This is an On

This term, when used to discuss education and computers, refers to the use of more than one media to present information, entertainment pieces or creative work. The media usually consist of text, graphics, still pictures and sound, but can include animation and digital video images.

This term includes all the above and the element of audience or user participation in the multimedia presentation, usually through mouse clicking on elements such as pictures or icons on the screen.

These terms refer to a non-linear way of organising and reading texts usually on computer. The reader is allowed to pursue their own interests by interactively making decisions about the paths they wish to follow in the text, usually from one passage of text to another, but also including individual words.

This can include all the elements described above, it is interactive multimedia with hypertext style linking for the various elements. The reader can follow paths or elements.

(Note, many authorities make the point that a new and greatly broadened understanding of the term "text" is now used, so that it can include along with the written word, pictorial information and sound.)

Computer technology has changed many aspects of the teaching of English. Many students successfully use word processing to aid with composition, editing and presenting their work. (Owston and Wideman 1997) Video and computer games, multimedia CD-ROMÕs and the Internet have become major influences on young peopleÕs culture and this is beginning to be more obvious in the material they are ÔreadingÕ and that teachers are using as class material. I seek to establish a bridge between these two developments. I am interested in students constructing hypermedia ÔdocumentsÕ in the same way that they create text based stories and other fictional narratives.

Computer technology has changed many elements of teaching practice, hand written material has lost its primacy, in many ways text could also be loosing its primacy in the teaching of English. This is possibly speculation but what is not so contentious is the rise of new forms of media and the different demands and responses that follow. What computers have allowed the English teacher and his or her students to do has been to manipulate the words they typed in via a keyboard. Through the magic of the computer, this has appeared as text and with the aid of a printer it is transformed again into the rather more familiar form of a text on paper. Such a use of computers has become almost the norm, yet it is limiting the computer to being like an elaborate typewriter. The metaphors of pages and books, with borders, paragraphs, text in columns, beginnings and ends, with each word following the other, is more a product of the limitations of printing presses than the demands of the reader. (Snyder 1996a) With a computer the reader/writer is no longer bound to a page, or a volume or a book, the computer allows for a hypertextual link between and across any part of the text. The same magic that allowed the student to see the screen with text also allows the student to manipulate sound and images. The computer can even make the images move since it treats all information in the same way - as bits. We call this hypermedia.

Hypermedia is an are additional element that should be incorporated into the curriculum, just as film and television have been in the past. Writing and reading are still of utmost importance to the English classroom. The project I am working on is in response to the lack of detailed investigation into this area (Russell 1997). I want to model one way of teaching Hypermedia that engages students to produce a certain type of outcome. What will be the impact in terms of skills needed by students and teachers? How do we assess the work completed or the processes explored? What sorts of impacts will learning with these new technologies bring to the teaching of English?

There is now pressure from governments and from the public for schools to reflect the changes that Communication and Information technologies have brought. Education in the use of computers, ÒComputer LiteracyÓ, is only part of any approach. Computers are opening up unexpected and challenging avenues all the time; one of these has been the rise of hypertext, which, with the growth of the World Wide Web, has become immensely important in the last four years. Schools need research into all the impacts of computer influenced pedagogies and I hope to supply some of the research into my field of English.

Aims

The aim of my proposed thesis is to thoroughly examine the impact of Hypermedia on students learning in the English classroom; on their expression skills and communicative abilities, as well as any new understandings of English, attitudes to the subject and their levels of motivation. My aim is to conduct an Action Research Project into my own educational practices in the area of Hypermedia, to understand further these practices and the classroom situations they are conducted in. In conducting an Action Research project I am also aiming to include a range of collaborators in the process such as the English classroom teachers, curriculum coordinators and the administration of the school I am planning to work with.

Literature Review

I will divide a discussion of the literature into 3 sections. The first discusses the origins of hypertext and hypermedia with some comments on the types of software involved, the second discusses some of the theory and concepts raised by the use of hypermedia and the third section looks at some of the classroom research into the use of hypermedia and multimedia.

