University of Edinburgh
MSc E-Learning
An Introduction to Digital Environments for Learning Assignment
Spring 2008
Debbie Aitken
Date of submission: 13th April 2008
Is the hypertext essay a valid form of assessment and learning in today’s
educational and academic environments?
Contents:
Introduction
What exactly is hypertext?
Who are today’s students and is hypertext appropriate for them?
Does a well-constructed essay actually need hypertextuality?
Is the hypertext a challenge or an opportunity for teachers?
Conclusion
Bibliography
Note: All images in this document are hyperlinked. To activate them, please press
CTRL and click on the image to follow the link.
Introduction
Although hypertext seems like a new innovation, we have recorded information using
layers of annotations for centuries. Wikipedia states that the most famous example is
the Talmud with its annotations wrapped around the main text,
however I would be inclined to say that the dictionary is the most well-known text
which uses a non-digital form of annotation.
Students and academics too have used a non-digital form of hypertext at a very basic
level for many years, through annotating, linking and referencing their work by use of
bibliographies and appendices.
Why is it then that when annotation, referencing, linking and cross-referencing
become digital that some struggle to feel entirely comfortable with the intellectual and
academic validity of a piece of work?
What exactly is hypertext?
First of all, I think it is important to define hypertext. Broadly speaking, hypertext is
text on a computer that will lead the user to other, related information on demand.
Wikipedia describes hypertext documents as either static (prepared and stored in
advance) or dynamic (continually changing in response to user input) and this is how
hypertext is often defined at a rudimentary level. Ross (2004) believes that there are
three levels of hypertext essays beginning with the word-processed document which
he defines as a hypertext essay when it is read in digital form. These documents are
able to be modified by student or teacher. When such essays include embedded
hyperlinks which move the reader within the essay or are links to references found on
the internet, Ross considers them to be the second level of hypertext essays. Finally,
when such essays include embedded links to files from other software
programs/websites other than those used for reference purposes, Ross considers them
to be the most advanced level of hypertext essays. Such advanced essays would
include hyperlinks to connect the reader to other essays/ web pages created by the
author. They are, “less of a contained product than non-digital essays” and “…
hyperlinks can imply movement to places far beyond the original content or thrust of
the essay.” (Ross 2004, p.5)
Although Ross’s definitions are useful in gaining a understanding of the “physical”
and visual characteristics of a hypertext essay, Carter (2000) offers definitions that
begin to open up the debate surrounding hypertext essays: “Most of the energy in
hypertext essays has been generated about two broad categories of hypertext:
informational and literary hypertext.” (Carter 2000, p.85) Informational hypertext is
seen as a way of making large amounts of information manageable (such as websites
or software that provide digital access, navigation, search and retrieval capabilities)
and literary hypertext seeks to, “exploit the ambiguity and inherent non-linearity of a
hyper-narrative.” (Ibid) Carter rightly points out that most of the scholarly discourse
on hypertext deals with the informational aspect, mainly due to its relevance to the
internet. He notes that all discourse has a persuasive element – even in informational
hypertexts we find elements of persuasion, particularly online where the commercial
aspect comes into play. However, Carter points out that some hypertexts exist for the
purposes of “argumentation… [seeking] to persuade, but also to convince, or to bring
out change in the audience.” (Ibid) Kolb confirms this fact: “Argumentative and
scholarly hypertexts differ from both informational and literary hypertexts.” (Kolb
2004, p.26)
For the purposes of clarity within this assignment, I shall be considering
argumentative and scholarly hypertexts for the most part, as they tend to be the likely
form of “essay” assessment in most academic and educational environments. I intend
to focus mainly on the role of student as writer but also on teacher/instructor/educator
as reader, due to the fact that, broadly speaking, these are the roles that student and
teacher fulfill when an essay is being written for the purposes of assessment.
Obviously, the nature of hypertext is such that the roles are not always quite so
defined and I hope to broach these issues in the course of my essay.
Who are today’s students and is hypertext appropriate for them?
It has been said that students of today are mostly digital natives (Monereo 2004).
Such students are likely to be familiar and comfortable with the workings of hypertext
in their daily lives as well as in their studies or research.
…technological natives see [knowledge] as something that they obtain
through a set of applications and instruments… In the Information Society (IS)
the most intelligent, wise and able members are not those with the fullest,
most structured minds, but those who have the fastest and most efficient
access to information – the broadest-ranging, most exclusive network of links.
(Monereo 2004, p.35)
Is it therefore fair to say that students should be encouraged or at least given the
opportunities to use similar systems to express their ideas in their assessed assignment
and essay writing?
Writing hypertext essays may encourage students to understand that learning is not
necessarily achieved by starting at the beginning of a book and working one’s way
through to the end in a linear fashion as Mynatt et al point out when comparing
hypertext and traditional print books: “…the naïve reader would typically go through
the book sequentially in order to acquire a coherent understanding of the material.”
