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"But hypertext is another tool, and one which is perhaps
more flexible than some others" (Carr 10)

I just returned from our local book and magazine superstore. There, sandwiched between the gourmet coffee bar and plush chairs, I stood sifting through the multitude of craftsman magazines — Woodwork, Woodworking, Fine Woodworking, The Woodworking Journal, The Woodworker. On the other side of the complex I found similar books — more than 150 titles spanning three shelves. I found guides to the band saw, patterns for the circular saw, and a book about "Good Wood." There seems to be no limit to what you can read about using a tool. But, of course, the store's crafts section is eclipsed exponentially by the computer area. There, new volumes seem to magically appear on a daily basis. Likewise, the magazine rack is littered with nearly 100 computer-related titles. The computer, it appears, has usurped the hammer's long held title: America's Favorite Tool.

Hypermedia has garnered particular interest in recent years. In "Navigating Nowhere/Hypertext Infrawhere" (1997), Jim Rosenberg writes that "the literature concerning the rhetoric of the hypertext link has become amazingly voluminous considering how few hypertexts there still are." Though the quote is taken somewhat out of context, it summarizes nicely the current state of hypermedia scholarship: a lot of writers are saying very little.

Despite the "voluminous" number of essays, books, anthologies, and guides that are currently available on the subject of hypermedia, they are collectively covering limited ground. In my survey of nearly fifty articles devoted to hypermedia (one which is admittedly selective for obvious reasons), I have found that the majority of hypermedia scholarship can be classified into four categories, the largest of which might be described as introductions to the field, articles whose main purposes are to define terminology, discuss basic concepts, and incite theoretical discussion. A second, rapidly growing field is the case study. These articles are typically written by teachers whose goal is to share what they've learned from a specific hypermedia experiment. Other research deals in design issues, tips and strategies for better hypermedia creation. And finally, a fourth category catches those unique human interest pieces that make connections between the computer and its creator.

For teachers, this mass of scholarship is the sanctimonious christening of a new instructional tool. Scholars, designers, neophytes, and tech heads are all voicing their opinions, and they all seem to be saying the same thing: though the computer will play an ever-increasing role in the classroom, it will never supersede that of the teacher. Effective preparation, motivation, and curriculum design will continue to be the keys to instructional success. The artist has yet to be replaced by his brush.

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When in 1987 Apple Computers began to package HyperCard with every new Macintosh, it introduced a new world of users to hypertext. No longer was a degree in Computer Science or programming experience required. Hypertext became accessible, affordable, and user-friendly. With the Mac already rooted firmly in the schools, educators were some of the first to see the practical potential of such a device. Rather than trudging through the traditional research paper, one high school teacher asked her class to create hyperlinked autobiographies (Taggart). Another used HyperCard to create personality profiles of his eighth graders (Wilhelm). "I've seen a dramatic change in my students' writing," touts Linda Taggart. "They write longer papers, spend more time revising them, and turn in better works. They enjoy using high-tech devices, work independently and enthusiastically to complete assignments, and take pride in their creations" (34). In hypertext, it seems, educators have found a better mousetrap.

The last ten years have seen an explosion of research into, writing on, and theorizing about hypermedia. Scott Stebelman's on-line select bibliography (outdated by now) contains more than 800 entries. New journals, both paper and electronic, have been created to discuss the topic. Books have been published. Dissertations have been defended. In the age of "Publish or Perish," academics have found hypermedia to be fertile soil. And yet, all of this sound and fury has signified very little.

Clay Carr's article, "Hypertext: A New Training Tool?" (1988) presents a simple but effective metaphor. Though now nearly ten years old, the article still stands among the most helpful because it views hypertext not as "the end of books" or "a new way to read," but simply as "another tool, and one which is perhaps more flexible than others" (10). Carr sees the greatest potential for hypertext in data retrieval, in allowing "a user to access information in an associative, intuitive way-without regard for its actual location or for any visible database structure" (8). The recent, exponential growth of the World Wide Web is strong validation. People from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe are pointing and clicking their way through the world's museums, libraries, and homes.