Origins

Hypertext and hypermedia are the products of at least two main streams of application and theory, the more obvious one stems from Vannevar BushÕs memex idea through Englebart's Augment work and Ted Nelson's coining of hypertext and his Xanadu concept. Myers and Burton (1994) and Collins, Hammond and Wellington (1997) both discuss this history in some detail. The other stream is historical and aligned with the history of the book and printed text; it is about the nature of linearity and the evolution of ways to present knowledge. Russell (1997) suggests such things as an annotated Bible and a footnote are all types of hypertext, and any textual examples that resist linearity such as JoyceÕs Ulysses could be argued as hypertext. (Snyder 1996 a and Landow 1992) The invention of the personal computer has made the promise of much of this earlier thought into something more concrete.

An early example of using the computer to create texts with the possibility of non-linearity and the addition of multimedia for the mass education market was HyperCard in 1987. The program used a Card file index metaphor with the addition of buttons that could take the user to any other card in the stack (as the file or collection of cards was called). Thus, the stack author could construct a variety of ways for the user to navigate through the information provided. HyperCard (1987) initiated a large number of imitators and other programs that developed on the same basic idea such as ToolBook 11, Linkways, Director, Authorware and HyperStudio. HyperCard allowed links between objects explicitly but for links between texts and words in texts, it was less well designed. Other programs such as StorySpace (1990) and later the World Wide Web (1991) itself used text as the basic anchors or nodes to hang links from. All Ôauthoring' programs, including software for creating web pages, are converging together since all are seeking to incorporate multimedia and hypermedia in the end product.

Theory and Concepts

There can be two ways to approach educational research into hypermedia and hypertext, to view it as a consumer product or as a means to produce a software product (Ayersman 1996). The consumer approach is to see hypermedia as commercial or local teacher produced material that is used by students to gain information - facts, pictures, images, music and sound. The research into this area is generally favourable though with qualifications, "multimedia information helps people learn -sometimes" (Najjar 1996) It was found that multimedia worked best when it encourages the dual coding of information, when the media elements support one another and when the multimedia was used by learners with low prior knowledge.

The second approach is as producers, where the individual is constructing or designing software to share with other learners or as an end in its self. Ayersman also described this approach as using hypermedia as tutee and that "active learning theory, constructivism, constructionism, and many other theories of learning that have at their core the axiom that learning is doing are particularly suited to using hypermedia in the role of tutee" (p.515). Proponents of constructing hypermedia have been very enthusiastic. Papert (1993) thought that such activity (though he was referring to LOGO) "was intellectually exciting and joyful in its own right." (p.72) Another author made a similar point "It is worthwhile asking ourselves if the personal excitement and satisfaction that come from working with HyperCard are not best shared by giving students themselves the tools rather than a finished product" (Marcus 1993) Other authors (McMahon and O'Neill 1993) expressed similar sentiments ÒThe magic comes because children are operating with digitised sound, digitised graphics and digitised text; in this form, the sound, graphics and text all become fully manipulable, they can be cut and pasted, twisted, turned, repeated, and linked in any number of ways"

It must be noted that the discussion of hypermedia and hypertext is only decades old. Its impact on education is still very much being investigated though the consensus, as noted above, seems to be positive. Its impact on the English curriculum is almost unknown (Snyder 1996 b). Russell (1997) suggests that the concentration of hypermedia in the science and social science area of the curriculum with its emphasis on information gathering and retrieval and its evaluation on utilitarian aspects of cognition has hampered its adoption by the English Language educators, who might be more interested in the expression of ideas and the nature of the communication.

Hypertext and hypermedia have encouraged some literary theorists and practitioners who have been equally as ebullient as those mentioned above (Coover 1992). They see in hypertext a new form of discourse equally as important as the invention of writing and the printing press. (Landow 1992) Fortunately, there have been some words of caution as Snyder (1996a) and others point out it is difficult to produce research data in support of the very positive claims made on behalf of hypertext in the teaching of English.

Classroom Research

Hypermedia and hypertext use in society and education is still in relative infancy there is not a great body of research into its use in the classroom. Much of the research is anecdotal and observatory, some have more elaborate designs.

