Hypertextual Teaching in a TiddlySpace Educational Environment

Abstract

This thesis project uses first-hand observation and academic inquiry to inform the design and implementation of a hypertext-capable alternative online learning system in an open source wiki, called TiddlySpace. This system is then used as the educational environment in which students, with minimal hypertextual experience, are taught to think hypertextually and record their work in a collaborative hypertext environment. The researcher finds TiddlySpace to be dynamic enough to handle mid-semester changes and also powerful enough to support a wide range of academic assignments. The bulk of these assignments required students to create a large amount of structured microcontent, which appeared to encourage hypertext literacy. Finally, the researcher examines the idea that increased hypertextual literacy may encourage conceptual learning in a greater sense.