The WWW, the inter-linked web of networks that is capable of supporting digitized hypertext, including visual images, sounds, animations, and video (hypermedia), has unique properties that have implications for learning. Because of the connectivity of hypertext, words (or blocks of words) and images can be inter-linked, creating multiple paths that encourage the integration of information. Connectivity also enables information to be retrieved through the association of words and images (ideas), a process that is essential to critical thinking. "Critical thinking relies upon relating many things to one another. Since the essence of hypertext lies in its making connections, it provides an efficient means of accustoming students to making connections among materials they encounter" (Landow 1992, 126).
Unlike conventional narrative, hypertext, through its network of nodes and links, is characterized by non-linearity. Because of its multiple links, readers can actively choose paths that reflect the interests of their own investigation, rather than the interests of the author. After mastering the habit of non-sequential reading, they become "active, constructivist" learners who are better able to contextualize and integrate information (Landow 1992, 121).
Hypertext is also de-centering. "As readers move through a web or network or text, they continually shift the center-and hence the focus or organizing principle-of their investigation and experience. Hypertext, in other words, provides an infinitely re-centerable system whose provisional point of focus depends upon the reader…" (Landow 1992, 11). Furthermore, as the reader's search continues, the distinction between the author and the reader begins to disappear, or, at least, their roles become "more deeply intertwined with each other more than ever before" (Landow 1992, 71).
Finally, the World Wide Web creates a virtual presence of authors and readers where geography and time become unimportant. Utilizing asynchronous communication, people in distant geographical sites can exchange messages without regard to the limitations of time and time zones. "The very qualities that make hypertext an efficient means of supporting interdisciplinary learning also permit students to work without having to be in residence at a geographical or spatial site" (Landow 1992, 129). As a consequence, learning at a distance becomes both feasible and efficient.
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