Turner and Dipinto (1992) in their study had classes of Grade 7 students use HyperCard to create multimedia research projects on mammals as part of the science curriculum. The researchers purpose was to answer some process oriented questions especially about the benefits of investing the necessary time in learning the software, some social and affective questions about student and teacher interactions and some content specific questions about whether this form of learning might offer new insights to the students either in the science they were working on or the process of writing about it. There were four sources of data: Participant observations, teacher interviews, student reflections and an analysis of student's stacks. The conclusions were generally very favourable all the students mastered the program sufficiently to produce a stack, and the benefits in terms of an increase in synthesis skills was noted by one of the teacher researchers. Student interactions were positive and cooperative. The researchers did not notice any appreciable enhancement in the content learning but they did unexpectedly find that the students developed greater appreciation of writing skills especially such notions as breaking the long stream of information into manageable chunks. The students were also very aware of revision and editing, probably because of the shared nature of the activity and the acute proximity of their audience - the other students. One student commented that "Going through HyperCard is like going through someone's mind."

A second study (Lehrer, Erickson and Connell 1994) was interested in the idea of students designing knowledge collaboratively using hypermedia because "it can be used to encourage students to think about how to represent an idea, to think about how to link different representations of an idea, and to think about relationships among ideas." The researchers instructed a class of Grade 9 American history students in a hypermedia program called HyperAuthor with the goal of the students developing a hypermedia presentation as an educational tool for their peers. They described their instruction method as scaffolding. The study was evaluated by examining student discourse (through videotaping), surveying student's perceptions of design, of their mental activities, and by assessing their competence with HyperAuthor. The results showed that students increasingly became less engaged in off-task behaviour as the project went on. The researchers also claim that "students participating in design activities seem to explore topics more deeply, converse substantively about the topics, develop personal interests and involvement, and begin to develop critical standards for knowledge."

A third study (Toomey and Ketterer 1995) was interested in Multimedia as a cognitive Tool and described three case studies, two Australian and one American, where primary school teachers and their students used multimedia technology in the classroom. The case studies revealed that the very function of multimedia on the computer and the purpose of the activity, which was to present information can lead to a situation of mediated activity, where the students' peers and the teacher are drawn together into a collaborative working environment.

All these studies focused on subject areas other than the study of English. Some researchers in English have focused on a Literature approach to hypermedia where the students were involved in creating multimedia presentation of existing texts such as Hamlet (Read and Wells 1997) and The Masque of The Red Death (Harris and Cady 1988). Others have approached it as a tool for the creation of the student's own work, which is the area of my own research. The first study, from the United States (Wilhelm 1995) follows the experience of three students as they improve their writing skills and learn to enjoy research. The author uses HyperCard with the students to construct Personality Profiles, A stack on Psychology and one as a Cultural Journalist. Aside from technical problems of availability and number of computers, software learning on the run and the inevitable disk crashes the outcomes were generally favourable. The students were able to master hypertext sufficiently to produce their own stacks. The researchers noted the increased enthusiasm and remarked on the development of critical literary and research skills.

Two other studies were perhaps less subjective, the first (Buckingham, Grahame and Sefton-Greene 1995) was about a British program that introduced HyperCard to an all girls class at Year 8 level. The students were given some background work on story writing and some instruction in the use of the program and asked to complete hypermedia stories. The researchers found an initial problem in this approach ÒWhich comes first: the ability to write in non-linear narratives or the experience of reading them? Could the students invent non linear narratives without being competent uses of the technologyÓ (p.54) There were no obvious cultural forms to imitate. Even so the students were collaboratively able to create a range of interactive stories, though some were more interactive than others were, it was noted that some groups did not grasp the non-linear potential of the program. The authors noticed that the program forced the students to be explicit about a how a reader might view their work. They also suggested that the students Òengagement with the work clearly took it beyond a mechanical exercise in narrative construction.Ó

The third study (Russell 1998a and 1998b) involved using the program StorySpace to create interactive stories with Australian classes at Year 8 level. Russell like almost all the authors mentioned stressed the collaborative nature of the exercise. He was also concerned with the impact that hypermedia pedagogy has on teaching and learning as well as such "school" issues as assessment, homework and authorship. Another aspect of this study that is also echoed in Jordan (1997) is the explicit use of multimedia elements such as colour, images and pictures to convey meanings in a similar way to text. A movement that reflects the influence of the Internet and modern youth "cyberculture".

