Hypertextual processing and institutional change : speculations on the effects of immersed new media users on the future of educational institutions

Abstract

In an age of cyber literacy and a generation of immersed users of the Web, video games, online social networks, and other interactive electronic environments. This paper speculates that information processing has changed from a linear format, within a chronological progression, to a partially controlled chaotic format, with tracking achieved primarily through hypertextual nodes. This is anathema to the enforced linearity of most institutionally imposed hierarchical learning. This paper speculatively maps the process of how basic schooling methodologies may need to be modified to conform to new learning practices and take advantage of their strengths. Learning on the go through interactive Web immersion, especially with the use of such Web 2.0 applications as Weblogs, information sharing sites such as Yahoo! Answers and wikis, and the use of mobile technology, is a ready source of byte-sized, non-hierarchically scaled items of information, some of it possibly of questionable accuracy. This paper speculates further about the clash between this informal, independent learning and the accreditation that determines formalised learning.