Handling Hypermedia Complexity: Fractal Hyperscapes and Mind Mapping

Mainstream research on educational technology has focused on the discovery of more effective ways for conveying “relevant” information to students. A problem that we identified is that students often do not engage with the subject matter, especially when dealing with complex domain representations, even when high quality hypermedia resources are available. With the widespread of multimedia content and the emergence of massive information resources there is a need for powerful and effective learning tools that can handle all kinds of media configurations. Our results show that mind mapping and the creation of hyperscapes are very effective means to give learners control over multimedia materials and improve motivation.