The research studies discussed tend to be fairly positive about the use of hypermedia in the classroom. A range of curriculum areas were covered and though the non-English studies stressed the research nature of their activities all the studies noted the way that hypermedia programs explicitly encourage the authors to be aware of their effects on the reader.

To summarise 1. Collaborative work, usually dictated by the limited availability of computers, was praised for the way that students were able to derive benefit from working cooperatively

2. The researchers noted the benefits for presenting information, for the students increased ability to structure their work into more meaningful forms.

3. The increased engagement of students to take part in the task, enthusiasm that was measured in recording off-task time in Lehrer, Erickson and Connell (1994) and noted in Wilhelm (1995) where the students came back after the exam time to finish their HyperCard stacks.

Major problems were not encountered, though some authors noted the need for a reappraisal of many school based practices that were impractical or self defeating when the teacher introduces hypermedia pedagogy.

As Russell (1997) has mentioned and Snyder (1996b) has said, "the research agenda is fertile with possibilities". Further work needs to be done on the skill development of adolescents especially since many of the studies in other curriculum areas noted the incidental development of such skills, as students needed to rethink the way information was structured. Russell and others made some small mention of the use of non-traditional forms of textural, iconic or illustrative communication in the hypermedia produced by students, this area seems to have had little attention and seems well worth pursuing.

The role of the teacher in hypermedia pedagogy is certainly an issue. Many of the studies do not cover the differing responses that students with learning difficulties might make or the particular needs they may have in these situations.

Methodologies and Techniques

I am proposing to conduct an Action Research project in a secondary college. Previously in my role as a classroom teacher, I conducted pilot studies using Hypertext and hypermedia in the classroom. The following is the account of one such study.

An Outline of a Multimedia Creative Writing Project Undertaken in 1997

In 1997, I organised my Year 9 English class into doing a project using computers. The students were introduced to the idea of creating an interactive and illustrated story with the HyperCard program. The project was undertaken over a ten week period, and consisted of lessons on the software program, classes on branching stories and creative writing and computer lab time spent creating and presenting hypermedia interactive stories.

I was struck by the seeming success of this exercise, but I was concerned about whether the students were really picking up enhanced skill development in English. I also noted that many students handled text differently and included the multimedia elements as explicit replacements for texts as well as enhancements of the texts. In this situation, I had a mixed ability classroom where some students seemed to be progressing beyond my competence level while others seemed to be facing enormous difficulties. These seemed obvious areas to investigate and helped with my formation of the research questions.

Research Questions

I have established these questions from my own practice as well as from my research.

1. On the basis of analysis of evidence available from records of students' English classes and samples of their English work, and from questionnaires and interviews with students and their parents, what behaviours do students in Years 7 and 8 in a semi-rural secondary school in Victoria display? Specifically what is their:

(a) level of attainment in effectively using the linguistic structures and features of English eg spelling, punctuation, sentence structure and paragraphing

(b) level of attainment in effectively using creative writing to access ideas and issues eg plot, characterisation and descriptive writing

(c) attitude to the study of English eg enthusiasm, awareness of the importance of high skills in English as conveyed by parents and the wider community, perceptions of their current skills, perceptions of their capacity to develop their current skills and commitment to developing their current skills.

2. After considering the analysis described above in Question 1 in what ways does the implementation in the selected classroom of a hypermedia-based curriculum, involving sound, animation, video and text, over an initial 16 lessons promote the development of:

(a) level of attainment in effectively using the linguistic structures and features of English as defined above and as measured by selected hypermedia samples chosen by the teacher?

(b) level of attainment in effectively using creative writing to access ideas and issues as defined above and as measured by analysis of hypermedia stories nominated by students as representing their Ôbest workÕ?

(c) attitude to the study of English as defined above and as measured by classroom observation during implementation, interviews of selected pupils at the end of lessons, and questionnaire surveys of all pupils at the end of the total sequence?

The primary focus of the research is the whole class but I would also like to study the material in terms of differences with in the group. Two important groups would be gender and any whose attendance at the lessons was irregular.