But while hypertext has undeniably become one of our favorite tools [Randy Brooks writes, "the innovation of hypermedia has lost its novelty" (423)], Carr and others are quick to point out that it remains little more than that. George Landow, perhaps the leading authority in hypertext theory, has written frequently about his use of hypermedia in the class, but always rests the ultimate success or failure of the project on himself, the teacher. In a 1989 article, he describes one of the first major hypermedia experiments, the IRIS program at Brown:

Developing the hypermedia materials has demanded greater self-awareness of my goals and methods as a teacher. In particular, my work on this project has made me think much more both about my role as a teacher and about the kinds of information that students could use. . . [Hypermedia] provides more opportunities and hence more choices. When providing the materials for a hypermedia system that offers the students far more detailed information than possible by other means, the teacher must think carefully about the nature of the materials. (189-90)

Hypermedia, like film strips and field trips, can help foster a learning experience, but not on its own. It must be used as one element of an integrated, effective curriculum. Lynne Anderson-Inman and her colleagues describe a project which used ElectroText versions of existing short stories with at-risk eighth graders to discover whether or not the documents effectively aid in the development of good reading habits. The ElectroText Authoring System, then under development at the University of Oregon, allowed the researchers to transform Raold Dahl's "The Landlady" into a fully interactive hypermedia system. Students were given the opportunity to hear unfamiliar vocabulary, see illustrations of the main characters, and print margin notes (279). Though some students benefited from the project, others showed no noticeable improvement. Like the thousands of middle school English teachers who preceded them, the directors of the ElectroText Project soon discovered that reading a hypertext, like reading any other form of text, requires motivation. While students enjoyed interacting with the computer, listening to its sounds and watching its pictures, too few interacted with the text. Too few felt motivated to think critically about, or even remember, what they had read. After navigating through the ElectroText but then failing to recount the names of the story's main characters or plot developments, one student complained that the teacher "said to read it. He didn't say to know their names" (286). Like the typical field trip that teaches more about the lunch lines at McDonald's than about science or history, hypermedia, when used ineffectively, is little more than a "free day" for the Nintendo generation. Our responsibility then, is not to relinquish our classrooms or curricula to the computer, but to hone our skills efficiently, like craftsmen.

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In Johnny Hart's syndicated comic strip, "B.C.," an ingenious caveman constantly attempts, with great frustration, to sell his peers on his latest invention. Though he sees great potential in his "wheel," those around him are puzzled by the toy. "What is it?" they ask. "What does it do?" With the creation and establishment of a new tool, those questions are inevitable. When, in the early 1980s, teachers began to experiment with the use of hypermedia in their classrooms, they also became anxious to share their discoveries. Early converts asked not only "What is it?" and "What does it do?" but "What's next?" and "Where do we go from here?" Of the nearly fifty articles that I surveyed, more than half attempt to answer these questions.

In "Hypertext, Hypermedia, Multimedia Defined?" (1995) Denise Tolhurst addresses one of the fundamental flaws of existing scholarship: terminology. Like Tolhurst, I found that these three terms, so essential to the discussion, are often used interchangeably. While everyone from the administration to the media is anxious to spew cyber-talk, few seem to know exactly what they are saying. Tolhurst clarifies the matter somewhat by defining hypertext "from a functional perspective and from a semantic perspective" (22). A functional definition is based on the structure of the hypertext system — how it works. Thus, hypertext becomes an assortment of links and nodes, information elements, abstractions, and anchors (21). A semantic definition, however, focuses instead on the non-linearity of the system. Tolhurst provides R. J. Spiro and J. Jehng's definition as an example:

The term hypertext refers to computer-based texts that are read in a nonlinear fashion and that are organized on multiple dimensions. The same material. . . is capable of being explored in different ways, with different exploration paths producing what are essentially multiple texts for the same topic. (qtd. In Tolhurst 22)

Existing definitions of hypermedia vary only slightly from those of hypertext. More than a dozen times during my reading I came across some variant of the phrase, "information in the form of. . . pictures, photographs, drawings, graphics, video, music and/or voice messages" (Wilhelm 34). Hypermedia is generally considered to be hypertext with "stuff" in it — a typical biology text (complete with full color photos and illustrations) as opposed to the Oxford English Dictionary. The development of hypermedia has been a great catalyst for the popular reception of interactive CD-ROMs and the World Wide Web.

