Hypertextbooks: Animated, Active Learning, Comprehensive Teaching and Learning Resources for the Web¹

Abstract

Computer-generated visualizations have been used in computer science education for many years, most notably in the form of algorithm animations. Although appealing and often useful, the anecdotal evidence is that these visualizations are seldom used in the classroom. There are many reasons for this, including platform dependence, cumbersome installation and maintenance procedures, and—perhaps most influential— a lack of integration with other course materials. Hypertextbooks provide one solution to these problems. Designed as complete teaching and learning resources for the web, hypertextbooks incorporate many features for teaching and learning that vastly extend the capabilities of traditional textbooks. Along with traditional textual presentations of the material to be learned, hypertextbooks allow for different learning paths through the material for different learning needs, an abundance of pictures and illustrations, video clips where helpful, audio, and—most importantly—interactive, active learning visualizations of key concepts. In this paper we discuss the hypertextbook concept by way of the hypertextbook project currently underway at Montana State University.

Support for some of the work described here has come from the National Science Foundation, grant numbers NSF-0088728 and NSF-0088934.