3. In the light of a review of this evidence of pupil development, and consideration of personal records maintained by the researcher over the course of the lessons, what hypotheses may be developed about the specific contribution of the content and process of the hypermedia curriculum to the fostering of positive attitudes to English and enhanced linguistic features and structures, and creative writing skills?

Action Research

Action Research is a method of approaching research that involves the researcher actively participating in the process of enquiry with a view to improving practice and increasing knowledge. (Kemmis and McTaggart, 1988) The proposed research is based around my interests in the use of hypermedia. I would describe my research as Practical Action Research, as distinct from Technical or Emancipatory. I am very much interested in improving my practice and understanding in the area of hypermedia education and with sharing this with a wider education community.

I will also be working in collaboration with a range of colleagues, some of who I hope to take with me in my different approaches towards English teaching. This is not strictly Emancipatory Action Research but it does hold some promise of promoting change at the local level.

One of the main features of Action Research involves using a cycle of reflection, action, reflection on and analysis of action and then further action based on this. (McNiff, Lomax and Whitehead 1996). Using such a model, I have divided my proposed project into a number of phases. Only Phase 1 can be mapped out with any certainty as the methodology for the following phases should emerge as a result of the reflective nature of the Action Research process

1. Phase 1

This will involve negotiations with the school administration, the teaching staff and the Department of Education. My initial plans are to set up and teach units of work that involves the students creating an interactive Hypermedia computer document or file (a stack) using a multimedia authoring program called HyperStudio. The target age group will be Years 7 and 8. The units should run for 3 to 4 weeks.

Preliminary work on story creation and the formation of writing groups or production teams

2. It should model a range of hypermedia documents to allow students to understand the concepts of non-linearity and linkages.

3. Class time devoted to creating and finding a range of digital resources such as images, photographs, music and sounds.

4. Preparation for Collaborative group work on computers and with the aim of creative writing.

At the end of the unit, each student or group of students should produce a piece of Interactive Fictional Hypermedia (to a set of criteria to be established). The whole process will be monitored and the students handling of the process and the outcomes that they achieved will be recorded for later analysis.

2. Phase 2

After carefully examining all that happened, I propose to repeat the whole process again with another set of students paying careful attention to any of the shortcomings of practice or resources that the first set revealed.

3. Phase 3

I would also like, as time went on, to revisit the earlier classes and run a more advanced approach to hypermedia. I will need to judge if the earlier classes had any impact on the attitudes towards using the computers in this way and to their abilities to produce more elaborate or effective Interactive fiction.

Gathering Information and Analysis

As a participatory research project I am planning to include a variety of Information gathering devices (Good and Brophy 1991) and analyses of studentsÕ completed work to enrich my research and allow for triangulation of data (Hopkins 1985). I will be maintaining a Research Diary that will contain a summary of what happens each day of the hypermedia lessons, stories of conversations, discussions, interviews, planning sessions with fellow teachers and students, observations and reflections and plans for future action or research. I will be using a range of survey types, interviews and observations in pursuit of data related to answering my research questions. The focus for the students in this study is as much the use of hypermedia as it is creative writing. In dealing with an evaluation of the studentÕs work in this area I am guided by EisnerÕs (1985) ideas of appraising the value of the studentÕs work and bringing an artistic view of informed categorising when dealing with it.

Table 1 Shows the types of data and collecting methods I will employ for Phase 1 of the project. For example for the first part of the first Research Question I am interested in data related to Skill development in English, areas such as punctuation, spelling, sentence and paragraph construction. To achieve this I will consult the students' academic records, interview the students' English teacher and undertake a self-assessment profile. I will also use my appraisal of their previous creative writing in English (Associated with my second research question) to aid in establishing a baseline of Skill Development. This will then be compared, after the hypermedia classes, with a follow up self-assessment profile, teacher interview and appraisal of the completed hypermedia documents.

Table 2 Illustrates how I propose to analyse the data I will be collecting. In my example from the previous paragraph I will be comparing the Baseline data on skill development with data from after the lessons (or Treatment) This will be a direct comparison, I will be interested in any differences that can be attributed to the hypermedia pedagogy.

