Will: Framing Hypertext in Theoretic and Practical Teaching Contexts

I'm enthusiastic about Hypertext Reflections both as a conference session (after all, we did end it at the bar drinking with Cindy Selfe and Gail Hawisher!) and web site because it seems to frame hypertext in both theoretical and practical teaching contexts. This work is ongoing and much of what we have done is the result of path finding and ground breaking theorists like Michael Joyce and Lester Faigley, as well as building on master computers-and-writing teachers like Kate Kiefer and Dawn Rodriquez . . . but I do believe our session and the content of this hypertext add to the body of hypertext and teaching scholarship in some important ways.

To begin with, we have accepted the hypertext challenge of not being able to finish or close our work by continuing this hypertext with an ongoing infusion of energy and ideas. Though this has been awkward at times, we've managed with Mike Palmquist at our helm to sail oceans of ideas and words with Hypertext Reflections as our ship. We've managed to take a significant step away from traditional conference presentations and, at the same time, make our scholarship and work accessible and effective beyond the conference for which it was designed. In other words, Hypertext Reflections is not academic "vaporware"--we are actually linking our scholarship more closely to our teaching lives.

And finally, this hypertext offers a range of needed readers and writers--from our students to our colleagues to the editors of KAIROS--to whom we hope to appeal in ways that will change us all.