(Mynatt et al. 1992, p.20) I think that this is a misconception held certainly by a
number of secondary school students, but also by many young and inexperienced
undergraduate students. Perhaps this is less so in the new millennium, for as Oblinger
(2003) points out, many of the students of today (but not all!) are of the “Millennial”
generation who are “radically” different from “those of the generation that grew up
with printed texts” (Monereo 2004, p.34) and that the epistemological conceptions
that predominate in the two groups are “diverging rapidly” (ibid). Whether it is true
or not that our Millennial students are natural born selective and non-linear learners
with dispersed loci of knowledge, Monereo points out that it is wrong to think that,
“technological natives with their virtual minds, will spontaneously develop efficient
search and selection skills without any need for training simply because they are in
continued contact with computers.” (Monereo 2004, p.37) It is easy to fall into such a
trap. As a trainee teacher I assumed that children would learn to read by continued
contact with texts. There is, of course, so much more involved in teaching a child to
read fluently and with good comprehension skills. In the way that we teach children
to read by breaking down texts, thereby giving them the tools to help them build up
the necessary skills, it seems appropriate that students are taught to develop critical
and argumentative skills by breaking down discourse and giving them the tools to
develop an argumentative essay.
Landow (1997) believes that hypertext “exercises” can be used to “emphasise that
demonstrating skill at formulating possible explanations and hypothesising significant
relations counts as much as factual knowledge alone.” (Landow 1997, p.233)
Fundamentally hypertext exercises with a focus on creating relations and connections
do not give the student the opportunity to write an essay on what they know alone.
What is particularly interesting is that although this point may lead us to believe that
hypertext essays have a strong emphasis on explanation and hypothesising (evaluative
skills), it is important to remember that evaluation does not take place without the
understanding of knowledge. Landow believes that the reason such exercises are
effective is because they work on, “Perceiving possible connections and then arguing
for their validity [which] is a high-level intellectual skill.” (Landow 1997, p.234)
Landow believes that performing this exercise over and over again helps students to
make conceptual breakthroughs. It also has the added benefit of giving the teacher
the opportunity to encourage and then assess the student.
But is this all really necessary? The traditional methods of teaching essay writing
have worked well for years and although hypertext may allow learning and
assessment to be more appropriate for Millennials and digital natives, it is important
to consider that,
…while use of internet technology, particularly for social networking, is
almost ubiquitous among 16-18 year olds, this does not translate into a desire
among this group for more technologically-focused approaches to teaching
and learning at university. On the contrary, ‘fundamentally, this age group
suspects that if all learning is mediated through technology, this will diminish
the value of the learning.’ (JISC study 2007, p.30 cited in Bayne and Ross
2007, p.1)
Furthermore, what about the teachers who consider themselves “digital migrants”?
(Monereo 2004) Will they feel comfortable assessing work in a digital form? Are
hypertext essays really necessary?
Does a well-constructed essay actually need hypertextuality?
When writing an argumentative hypertext (see Kolb’s “Sprawling Places” hypertext
essay), the temptation is to write long nodes, each containing a complete argument
(Kolb 2004, p.26). Kolb believes that, “it is possible to organise an argumentative or
scholarly hypertext with clear outlines and well-indicated final conclusions”. Does
this however lead to an inevitable reduction in the hypertextuality of the essay
because it is simply providing a role of supporting evidence and “good navigation
through neatly subdivided sections”? (Ibid). I would agree with Kolb’s assertion that
there is nothing wrong with that, but one is left with the feeling that the hypertext
might be able to do more. But for the younger generation for whom, “everything
depends”: all truths are relative and depend on who, when, how, and why they are
stated; they are never independent of their utterer or their context” (Monereo 2004,
p.34), perhaps hypertext’s role of supporting evidence and good navigation through
neatly subdivided sections is enough.
Kolb also points out that in an argumentative text that aims to convince the reader of
conclusions or practical proposals, some nodes are more important than others (Kolb
2004, p.27). How can the reader be guided to such crucial nodes without unduly
reducing hypertext openness? Can the writer “force” the reader to return to crucial
pages? One of my fellow students pointed out on our course discussion board:
“Hypertext links can act as a distraction, and the danger is that the reader will
navigate away from the author’s page and never come back.” (James Mcluckie,
Topic: hypertext discussion, Subject: Re: hypertext examples, 20th February 2008
23:58) I understand the hypertext essay to be like a web where the author keeps the
reader within his/ her work for the most part, but allows the reader to explore it in a
non-linear fashion. As James points out, thought needs to be put into spreading
hyperlinks out in a sensible and logical fashion throughout the piece as a whole.