Which is not to confuse hypermedia with multimedia, a term only recently used in computing. Multimedia has traditionally referred to the use of various devices such as films, videos, slide shows, and audio recordings in unison, typically for the purpose of large scale entertainment or presentations (Tolhurst 23). Lately, however, it has become essentially synonymous with hypermedia. Tolhurst attributes the confusion in terminology to the continual improvement of the computer's graphic capabilities, developments which have occurred too gradually to allow for a distinct transition (23).

Perhaps some of the confusion can also be ascribed to the melding of traditionally opposed skills which is necessary for good writing about technology and the humanities. The left and right brains, it appears, are still in conflict. There seems to be an abundance of philosophers who are uncomfortable with technical concepts and a plethora of scientists who lack style. The result, unfortunately, is a stack of introductory articles that balances uncomfortably between vapid verbosity and scholarly somnolence. In a field that has attracted such enthusiasm and exposure in recent years, it is unfortunate that quality writing remains so rare. The only advantage of this situation is that good writers are quickly distinguished and acknowledged.

John Slatin's article "Reading Hypertext: Order and Coherence in a New Medium" (1990) serves as an excellent introduction to both the mechanics and the theory of hypermedia. While Slatin does briefly cover such topics as the history of hypertext and node structure, the article's strength is its discussion of the ramifications of non-linearity. Because hypertext functions in an associative rather than sequential manner, the basic process of reading is altered. As Slatin explains, "Reading in this sense has little to do with traditional notions of beginning at the beginning and going through to the end. Instead, the reader begins at a point of his or her own choosing" (874). Nadean Meyer echoes this point. "The reader may begin in the middle, front, or back of the book and still discover the material. Because of the minimal organization provided by the author, the reader may be selective. It is possible for each reader to view or read these books in a different way" (135).

The implications of non-linearity are obvious. No longer is the document stationary — it is viewed differently by each reader. No longer can the reader make traditional predictions about the text-it is difficult to estimate the length of a hyperdocument or the amount of material it will cover. And no longer does the author have complete control over the content of his work-in some cases, readers can add information or links to existing documents. Slatin points to the work of literary theorists (Wolfgang Iser, Paul, Ricoeur, Stanley Fish) and cognitive scientists (Jerome Bruner) who have "talked for years about the reader's involvement in the construction of textual meaning" (875-76). Hypermedia redefines traditional notions of "author," "text," and "audience," allowing interactive reading and fully realized co-authorship. Hypermedia not only encourages reader response, it requires it.

For the teacher using hypermedia in his or her class, Slatin envisions three distinct types of readers: the browser, the user, and the co-author. Each reader is distinguished by the ways in which he or she interacts with the nonlinear text. The browser wanders aimlessly through a document, looking at those things which most spark their curiosity. It is assumed that a browser will not view all of the available materials. The user "is a reader with a clear-and often clearly limited-purpose." Slatin likens the user to the typical student doing his assigned work. Co-authors take an active part in the evolution of a document. This might be in the form of brief comments, the creation of new links, the modification of existing texts, or the development of new materials. Slatin claims that the instructor's goal should be "a dynamic process, in which the student moves among three different states: from a user the student becomes a browser (and may then become a user once again); ultimately, he or she becomes fully involved as co-author. Thus what looks like a hierarchy of readers collapses" (875). This movement is important not only because of its impact on the student's interaction with the hypertext, but also because of the critical thinking and reading skills it fosters. As Slatin points out, "Understanding comes about when the mind acts upon the material" (876). Every teacher should want to watch his or her students make this shift from passive reader to conscious participant.

Like Clay Carr, who views data retrieval as hypermedia's greatest practical use, George Landow praises its "fundamental connectivity, a quality that greatly speeds up certain processes involved in skilled reading and critical thinking while also making them far easier to carry out" (175). Although Landow's "Hypertext in Literary Education, Criticism, and Scholarship" (1989) is essentially a case study, it is most valuable for its introduction to the ways in which hypermedia can be used to establish the necessary context that so many beginning students lack. He begins the paper with an effective example. A professor sits down with Paradise Lost in order to prepare for the next day's class. Instantly, she recognizes the poem's allusions to the Old Testament, Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Spenser. She views the work as a brilliant piece, full of humor and life. Meanwhile, one of her students struggles through the same selection. Though he takes the time to read his edition's footnotes, the majority of his effort is spent wrestling with the unfamiliar language. He misses the intended connections (173-74).

