This chapter begins by attempting to define multimedia, hypermedia, and hypertext. Because there are no official definitions, the book attempts to provide ways for you to think about these terms that are concrete and consist with common usage. Definitions are provided based on characteristics of the product the user experiences. Multimedia translates as multiple media or multiple formats - two modalities (e.g., words and pictures) or two genres (e.g., poetry and prose). You may be surprised to learn that the term "multimedia" has been used since the 1970s. For example, schools used to purchase audiotape and filmstrip kits on content area topics. Now, most people immediately think of the computer when hearing the word multimedia.

Practical Multimedia and Hypermedia Differences

Current applications of multimedia and hypermedia aren't really very different. Think of a multimedia experience as a linear path with a few learner-controlled sidetracks. When the learner controls the experience, he or she moves through the material in a predictable way, taking an occasional diversion, but always returning to the main path. Hypermedia has sometimes been described as a rich web of information sources. Yet the complex set of connections that you might imagine, among an endless number of forms and sources, is seldom realized in most commercial hypermedia products today. What is more likely is an intermediate-level product in which a student might be free to explore multiple pathways, each of which might have possible sidetracks. A student can explore the domain of available information in different ways, but not with infinite variations. Depending on present research efforts and commercial viability, truly complex hypermedia environments may or may not be products of the future.

Hypermedia allows multimedia to be experienced in a nonlinear fashion. Hypertext deals strictly with text. Nonlinear may be an unfamiliar term and even when understood is probably not a concept you have associated with instructional materials. It may be useful to present the idea in the following manner. Perhaps it is best to start with the idea of "units of information" and with a unit of information you are familiar with - e.g., paragraphs. When students read a textbook the paragraph "units" are encountered in a fixed linear sequence.

Nonlinear would obviously imply something else. If you have the opportunity, visit a local general purpose bookstore and purchase a "Pick a Path" adventure book (Scholastic). Several companies sell books of this type. When you read a book of this type, you read several units (paragraphs) of information and then encounter a choice point. The choice point is probably some type of question - would you like to do this or that. Depending on the choice you make, you are referred to different pages in the book. You experience a book of this type in a nonlinear fashion and unless you go through the story several times do not even read all of the material.

The pure text version of hypermedia is called hypertext. Pick a Path adventure books could be described as hypertext, but the term hypertext usually refers to a computer application allowing a reader to move among units of text in a flexible manner rather than in a linear fashion. Hypermedia then is multimedia allowing the user nonlinear access. The user has some degree of control in moving among units of information presented in multiple formats (pictures, text, etc.). Once you understand what multimedia and hypermedia are, the next issue is whether there can be any advantage allowing learners to explore information presented in this fashion. How might it be better than reading a book or watching a videotape?

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