When a creative use of nodes is employed in the writing of an argumentative essay,
the student/ writer is encouraged to plan content thoroughly using sections and
selecting important information (especially in the case of the stretch essay). Is this a
skill in hypertext writing that goes above and beyond the argumentative skills and
critical engagement that competent students would be familiar with? Patricia
Ventura’s instruction on how students should tackle this is very good and
demonstrates how a great deal of technical knowledge is not required:
As a first step, you should find ways to divide your essay into several smaller
units that you'll put on separate web pages to make the document more
readable in an electronic environment. This means you'll need to reject the
linearity of a traditional essay. The units into which you break up your paper
need to be understandable when read alone and need to make sense when read
in any sequence that your readers might follow. Of course, the whole
document must be coherent, so you have to think on both the micro and the
macro levels. You should modify, reduce, or expand your written essay as
necessary for this assignment. (Ventura published in Kairos 2002)
Furthermore, “People write argumentative hypertext differently that they do in a more
traditional format” (Carter 2000, p.85). Carter believes that authors must overcome
the expectation of order and sequential structures “like if-then sentences, first-camethis presentation of evidence and reasons, and the building of a case in which each
new piece of information builds upon previously mentioned reasons”. Carter believes
that hypertext essays are generally not “sequential structures”. How can an
argumentative essay be devoid of sequence and still be effective? Carter believes that
the apparent loss of sequence in hypertext gives rise to argumentative strategies which
are more flexible.
Ross states that, “perhaps the writer needs to know less about the subject he/ she is
discussing. Potentially, the writer can compensate for a lack of internalised
information by understanding hyperlink construction.” (Ross 2004, p.8) I believe
that, on the contrary, students need to know more about their subject in order to create
a good hypertext essay. I think it is much like a mindmap in that if I was asked to
draw a mindmap on something on which I have a great deal of (and perhaps even
expert) knowledge, I would be able to draw a detailed multi-faceted mindmap with
many links between each piece of knowledge. However, if I were to attempt to draw
a mindmap on an area in which I have no knowledge, I would be unable to make any
links. Of course I could list a number of possible sources of information, but that
would be in no way, shape or form tackling the objective, which was to demonstrate
what I know about the subject. When Ross says that using hypertext to write essays
may create, “a shift from writing good ‘learning links’ lists”, he is forgetting that in
order to be able to create the links, the writer must have the knowledge in the first
instance.
Is the hypertext a challenge or an opportunity for teachers?
For teachers there appears to be many new challenges and even some clear
disadvantages to using hypertext. If many of our teachers are “digital migrants”
(Monereo 2004) then they may find navigating around and hence the assessment of
such essays more difficult. Mynatt et al (1992) believe that studies show that,
“hypertext users read textual material from screens more slowly than from paper
media.” (Mynatt et al 1992, p.19) Furthermore, Moulthrop quotes the U.S. National
Endowment for the Arts (NEA) who believes that, “print culture affords irreplaceable
forms of focused attention and contemplation that make complex communications and
insights possible.” (NEA cited in Moulthrop 2005, p.228)
Landow dismisses the debate surrounding retention of information when reading
screen text (as opposed to print) by stating unequivocally that “electronically linked
text and printed text have different advantages” (Landow 1997, p.232). He advocates
the use of hypertext essays, but only if accompanied by clear objectives and
“consciously teach[ing] with it” (Ibid, p.231). Landow’s suggestion of preparing an
initial assignment that provides the student with experience of hypertext’s advantages.
This seems like a good way to get around the technical/ practical difficulties that some
critics believe make hypertext essays a difficult or invalid means of assessment.
However, although this sounds like a great idea, what happens if and when the
instructor does not have the expertise? Does this limit the validity of hypertext essays
to courses such as this one? Landow states that, “Hypertext forces teachers to rethink
goals and methods of education.” (Landow 1997, p.232) It is up to the individual to
decide whether this is a great opportunity or an insurmountable challenge.
Conclusion
Those who oppose use of hypertext in education are often those who seek to preserve
academic tradition and resist the use of technology in pedagogy. This seems ironic
when the man generally credited with the invention of hypertext vehemently resists
being labelled a tekkie considers himself an academic/ intellectual first and foremost.
I am also inclined to believe that those who see no value whatsoever in the hypertext
essay as a means to learning, perhaps do not have a full knowledge of the variants of
the medium, or an understanding of the theory behind the pedagogy. This is evident
in the tiers of definitions of hypertext. Although, one cannot rely on Wikipedia to
provide an accurate reflection of the common perception of hypertext, I found the
definition provided by Wikipedia to be similar to definitions of hypertext found in
other reference sources.
