Hypertext and compact discs: the challenge of multi-media learning

The role of the computer should be organising and representing knowledge to give the user easy access and control, rather than trying to create a model of the learner and seeking to prescribe her route through it. Hypertext is high-level software through which the learner explores and interacts with knowledge. Users can pursue a variety of suggested trails through the material, or they can create new pathways for themselves and others to follow, by forging new links and even by extending the material. Hypertext is inherently multi-user, blurring the distinction between author, editor and reader. Hypermedia is a name sometimes given to the multi-media capability of hypertext, emphasising the way in which users can combine, edit and orchestrate sounds, graphics, moving pictures, texts and computer software, at the click of a mouse.
Compact disc technology provides the perfect partner to hypertext, offering extremely dense, robust and flexible storage. Products such as CD-ROM (compact disc read-only memory) and CD-I (compact disc interactive), and technologies such as DVI (digital video interactive), offer immense scope for multi-media learning. Educational technologists face an urgent challenge to harness the power of this combination.