It's in making these connections that Landow sees great promise for hypermedia. As part of the Institute for Research in Information and Scholarship (IRIS) at Brown University, Landow helped develop Context32, a hypermedia system intended to augment a survey of English Literature. Context32 contains hyperlinked timelines, biographies of authors, brief essays, indexed diagrams, and graphics. Combined, these resources provide readers with the personal, political, religious, and historical context that they need to fully understand and appreciate their assigned readings. Landow explains his rationale for using such a tool:

The sheeplike behavior displayed by many freshmen is often due to their having little information and little idea of what to do with it. . . This lack of factual knowledge leads to reductive thinking. . . Anything that can help teachers communicate information to students as well as provide them with techniques to relate it to what they already know provides a model for education. . . [Hypermedia] has the capacity to speak to all of these educational issues. Above all, it encourages students to ask questions and make choices. (176)

Landow reports that students who used Context32 not only demonstrated a better understanding of the materials than had previous classes, but also introduced more material into their papers and class discussions (183). The use of hypermedia for the discovery of context allows teachers to provide more interrelated information than ever before and allows students to take more responsibility for their education.

Few of these introductory articles cover new ground. Although each is targeted for a particular audience (elementary school teachers, librarians, instructional designers, etc.) or on a particular topic (reading instruction, comprehension, modes of delivery, etc.), the articles are like clones, lifeless words that systematically provide definitions, histories, and basic concepts. While this plethora of writing might be reasonably attributed to the rapid pace of technological progress (and the equally rapid outdating of materials), there seems little reason for the continued publishing of such articles. The associative/intuitive structure of hypermedia, the same property that makes it such a potentially powerful teaching tool, eliminates the necessity for the majority of this body of research. The time spent reading an introduction to hypermedia might better be spent browsing the World Wide Web or clicking through an interactive CD-ROM. I've never known a hammer to be sold with directions.

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I recently ate a wonderful feast of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs with my three nephews, the oldest of whom is four. Although none was particularly enthusiastic about the food, they each found great pleasure in bludgeoning the hard shells with their wooden, seafood mallets. It was instinctive. But while I was quite impressed with their enthusiasm, I would not hire them to repair my deck. For the same reason that Saturday afternoon television is littered with shows like "This Old House," "Home Again," and "The Yankee Workshop," the literature on hypermedia is expanding to include more and more case studies. Teachers who have learned from experience are anxious to share their discoveries, innovations that are finding a broad and receptive audience.

Many recent articles about hypermedia have been case studies of one form or another. They seem to be evenly divided between general explanations (this is what we did, this is what happened) and scientific experiments (this is the tool we devised, this is the standard deviation that resulted). Some studies focus on student interaction with hypermedia, others with student-designed hypermedia. The subjects of these studies have ranged from second graders in the Southwest (Shin) to college seniors in the Mid-Atlantic (Wickliff). Scholars have looked at learner characteristics (Weller), critical thinking (Wolfe), learning strategies (Liu), student attitudes (Reed), and a host of other pinpoint topics. But does hypermedia work? The answer seems to be frustratingly ambiguous: Yes. Sometimes.

It is one of the great and permanent challenges of teaching: each teacher is unique, each class is unique, each student is unique. Nothing works for everyone. However, like all teaching tools, hypermedia, when used effectively, can be a great asset in the classroom. Several researchers have found that unmotivated students and those who are uncomfortable in an academic environment are particularly attracted to the computer. Jeffrey Wilhelm, in "Creating the Missing Links: Student-Designed Learning on Hypermedia" (1995), describes a project that required his seventh grade students to create hypermedia "Self-Profiles." "Hypermedia," he writes, "can provide a format to encourage students to develop a literacy of thoughtfulness and offers media which allows engagement with information" (34). Wilhelm finds that the inclusion of visual signals supports the efforts of reluctant readers and writers. It enables them to "define various relational structures among different units and layers of text" (35). He offers "Jodie's" project as an example. Jodie's writing was typically underdeveloped and poorly organized. He failed to make logical connections in his essays and showed little improvement through multiple drafts. However, Jodie quickly became excited by the graphic capabilities of the computer. He spent hours after school scanning and manipulating photos. Ultimately, Jodie's motivated use of HyperCard taught him a great deal about organization and his writing improved dramatically because of it. Wilhelm claims that the greatest lesson his students learned was the importance of pursuing knowledge. As Jodie told him, "I used to think research was something really hard and I would never want to even get started on it. Now I know I can do it. . . I know how to do it" (39).