Similarly for students attitudes to English I will use teacher interviews, students' own perceptions and a parent survey. This will establish a range of attitude types that I will compare to similar data collection methods after the "Treatment". During the Hypermedia classes, I will be recording students' involvement with the activities with either audio or video. This can be compared and contrasted with the other data in an attempt to triangulate the information so as to arrive at a more accurate analysis of whether students attitudes were in fact changed in any way by their involvement with the pedagogy.

Table 1. Phase 1 Data types and Methods of Collection linked to Research Questions

Table 2. Illustrative Analysis of Information for Research Questions in Phase 1 of the Action Research Cycle.

Facilities and Equipment

The secondary college that I will be basing my research in has two computer labs of 25 machines each; the school has the necessary software, HyperStudio with scanners and printers. The use of a video camera for recording interviews may also be available in the school.

Budget

Item

Use

Price

Video tape

Class room observation

5 x $5.00

$ 25.00

Sony 2 CM tape recorder

Taping interviews

$85.00

$ 85.00

Audio tapes

Taping interviews

5 x $ 5.00

$25.00

Batteries

Taping interviews

10 x $2.00

$ 20.00

Printing paper

Preparing Thesis

$6.00

$ 6.00

Printer cartridges

Preparing Thesis

$ 65.00

Iomega Zip Drive (SCSI)

Storage of Files

$245

$ 245.00

Zip Drive disks

Storage of files

3 x $20.00

$ 60.00

(Tape recorder and Zip drive to remain the property of the School of education at the completion of research)

Timescale

¥ Approach VUT with tentative proposal, write Candidature Proposal and conduct initial Literature Research. Discuss viability of project with selected school.

¥ Preparation of phase 1, including creating instructional material and examples, ensuring equipment availability and selecting appropriate class groups. Initial data collection on student's skill levels, attitudes and expectations.

¥ on going data collection and post-delivery modelling. Data Analysis and preparation of report on Phase 1 (Action Research Period of reflection)

¥ Phase 2, the details are dependent on all the analysis and reflection of Phase 1 but preparation of materials, resources and equipment, delivery of class and data collection will be involved.

¥ Phase 3. Growing out of the Action Research Cycle of Phases 1 and 2 and including material, resource and equipment preparation, and delivery of class and data collection.

¥ Completion of Literature research and analysis and the writing of the Thesis.

Summary of Significance

The research into the area of hypermedia in education has generally been positive and even enthusiastic. As a practicing teacher, I also felt some of the enthusiasm of undertaking hypermedia activities individually and with a class. What I felt the need for though was a more systematic examination on what was going. The students are engaging in English with media in a way not possible a decade ago, they are using, in addition to text, a variety of media that are usually not associated with the English curriculum such as pictorial images, music and sound, and applications that require the mastery of a range of new concepts such as hypermedia links and action buttons (In secondary school anyway, primary schools have a different focus (Kress van Leeuwen 1990)

In my proposed research I want to take some of the findings already published on the impact of a hypermedia pedagogy and investigate and develop them in the junior secondary sphere. I want to examine hypermedia in the realm of creative writing as I consider this area to have a particular resonance with the nature of multimedia and hyperlinking and an area not covered in any depth in the literature. In particular I want to focus on the students learning in the ever increasing and influential world of hypermedia.

References

Ayersman, D.J. 1996 'Reviewing the Research on Hyper5media-Based Learning' Journal of Research on Computing in Education 28(4)

Bonk, CJ, Medury, P.V. and Reynolds, T.H. 1994 'Cooperative Hypermedia: The Marriage of Collaborative Writing and Mediated Environments' Computers in The Schools 10(1/2)

Buckingham, G., Grahame, J. and Sefton-Green, J. 1995 Making Media Practical Production in Media Education London: The English and Media Centre

Good, T.L. and Brophy, J.E. 1991 Looking in Classrooms HarperCollins Publishers

Harris, M. and Cady, M. 1988 'The Dynamic Process of Creating Hypertext Literature' Educational Technology November 98

Hopkins, D. 1985 A TeacherÕs Guide to Classroom Research Milton Keynes: Open University Press

Jordan, K. 1997 'Writing in English: Changing concepts of Text, Reader and Writer' English in Australia 119-120 available at http://www.education.monash.edu.au/AATE/972jorda.htm

Kemmis, S. and McTaggart, R. 1988 The Action Research Planner, Australia: Deakin University Press.

