Abstract not found

Users of educational hypertext are faced with the challenge of creating meaning both within and between texts. Cohesion is an important factor contributing to whether a reader is able to capture meaning and comprehend text. When readers are required to fill in conceptual gaps in text, comprehension can fail if they do not have sufficient knowledge. Cohesion helps low-knowledge readers to create a more coherent mental representation of the text. However, text that is too cohesive can inhibit active processing, and thus reduce coherence for more knowledgeable readers. Similar patterns have been found for hypertext, which requires readers to create coherence between multiple electronic texts. Domain novices are in greater need of explicit pointers to important links between documents and gain from having less control over system navigation. Domain experts are in less need of scaffolding within the system. We discuss the use of a multimedia reading strategy training program to help low-knowledge readers better understand less cohesive text. Finally, we discuss four principles to guide hypertext development geared toward improving coherence and metacognitive engagement.

Student diversity at institutions with large international and equity student populations presents a challenge to traditional educational practices. Teaching with CIT magnifies the educational problems faced by such students. Solutions require us to think holistically about student needs, learning styles and the educational opportunities we put online. The effective use of networked computing in education requires institutions to think of the electronic classroom in the context of the institution as a whole with student support services taking their place as part of the flexible learning environment. Keywords Access, CIT, equity, student diversity, flexible delivery, learning styles, disabilities, ESL Introductory A recent Boolean search on AltaVista for web pages with the terms access, online education, and equity resulted in 789 hits. Adding the term disadvantaged reduces the number to 27 hits. In these results we see a problem: discussions of access and equity rarely include the ...

This study explored the use of different types of instructional objectives with learning from linear and non-linear instruction presented via the World Wide Web. One-hundred and forty-five college undergraduate students participated in an Instrument Case Study as a part of an Introduction to Music course. A linear and non-linear version of the treatment, designed to teach students about the bassoon, was presented. In addition, the students were either given no objectives, low-order objectives (knowledge-level), or high-order objectives (other five classes of objectives) as defined by Bloom, et al. (1956). The treatment was presented using the Netscape Navigator 1.1 (1994-1995) World Wide Web