Not all results, however, have been quite so positive. Herman G. Weller and his associates discovered that not all learners interact equally well with hypermedia systems. They cite problems such as navigation, information overload, and choice/decision overload (451). Their study of learner characteristics uncovered mixed results, their only practical conclusion being that pair or group collaboration often aids in the development of complex understandings (453). In "Effects of Learner Control, Advisement, and Prior Knowledge on Young Students' Learning in a Hypertext Environment" (1994), Shin and her colleagues report similar findings, citing studies suggesting that "in hypertext instruction, learners encounter problems with making many decisions and navigating where they are in the lesson" (35). Their final conclusion is that providing advisement is essential for young learners, particularly when students are given free access to the hypermedia system. Without it, students became easily frustrated and often quit the program without successfully completing the entire lesson (44).

My boss has a coffee cup inscribed with the motto, "Measure Twice. Cut Once." The message, obviously, is that without careful and deliberate preparation, hard work can be wasted. The case studies I have reviewed all point out the obvious potential of hypermedia as a teaching tool. It appears to be particularly valuable for reluctant learners and offers a versatility unavailable in other media. However, the ultimate message of these case studies, it seems, is that the success or failure of a hypermedia project lies in the variables. Has the teacher established clearly defined goals? Has he or she prepared adequately? Is the project appropriately integrated into an effective curriculum? Are the students motivated to succeed? Teachers, then, must be committed to the task. They must be willing to consider carefully the design and implementation of their projects. They must measure twice to avoid bad cuts.

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I've noticed lately that Bob Vila has made the leap from Saturday afternoons to prime time. He's made several appearances on Home Improvement and hosts tours of famous homes on The Learning Channel. I'm greeted by shelves of his "How-To" books when I walk into the hardware store and I see him pushing gadgets on commercials. His proficiency with tools and his ability to teach have made Bob Vila a celebrity. A small, but growing area of hypermedia research is the study of effective design. Although there is no equivalent to Bob Vila, several designers have published hints, tips, and tricks of the trade — lessons learned from experience. Like their counterparts in the construction and home repair trade, these articles promise simple steps with dramatic results.

I read relatively few design articles, although they are available in abundance. Of these articles, only Sharon Carver's "Learning by Hypermedia Design: Issues of Assessment and Implementation" offers useful advice for teachers. It is essentially a "How-To" of curriculum, rather than hypermedia, design. Carver and her colleagues present a hierarchy of important design skills and explain the valuable lessons that can be learned from each. This hierarchy can serve as a customizable foundation for a project of student-designed hypermedia. The article first discusses project management skills — the development of timelines, allocation of resources, and assignment of responsibilities. Next is the research stage. In a hypermedia project, this would involve deciding on a problem, posing questions, and gathering and evaluating information. That information must then be organized, developed into a logical structure, and appropriately represented. The fourth stage involves the actual transfer of information into a presentation medium. In this case, the students would be building their hypermedia system with a concentrated focus on their subject, audience, and delivery method. Finally, Carver recommends a reflection stage, a point when the creation process is reviewed and revised (388-89). The similarities between Carver's hierarchy and the traditional research paper should be obvious. Like the research paper, hypermedia aids students in their search for knowledge. It teaches them to ask questions and helps them find answers.

Few of the remaining design articles offer much guidance specifically targeted for teachers. Randy Brooks' "Principles for Effective Hypermedia Design" offers four practical design goals: simplicity, appropriateness, function, and economy. All four tips focus the designer's concentration on his audience. Like Landow, who considered carefully the materials he included in Context32, Brooks recommends that all design elements, from the fonts to the links to the graphics, be appropriate for both the subject and the audience. "When expectations match the resulting screens, the user is most effectively concentrating on the hypermedia document rather than trying to figure out how it works" (423). Bergeron and Bailin's "The Contribution of Hypermedia Link Authoring" also examines the ways in which ineffective design hinders the learning process. They cite examples of "highly-successful medical reference texts [that] have failed as CD-ROM products because the linking makes locating specific content excessively difficult and time consuming" (122). For guidance on the nuts and bolts of hypermedia design, the best articles can be found, not surprisingly, on the newsstand rather than in the stacks. Most of the popular computing magazines feature "Tutorial" or "Hints & Strategies" sections. This matter, it seems, is best left to the experts.

