Untitled - witz cultural

275RECONFIGURINGLITERARYEDUCATIONnation of several conditions at once, say, asthma, gall bladder trouble, andhigh blood pressure, physicians have to learn how to connect a single symptomto more than one explanatory system.Spiro's explanation of his exploration-of-landscape paradigm provides anexcellent description of educational hypertext:The notion of "criss-crossing" from case to case in many directions, with many thematicdimensions serving as routes of traversal, is central to our theory. The treatmentof an irregular and complex topic cannot beforced in any single direction withoutcurtailing that potential for transfer. lfthe topic can be applied in many different ways,none of which follow in rule-bound manner from the others, then limiting oneself inacquisition to, say, a single point of view or a single system of classification, will producea relatively closed system instead ofone that is open to context-dependent variability.By criss-crossing the complex topical landscape, the twin goals of h ighlightingmultifacetedness and establishing multiple connections are attained. Also, awarenessofvariability and irregularity is heightened, alternative routes oftraversal ofthe topic'scomplexities are illustrated, multiple entry routes for later information retrieval areestablished, and the general skill ofworking around that particular landscape (domaindependentskill) is developed. lnformation that will need to be used in a lot of diferentways needs to be taught in lots of dffirent ways. (l 87-88)In such complex domains, "single (or even small numbers of) connectingthreads" do not run "continuouslythrough large numbers of successivecases." Instead, they are joined by "'woven interconnectedness. In this view,strength of connection derives from partial overlapping of many differentstrands of connectedness across cases rather than from any single strandrunning through large numbers of the cases" (193).Reconfi guri n g the I nstructorEducational hypertext redefines the role of instructors bytransferring some of their power and authority to students.This technology has the potential to make the teacher more acoach than a lecturer, and more an older, more experienced partner in a collaborationthan an authenticated leader. Needless to say, not all my colleaguesrespond to such possibilities with cries of glee and hymns of joy.Before some of my readers pack their bags for the trip to Utopia andothers decide that educational computing is just as dangerous as they thoughtall along, I must point out that hlpertext systems have a great deal to offerinstructors in all kinds of institutions of higher education. To begin with, ahypermedia corpus of multidisciplinary materials provides a far more efficientmeans of developing, preserving, and obtaining access to course mate-