How those tables have turned!
Today when we think about hypertext in education the first thing that comes to
mind is the World Wide Web. Actually, it may be the first and the only thing that
comes to mind. Back about ten years ago, things were quite a bit different. The
course was within the framework of the graduate program for Computers and Communication
in Education, and communication still meant video - educators were only
then starting to discover that computer aided communication was a vast and unexplored
area of educational potential. Our tool of choice then was HyperCard (and of course
we were working on Macintosh computers - among the earliest PowerPC models) and
the idea of connectivity outside the confines of our own work was a rather distant
dream - at least to those of us for whom it was imaginable.
HyperCard was (some might even claim that it still is) a wonderful tool, but its
focus was fully internal. We could link to our hearts content, but only to what
we created. Today, who needs to create anything when almost everything that we
might want is available somewhere out there on the web. Who
remembers HyperCard at all!
Go to: Internet archeology, or
Go to: Templates from hell.