INTEGRATING CONSTRUCTIONISM AND INSTRUCTIONISM IN EDUCATIONAL HYPERMEDIA PROGRAMS

In many educational hypermedia programs, the original meaning of hyper text influenced the entire pedagogical approach underlying the program s. This meant that learners were free to navigate, construct, and choo se their learning path. In addition, no learning objectives were manda tory, and the processes of hypertext navigation and artifact construct ions were emphasized. The problem of this trend was that learners rece ived little feedback to guide them on how to use the non-linear struct ure, and not all could acquire important skills and knowledge of the s ubject matter. This article deals with an attempt to integrate linear instruction elements into hypermedia programs in order for learners to benefit from the advantages of both approaches. It offers feedback as a connecting unit in such an integration and suggests a model of feed back that fades in and out, based on the fading-out model of scaffoldi ng traditionally used in the apprenticeship approach. A few projects a re described to illustrate these ideas.