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When I was an undergraduate, I had an art student friend who formed a chilling sculpture out of discarded saw blades. I've watched a lumberjack throw an ax in competition and seen a man juggle chain saws. The ability to create life, or excitement, or humor from the mundane is a wonderful gift. In my reading, I came across few articles (two actually) that brought any sense of vitality to the study of hypermedia. Unlike music, or film, or drama, all of which are tools frequently used to augment a learning environment, hypermedia seems to have been stripped of all passion. It has become the teaching equivalent of a two hour lecture given from twenty year old notes. Alvin Lu's "Jack in the Text" (1993) and J. Hillis Miller's "The Ethics of Hypertext" (1995), however, distinguish themselves by forming connections between the machine and the man. They not only present the facts about hypermedia, but they address the personal implications of such advances.

Originally printed in the Literary Supplement of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Alvin Lu's "Jack in the Text" offers a slightly cynical overview of multimedia, hypertext, and interactive fiction. In doing so, Lu accomplishes in five pages what I am attempting to do in twenty: He moves the critical focus away from the computer and back to its creator. He laments the sorry state of current multimedia, with its "stale images, sound, and text arbitrarily thrown together without much artistic sense" (497-98). He goes so far as to call the people in control of multimedia technology "as inspired as a wet napkin" (498). What Lu envisions is the excitement which could be born of true collaboration between real writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians, all working together in the development of a true multimedia work of art. I'm sure that he has been pleased to see the explosive growth of hypermedia in the four years that have passed since the original publication of his article. But I'm equally confident that he would be more interested in the artists than in their media. "Computers are. . . mundane," he writes:

They're like a wrench or screwdriver: tools. You do work with them to get satisfaction out of them. They're not very sexy. Despite all the hype, and promises of multimedia extravagance, electronic books are actually the opposite of what virtual reality claims to be: They're a nerdy return to the written word, even as [virtual reality] promotes our current slavish worship of image. If electronic books have it in them to spark a revolution, it's one that will have us reading — and imagining — again (496).

J. Hillis Miller's "The Ethics of Hypertext" discusses the dramatic changes caused by hypermedia, in both the reading process and the production of texts. It refers to specific case studies and the lessons learned from them. And it offers advice on the use of computers in the humanities. But more importantly, Miller's writing is Miller's writing. He speaks in a personal voice, not the tedious drone of academia. At one point, Miller provides a sentimental portrait of his aged, paperback copy of Anthony Trollope's Ayala's Angel. He describes the appearance, format, and binding of the book. He imagines the first readers of his World's Classics edition and recounts the history of the Oxford University press. The book, to Miller, is "comfortable," "familiar," "quasi-sacred," and "personal." "My relation to this object," he writes, "is an example of the way so many readers of my generation and of many generations before mine have participated in a fetishism of the book" (28). But in comparison, the electronic version of Ayala's Angel is "subtle," "impassible," "disembodied," and "ubiquitous." The language of Miller's article both acknowledges the lifeless state of hypermedia scholarship and attempts to resuscitate it.

But the value of Miller's article is not only linguistic. He sees in the non-linear structure of hypertext a mechanical manifestation of human cognition and narrative, and offers Marcel Proust's A Remembrance of Things Past as an example. Near the end of Remembrance, Marcel imagines the new, "three-dimensional" narrative technique which his great work will require. Not unlike hypertext, this narrative "introduces the past, unmodified, into the present" (qtd. in Miller 37), allowing the instantaneous interconnection of experiences and memories. Like Landow's professor who reads Dante, "The good reader," according to Miller, "will connect whatever passage he or she is reading with earlier, similar passages and create a virtual hypertext without the aid of any machine other than the printed pages and his or her own memory" (37). Therefore, the existence of hypermedia on computers only brings "into the open" a situation which occurs in all reading. Hypermedia requires active involvement from a traditionally passive medium. "The Ethics of Hypertext," then, is ultimately the demand "that we choose at every turn and take responsibility for our choices" (38). As teachers, this should be our goal: finding new ways to involve our students in the learning process. Hypermedia is another tool. Is it any wonder that they call a computer "hardware"?

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