Introduction

A group of students are in a computer lab. They spend their time moving around the room or working on their computers preparing hypermedia projects. When one student has a question, he asks the students around him before asking the teacher, who only chimes in when the opportunity come up to guide the discussion. “Helping someone in the class made me feel good,” says one student. “I know that I started off being very dependent on the teacher and now I myself am helping a fellow student! That really shows that I've learned a lot” (Turner). Although this scene took place in the mid-1990s, new hypermedia technologies are making it easier for this type of student-focused, technology-assisted learning to take place in all classrooms today. Many K-12 teachers would be hard-pressed to define hypermedia, yet it is inexorably creeping into the lives of American students. Educators who want to remain relevant must learn to embrace this powerful concept and harness it as a collaborative classroom tool.

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