Landow, G.P. 1992 Hypertext: the convergence of contemporary critical theory and technology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Lehrer, R., Erickson, J. and Connell, T. 1994 'Learning by Designing Hypermedia Documents' Computers in The Schools 10(1/2)

Marcus, S. 1993 'Multimedia, Hypermedia and the Teaching of English' in Monteith, Moira. (editor) Computers and Language. Oxford: Intellect.

McMahon, H., and O'Neill, B. 1993 'A story about Storying' in Monteith, Moira. (editor) Computers and Language. Oxford: Intellect

McNiff, J., Lomax, P. & Whitehead, J. 1996 You and Your Action Research Project, London: Routledge

Najjar, L.J. 1996 'Multimedia Information and Learning' Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia 5(2)

Owston, R.D., & Wideman, H.H. 1997 ÔWord Processors and ChildrenÕs Writing in a High-Computer-Access SettingÕ in Journal of Research on Computing in Education 30(2) 202 Ð220

Peretti, J.H. 'The Interactive Story: Fostering School Community Through Multimedia Projects' Proceeding of World Conference on Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia Calgary

Reed, W.M. and Wells, J.G. 1997 'Merging the Internet and Hypermedia in the English Language Arts' Computers in The Schools 13 (3/4)

Russell, G. 1997 b Elements and Implications of A Constructive Hypertext Story-Writing Pedagogy for Adolescents unpublished Ph.D. thesis Faculty of Arts . Griffith University. Queensland

Russell, G. 1998a 'Hypertext stories: A radical transformation in English pedagogy?' English in Australia 121

Russell, G. 1998b 'Hypertext story-writing: Challenging conventional teaching practice'

Australian Computers in Education Conference 1998
http://www.cegsa.sa.edu.au/acec98/papers/p_russell.html

Snyder, I. 1996 b ÔTowards Computer Mediated Literacy in the Secondary SchoolÕ in Clarkson, Philip C. and Toomey, Ron Computing Across the Secondary Curriculum: A Review of Research

The National Professional Development Project Computers Across the Secondary Curriculum Reference Group 1996

Toomey R. and Ketterer K. (1995) 'Using Multimedia as a Cognitive Tool' Journal of Research on Computing in Education 27(4)

Turner, S.V. and Dipinto, V.M. 1992 'Students as Hypermedia Authors: Themes Emerging from a Qualitative Study' Journal of Research on Computing in Education

Wilhelm, J.D. 1995 'Creating the Missing Links: Student -Designed Learning on Hypermedia' English Journal 84 (6)

	PROPOSAL FOR CANDIDATURE Doctor of Philosophy
Back to Hypermedia	This is an On-Line version of my Candidature Proposal designed to explore ways of presenting information as hypertext and hypermedia.	"The Impact of Hypermedia Pedagogy on Secondary School StudentsÕ Writing in EnglishÓ
Peter Thomas	November 1998 (Amended January 1999)

R Qu's	Data	Methods of Collecting
1(a)	-For Skill development: baseline data and skill development after the study.	-Teacher interviews, studentÕs academic record, self assessment profiles. Analysis of previous creative writing compared for skill development with hypermedia productions.
1(b)	- For Attitudes to English	-- Survey of parents , teachers and students perceptions of the students attitudes - prior and post test
2(a)	-On application of hypermedia to creative writing	- Analysis of Students Stacks Interviews and participant observations ( video or audio taped ) focusing on students describing what they understand to be going on
2(b)	-On engagement	- observation of student discourse over the length of the study to gauge student off-task time

Introduction

Key Words

Aims

Literature Review

Origins

Theory and Concepts

Classroom Research

Methodologies and Techniques

An Outline of a Multimedia Creative Writing Project Undertaken in 1997

Research Questions

Action Research

1. Phase 1

2. Phase 2

3. Phase 3

Gathering Information and Analysis

Facilities and Equipment

Budget

Timescale

Summary of Significance

References