The issue of distance learning and the influence of media on learning centres on the topic of hypertext and hypermedia. Early critics of distance education accuse computer-assisted instruction of being too limited and impersonal. Computer-assisted instruction was seen as a mode of traditional instruction in which the computer took the teacher's role as "dispenser of information and directions, ", not taking into account its more complex function as a medium for dialogical information transformation and knowledge construction. Although some instructional situations still use the computer for this function, hypertextual software allows broader and open-ended uses. In the interviews and examples, I limit our discussion to the use of Hypertext as an open-ended system that allows read-write capabilities and potentially allows learning through collaborative knowledge construction and computer networking.
Barthes describes an ideal textuality that precisely matches that which in computing has come to be called, Hypertext and can be defined as "text composed of blocks of words (or images) linked electronically by multiple paths, chains or trails in an open-ended, perpetually unfinished textuality described by the terms link, node, network, web and path". Because blocks of texts are linked in these ways, the Hypertextual document is necessarily non-linear and non-heirarchized. Landow quotes Roland Barthes: Hypertext is a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one."
Kozma points out that "learning is not simply a passive response to instruction's delivery. Rather, learning is an active, constructive, and social process by which the learner strategically manages available cognitive, physical, and social resources to create new knowledge by interacting with information in the environment and integrating it with information stored in memory. From this perspective, knowledge and learning are the result of a reciprocal interaction between the learner's cognitive resources and aspects of the external environment. Moreover, this interaction is strongly influenced by the extent to which external and internal resources fit together."
Greenlaw provides an insight into some of the main issues that emerge when students and instructors are working in a hypertext and hypermedia environment.
In an attempt to counter the perception of an impersonal medium, Greenlaw has introduced methods whereby students have exchanged personal information prior to the start of the actual distance education course. Courses have been conducted at both elementary school and post graduate levels. He claims that " if you give the students some time to know each other and if the learning activities are personal in nature, then there is some kind of camaraderie, some type of social bonding that can take place via the Internet. Also, I learned that students who might not take part in regular face-to-face class discussions so often willingly find their voice when they are able to do e-mail conferencing, and chat-mode. This was true of the students involved in an international exchange and of those in a smaller graduate education class."
In a distributed collaborative environment, it is instructive to observe the nature of the knowledge construction that occurs. Greenlaw points out that the initial guidance provided by the course leader is critical in this regard. The course leader functioned as a facilitator to bring together multiple voices and states that " where I might have dominated - I might have done too much lecturing in a face-to-face situation, I was only one of 15 voices in this situation." Issues were developed and recorded in written form in a multi-vocal way." This was described as strength of a hypertextual role in instruction.
"The thinking is "by its nature more multi-vocal - the thinking is more lateral than linear. It is more student-centered than teacher-centered. … You can't help but think across topics - think laterally - make connections from text to text to text, text that we generate, text that we pull in from various sources on the Internet and I that I think in the end helps students to have a broader perspective on the issues that we discussed in the course."
In moving one step further, Greenlaw would like to have the group deliver a final collaborative product with each student having equal control.
Kozma suggests that the technology of video media (dynamic, transient) and their simultaneous presentation of two symbol systems exert a strong influence on learners' mental models and the processes used to construct them. Greenlaw extends the argument by suggesting that teachers who are using sources on the Internet consider ways in which symbol systems work and have with them media literacy tools they need in order to make themselves and their students aware of the problems they could have in interpretation.
Greenlaw recognizes the impact of the medium with its unique symbol systems and the effect of the geographic origin of most Internet sites. He argues that instructors be trained in media theory in order to "have with them the media literacy tools they need in order to make themselves and their students aware of the problems they could have in interpretation."
A broader view of the media would draw on ideas first generated by Deibert in a text entitled Parchment, Printing and Hypermedia. They emanate from "medium theory". Paul Heyer summarizes the core of this approach.Loosely stated, it refers to the belief that the transformation of basic knowledge into knowledge is not a disembodied process. It is powerfully influenced by the manner of its material expression. In other words, the medium is never neutral. How we organize and transmit our perceptions and knowledge about the world strongly affects the nature of those perceptions and the way we come to know the world.
The Landow text introduces the concept of reconfiguring literary education and a logical extension to reconfiguring instructional methods. (219) One chief effect of electronic hypertext has been the way it challenges now conventional assumptions about teachers, learners, and the institution they inhabit. The decentering of authority has been facilitated by this medium. (222) Educational hypertext redefines the role of instructors by transferring some of their power and authority to students. This technology has the potential to make the teacher more a coach than a lecturer, and more an older, more experienced partner in a collaboration than an authoritative leader. The redefinition of the student role is also considered. (225) Hypertext, in other words, provides a means of integrating the subject materials of a single course with other courses. Students, particularly novice students, continually encounter problems created by unnecessary academic specialization and separation of single disciplines into individual courses.
Attempts to use the hypertextual medium to counter this are demonstrated by Horne (link to interview).
The following links demonstrate the varied resources available to aid in the understanding of the utility and effects of the hypertextual environment. Click on the underlined text to begin your exploration. The back button on your browser or choosing the small x at the top right position on your screen will return you to your original page.
| The Influence of Media On Learning | |
Cyberspace, hypertext, and critical theory | |
| Hypertext Resources University of Denver | |
Hypertext, the Next Generation - Pang | |