" textbooks by crowding out some important text-based content.

The reach of the worldwide web quickly expanded across the educational landscape: while only 35 percent of public schools were wired in 1994, the number climbed to nearly 100 percent by 2001 (Wells & Lewis, 2006, p. 4). Moreover, the ratio of students to Internet-enabled computers dropped from 12.1 to 1 in 1998 to 3.8 to 1 in 2005, meaning that more and more students had easier access to the Internet at school (Wells & Lewis, 2006, p. 6). Fast broadband connections provided quicker access to web-based information: only 3 percent of wired schools were using slower dial-up technology by 2005 (Wells & Lewis, 2006, p. 6).

According to overall numbers published by the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of American homes with Internet access also kept pace. Access increased from 26.2 percent of homes in 1998 to 54.6 percent in 2003 (the latest year when statistics were available), but in homes with children aged 6-17, the 2003 number was 67 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007, · 1143). These numbers are still growing, and now a number of major U.S. cities, including Boston and San Francisco, are bringing free or low-cost wireless Internet access to all their residents.

These trends paint a clear picture of wired teachers and wired students, and they form a backdrop for the advent of hypertext and hypermedia in the later 1990s. As fast, reasonably priced, and accessible Internet access became available to more and more K-12 students, both in and out of school, many in the education community began to conceive of ways to use it to improve education in America. Educators noted that new technologies were changing the face of the entertainment industry -- from movies to television to video games - and they sought ways to incorporate those technologies in their lesson planning. Blogs have been created to keep educators up to date on the latest online resources.

Applications

Web-based Instruction: Hypermedia 2.0

One growing use of hypermedia in education is Web-based instruction, which was one of the ideas discussed during the national conversation about education reform and outcome-based education culminating in the passage of the historic No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Allen and Seaman's 2006 research reveals that Web-based learning can take three main forms: online, blended/hybrid, and web-facilitated:

• Online: Course where most or all of the content is delivered online. Defined as at least 80% of seat time being replaced by online activity.

• Blended/Hybrid: Course that blends online and face-to-face delivery. Substantial proportion (30 to 79%) of the content is delivered online (Allen and Seaman, 2006, p. 1).

• Web-Facilitated: Course that uses web-based technology (1 to 29% of the content is delivered online) to facilitate what is essentially a face-to-face course… (Allen & Seaman, 2006, p. 1).

According to statistics compiled by Watson and Ryan (2006), Web-based instruction is a trend that shows no signs of abating:

Online learning continues to grow rapidly across the country as an increasing number of educators and policymakers recognize the benefits of learning unconstrained by time and place. As of September 2006, 38 states have either state-led online learning programs, significant policies regulating online education, or both. In the past year, numerous states have added new state-led programs or passed online learning laws, including Missouri, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Nebraska. Growth of the number of students in many existing programs has been sustained, with Louisiana Virtual School growing by 18%, Virtual High School by 24%, Florida Virtual School and Idaho Digital Learning Academy by over 50%, and Ohio's eCommunity Schools collectively by 22% (Watson & Ryan, 2006, p. 6).

As for K-12 students, the statistics for the 2005-2006 school year are telling:

• There are an estimated 700,000 public school students enrolled in online courses.

• Nearly two-thirds (or 63%) of schools had at least one student taking a blended course or one conducted entirely online.

• More than 60% of the school districts that have e-learning students expect web-based course enrollments to increase 19% over the next two years. They expect blended enrollments to rise by 23% (Picciano & Seaman, 2007, pp. 7-9).

A footnote in this U.S. Department of Education statistical report notes an important trend in Web-based instruction across the United States: students can take delivery of content in different, but mutually-reinforcing ways. The type of web-based instruction that is used is often determined by factors such as the classroom instructor's familiarity with web-based tools and the student's level of comfort with self-paced learning. Another factor is the level of concern school administrators have regarding quality control. Picciano and Seaman (2007) note that "many school districts continue to have concerns about quality, student readiness, and staff development related to online education. It may be that blended instruction is a better option for districts with these concerns" (Picciano & Seaman, 2007, p. 19).

Blogs & Wikis in Education

Blogs (short for Weblogs) are another example of hypermedia in action, particularly when they contain text, audio, photos and video. Schools can use blogs to reach out to the local and global community by posting classroom projects and encouraging feedback.

