Logical pages: revolutionising the use of print for teaching?

"Edutainment" publishers have begun to deploy an alternative to traditional physical artefacts such as videos, books and cartridges, namely "logical pages", stored electronically and able to be selected from, to provide content in various physical forms, including multimedia, hypertext and hypermedia. Educational texts can be created using the paradigm of logical pages, which is notionally equivalent to treating a course as if it were a database of learning resources. In the case of a study text, those notional databases can contain more study guidance and raw information than conventional educational texts. Each user can select differently from the notional database, and post-process the retrieved information. Thus, some users can choose to view, on screen, a teaching text whose content and layout are identical to a conventional text, then can print a single copy, "on demand". Other users can select other page layouts or content, then transform their selection to suit their individual learning style and learning needs. This paper considers the implications of logical pages for teachers and learners. As yet, there is relatively little research into the educational uses of logical pages, so the paper extrapolates from the literature on reading and writing physical pages, including hypertext pages.