This paper considers the complex connections between hypertext, literacy and educational change. It begins with four stories that illuminate some of the challenges that confront the field of hypertext research: notably, literacy teachers' tendency to conservatism in their pedagogical practices and the remarkable cultural endurance of the printed book. The paper asks: How might literacy educators do more than shuffle into the future? A number of suggestions are offered: devise a common language to talk about the changes to literacy practices associated with the use of new media; identify theories that help explain the changes to literacy practices in the digital age; suggest a direction for the third generation of hypertext research and theory. The first generation of hypertext research and theory produced some elegant and evocative ideas but made too many claims. The second generation took another look at hypertext, but this time in the unbounded context of the internet. Too often, however, it clung to old ideas that no longer made sense in the new on-line environment. The third generation promises to demonstrate how productive it can be to traverse traditional disciplinary and theoretical boundaries in pursuit of new understandings of on-line literacy designed to inform teaching and learning.
Hypertext; Literacy; New Media