Monday, October 27, 2008

hypertext/hyperlinks/hypermedia

It's hard to remember the days before hyperlinking. The days of having a massive stack of books and bookmarking each page/chapter that was important to come back to. I wonder what it would be like to be a highschool student again finding all my research right there through different clicks of the mouse. I think they are definitely missing out on that old book smell but not having to haul the weight of those books around is a definite plus. Although it is somewhat sad to me that students no longer really have to go to the library anymore. Maybe I'm just being nastalgic but I still love going to the library and finding that certain treasure of a book. I understand that constructivist probably would like this idea of hyperlinking....creating ones own learning that linked together in a form that they have created. But what about books, isn't that creating our own learning as well. Isn't the information in that book somehow linked with our experience of getting the book better than the link of clicking a button from site to site to find information. I believe that if you gave me ten different sites all linked together with the information I needed then 10 different books with the information in them that I needed, I would be more likely to remember which book held which information than which website held which information. And, I think I would be more likely to remember that information from the book due to linking it with the experience of collecting the information from each book then to remember the information that I obtained simple going from site to site.

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