As I have attempted to demonstrate, hypertext essays for assessment and learning
undoubtedly have their drawbacks, but on the whole it would appear that the
advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Landow cites Peter Whalley: “The most
successful uses of hypertext must allow the learner to develop higher-level skills,
rather than simply become the passive recipients of a slick new technology.” (Landow
1997, p.231) Through creating assignments that emphasise the use for “higher-level
skills”, we can encourage learners to be actively involved in their learning. Even at
the most basic levels we are aware of the importance of “active learning” in education
(Curriculum for Excellence, 2007). The hypertext essay provides an opportunity to
encourage learners to use assessment for learning to its fullest potential.
Bibliography
Bayne, S and Ross, J (2007) The 'digital native' and 'digital immigrant': a dangerous
opposition
Carter, Locke M. (2000) Arguments in hypertext: a rhetorical approach, Proceedings
of the eleventh ACM conference on Hypertext, ACM, pp.85-91.
Kolb, David (2004) Twin media: hypertext structure under pressure Hypertext ’04:
Proceedings of the fifteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, ACM,
pp.26-27.
Landow, G (1997) Hypertext 2.0: the convergence of contemporary critical theory
and technology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press)
extracts 1 and 2: 'Reconfiguring assignments and methods of evaluation', and
'Examples of collaborative learning', 231-245
extract 3: 'Inventing the new writing', 255-262
Monereo, Carles (2004) The virtual construction of the mind: the role of educational
psychology, Interactive Educational Media, 9, pp.32-47
Moulthrop, Stuart (2005) What the Geeks know: Hypertext and the Problem of
Literacy Proceedings of the sixteenth ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia,
ACM, pp.227-231
Mynatt, Barbee T., Laura Marie Leventhal, Keith Instone, John Farhat, Diane S.
Rohlman (1992) Hypertext or book: Which is better for answering questions? CHI
'92: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems,
ACM, pp.19-25.
Oblinger, Diana (2003) Boomers, Gen-Xers and Millenials: understanding the new
students Educause July/August 2003
Ross, Jeffrey D. (2004) Academic Writing in the 21st Century: Emergence of the
Hypertext Essay Online Submission, Paper presented at the Microcomputers in
Education Conference in Tempe, AZ, Mar 15, 2004.
Websites:
The Game of Reading an Electronic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Karen Arthur:
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~scriptor/papers/arthur.html, Date accessed: 12th April
2008
Curriculum for Excellence website:
http://www.curriculumforexcellencescotland.gov.uk/buildingthecurriculum/Buildingt
hecurriculum2/activelearning.asp, Date accessed: 12th April 2008
Dawn Hogue’s website on “CyberEnglish 9”, Sheboygan Falls High School,
“Hypertext: rethinking the roles of writer and reader” student assignment guidelines:
http://www.mshogue.com/ce9/hypertext/htx_direct.htm, Date accessed: 7th April 2008
Ted Nelson homepage: http://hyperland.com/mlawLeast.html, Date accessed: 7th
April 2008
The Romantic Audience Project, a collaborative study authored by students enrolled
in English 242, Spring 2003, taught by Mark Phillipson at Bowdoin College.
http://ssad.bowdoin.edu:8668/space/start, Last date accessed: 10th April 2008
Various pages in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext, Date accessed: 30th March 2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_load, Date accessed: 5th April 2008
Examples of hypertexts and web essays:
(I have included descriptions taken from WebCT course details, in case you, the
reader, do not wish to follow every link.)
Kolb, David, Sprawling Places
The postcolonial and postimperial literature web
The extensive collection of materials which make up this site grew out of an
experimental assignment George Landow conducted with a group of students at
Brown University in the early 1990s. You'll find a full description of the project's
gestation, and its pedagogical rationale, in the set reading for this section.
The essay and the websay
Patricia Ventura's piece for the pedagogy issue of Kairos (the online journal of
rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy) describes an assignment task she set her students
which involved writing a web-based essay. It includes assessment criteria and some
examples of student work.
This is not sex: a web essay on the male gaze, fashion advertising and the pose
Created by a lecturer called Tom Streeter for his students at the University of
Vermont, this essay functions as a kind of hypertext lecture in media studies.
Editing Stretchfilm
Written by Anders Fagerjord for the Hypertext '05 conference, this web essay is
interesting for its use of what the author calls 'stretchtext', giving the reader the ability
to engage with a longer or shorter essay as wished. See his About page for more on
stretchtext.
Electronic Zen
"This structure is a collection of lexias about one summer when I worked as a security
guard in Japan and also did a little bit of zen. These lexias combine my experiences
and thoughts as well as bits of zen wisdom. I constructed the web to resemble the
pattern of my thoughts about these subjects as closely as possible. Please read/write it
now..."
The following examples are all taken from work produced by previous students on
this course.
An imitation of an imitation
A web essay written by Ava Blass, which links back to her personal weblog, revealing
the essay as both a process and an artefact.
Of serendipity, free association and aimless browsing: do they lead to serendipitous
learning?
Jim Gritton's essay about serendipity, browsing and memory.