Untitled - witz cultural

281RECONFIGURINGLITERARYEDUCATIONsame time, more advanced students always have available more basic materialsfor easy review when necessary.The reader-centered, reader-controlled characteristics of hypertext meanthat it offers student-readers a way of shaping and hence controlling majorportions ofwhat they read. Since readers shape what they read according totheir own needs, they explore at their own rate and according to their owninterests. In addition, the ease of using hypertext means that any student cancontribute documents and links to the system. Students can thus experiencethe way contributions in various fields are made.Finally, hypertext produces an additional form ofdiscussion and a newmeans of contributing to class discussions that assists many students. foleneGalegher and Robert Kraut, like most students of cooperative work, point outthat "one of the failures of group discussion is the social influence that inhibitsthe quantity of original ideas that the members would have generatedhad they been working in isolation." In this context, hypermedia exemplifiesthose "permissive technologies" that "allow current practices to be extendedinto new realms in which they had previously been impracticable" (9). Thisfeature of hypertext doubly permits students to contribute to the activity of aclass: they can contribute materials in writing if they find group discussionsdifficult, and other students can cite and discuss their hypertext contributions.By giving an additional means of expression to those people shy or hesitantabout speaking up in a group, electronic conferencing, hypertext, andother similar media shift the balance of exchange from speaking to writing,thus addressing Derrida's calls to avoid phonocentricism in that eccentric,unerpected, very literal manner that, as we have seen before, characterizessuch hypertext instantiations of theory.Nontraditional Students: DistantLearners and Readers outsideEducational lnstitutionsThe combination of the reader's control and the virtual presenceof a large number of authors makes an efficient meansof learning at a distance. The very qualities that make hypertextan efficient means of supporting interdisciplinary learningalso permit students to work without having to be in residenceat a geographical or spatial site. In other words, theadaptable virtual presence ofhypermedia contributors serves both the distant,unconventional learner and the college student in a more conventionalsetting. For those interested in the efficient and just distribution of costlyeducational resources, hypertext offers students at one institution a way toshare resources at another. Hypermedia provides an efficient means for