Wikis are collaborative websites that can be edited by any Web user with something to contribute to the ongoing conversation. The leading example of the wiki concept, of course, is Wikipedia, the user-developed encyclopedia. Several elementary, middle, and high schools are using wikis as tools to collaborate on school assignments, report on school news and so on.

The hope and expectation is that use of such hypermedia tools will increase students' interest in - followed swiftly by their competence in -- basic skills like math, reading and writing. This is precisely the point argued by Diane Penrod, professor of writing arts at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, and author of Using Blogs to Enhance Literacy: The Next Powerful Step in 21st-Century Learning:

In short, blogging might turn out to be the tipping point in education for lifelong learning. Its adaptive nature, malleability, and ease of use make blogs a killer application. Like its predecessor, e-mail, blogs might soon develop into a ubiquitous communication tool in schools. For literacy, this will be an important event: having an inexpensive, ever-present, easy-to-use method for transmitting information, knowledge, and meaning across student populations, suggesting that it is indeed possible to teach and upgrade the literacies students need right now and will continue to need in the future (as cited in Davis, 2007).

For more on the use of blogging in education, see the blog, EduBlog Insights.

Audio Hypermedia & the Mp3 Revolution

While some public schools have distributed laptops to middle or high school students for use in their classes, there's no report of high schools or middle schools using iPods and other mp3 players in education. Duke University in North Carolina broke new ground in 2004 by distributing iPods to incoming freshman for use in their studies. Carvin (2007) reports that in the 3 years the program has been running, more than 1,300 students and professors are using the devices in 71 courses, mostly within the language and humanities realms. The professors use the iPods to send copies of lectures and other course related materials such as video or books on tape.

The use of iPods is a new exercise in hypermedia, one that moves somewhat away from a web-centric conceptualization of the idea. One educational technology expert believes that high schools could follow Duke's lead:

Would the Duke initiative work at the high school level? If done properly, I think it could. Remember, Duke is handing out the devices to incoming freshman, literally only months after they've left the high school environment. It's not like these students are suddenly amping up their maturity levels just by showing up on campus. (From what I remember of my freshman year in college, I'd say the opposite is true.) So it's not that high school students aren't capable of using them responsibly. Perhaps they just need the right set of incentives and deterrents to encourage proper educational use, in conjunction with educators trained to recognize and apply the pedagogical value of these tools (Carvin, 2007).

Video Games as Educational Hypermedia

There is some research indicating that video games, when handled properly, are effective learning tools for young people (BBC News, 2000; BBC News, 2002). According to a 2000 study, "Teenagers learn more from video games than they do from books….youngsters learned more effectively from information presented in audiovisual form such as a video game than from facts on a printed page" (BBC News, 2000). According to the BBC News (2002) researchers from the group Teachers Evaluating Educational Multimedia (TEEM) study went further:

• Computer games could become part of the school curriculum after researchers found they had significant educational value.

• [A] UK study concluded that simulation and adventure games - such as Sim City and RollerCoaster Tycoon, where players create societies or build theme parks, developed children's strategic thinking and planning skills.

• Parents and teachers also thought their children's mathematics, reading and spelling improved (BBC News, 2002).

Gee (2003), a reading professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote in Wired magazine that schools must begin to accept that video games are a valid learning tool. He believes that since kids basically devour information, concepts and skills via media and television every day after school, they are experiencing a much more powerful form of learning than that offered in the classroom. However, since most video games are considered violent, they are often discouraged as learning tools. Gee believes that the skills used in many video games teach kids to problem solve, carry out missions, and shape worlds, micromanaging a huge array of elements (Gee, 2003).

Schools to date have been slow to adopt video games as a part of the curriculum, likely because of their popular association with violence.

Terms & Concepts

Aspen Driving Tour: A multimedia tour of Aspen, Colorado, produced by MIT in 1978 that is considered by many experts to be the first exercise in hypermedia.

Blended Learning: The use of both classroom instruction and Web-based instruction to study a particular subject.

Broadband: High-speed Internet access in which bits of information travel via cables rather than copper telephone lines.

Computer-Based Learning: The use of computers, in or out of the classroom, to replace or supplement traditional instructional methods.

Distance Education: An alternative method of schooling that requires less face-to-face instruction time in the classroom and a greater use of the Worldwide web.

E-Learning: A shorthand way of referring to electronic learning, which takes places using computers linked via the Internet.

HyperCard: An electronic filing card-based database program created by Apple computer in 1987 that is considered one of the earliest examples of hypermedia in education.

Hyperlinks: Words, phrases and sentences on an HTML page accessed via the Internet that, when clicked, send the user to information - primarily text based - that is related to the original document accessed by the user.

Internet: A shorthand way to refer to a global network of computers, originally designed by the U.S. government, that is designed to share data.

Online Learning: A method of instruction that utilizes a computer and the Internet to deliver some or all of a student's coursework.

Web-Based Instruction: The use of the Worldwide web as the primary source for content related to educational coursework.

Worldwide Web: A collection of linked documents in hypertext form that are utilized on the Internet using a piece of software called a Web browser.

Bibliography

Allen, I. E. & Seaman, J. (2006) Making the grade: Online learning in the United States, 2006 . Needham, MA: The Sloan Consortium. Retrieved June 1, 2007, from the Sloan Consortium http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/survey06.asp.

BBC News (2000, 29 April). Video games 'valid learning tools' . Retrieved August 12, 2007, from BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/730440.stm.

BBC News (2002, 18 March). Video games 'stimulate learning' . Retrieved August 12, 2007,

BBC News (2002, 18 March). Video games 'stimulate learning' . Retrieved August 12, 2007, from BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/1879019.stm.

Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. [Electronic version] Atlantic Monthly (July). Retrieved August 9, 2007, from the Atlantic Online http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/194507/bush

Carvin, A. (2007). The iPod of the beholder: Can MP3 players enhance learning? Accessed August 12, 2007, from http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2007/05/the_ipod_of_the_beholder_can_m.html.

Davis, A. (2007). Using blogs to enhance literacy . EduBlog Insights . Retrieved August 11, 2007, from EduBlog Insights http://anne.teachesme.com/category/books/

Gee, J. P. (2003). High score education. [Electronic version] Wired, 11.05. Retrieved August 12, 2007, from http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.05/view.html.

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Moos, D. (2013). Examining hypermedia learning: The role of cognitive load and self-regulated learning. Journal of Educational Multimedia & Hypermedia, 22, 39-61. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=86957574&site=ehost-live

National Center for Education Statistics (February 2000). In brief: Computer and Internet access in private schools and classrooms: 1995 and 1998 . Retrieved June 2, 2007, from National Center for Education Statistics http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2000/20000044.pdf.

Nelson, T. (2006). Ted Nelson speaks . Retrieved August 11, 2007, from Hyperland.com/Ted Nelson Home Page http://hyperland.com/mlawLeast.html

Picciano, A. G. & Seaman, J. (2007). k-12 online learning: A survey of U.S. school district administrators . Needham, MA: The Sloan Consortium. Retrieved May 26, 2007, from http://sloan-c.org/publications/survey/pdf/K-12_Online_Learning.pdf.

Sandars, J., Homer, M., Walsh, K., & Rutherford, A. (2012). Don't forget the learner: An essential aspect for developing effective hypermedia online learning in continuing medical education. Education for Primary Care, 23, 90-94. Retrieved December 15, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=73530067&site=ehost-live

U.S. Census Bureau (2007). The 2007 statistical abstract: 1143 - households with computers and Internet access: 1998 and 2003 . Retrieved May 27, 2007, from the U.S. Census Bureau http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/information_communications/internet_access_and_usage/.

Watson, J., & Ryan, J. (2006). Keeping pace with K - 12 online learning: A review of state-level policy and practice, 2006 . Retrieved May 28, 2007, from the North American Council for Online Learning www.nacol.org/docs/Keeping%20Pace%20with%20K-12%20Online%20Learning%202006.pdf.

Wells, J., & Lewis, M. (2006). Internet access in U.S. public schools and classrooms: 1994-2005.

National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved May 27, 2007 from, the National Center for Education Statistics http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007020.

Suggested Reading

Brown, J. S. & Duguid, P. (1996). The social life of documents. First Monday. Retrieved August 10, 2007, from First Monday http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue1/documents/index.html

Nelson, T. H. (1965). Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate. Retrieved August 10, 2007, from the Association for Computing Machinery http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=806036

Penrod, D. (2007). Using blogs to enhance literacy: The next powerful step in 21st-century learning . Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Veen, G. (n.d.). Seeing the digital: Emerging digital literacies. Department of English, University of Washington. Retrieved from Greg Veen http://www.veen.com/veen/greg/seeing/main.php?sectionID=101.