But we still need to question the educational outcomes of hypertext because it will inevitably change how we process information and create knowledge. The need for closure to enable reading comprehension is crucial and it is not clear whether hypertext will encourage the kind of reading that is necessary, the kind of close reading where students must focus and take time to extract plausible meaning from difficult passages. In this age of fast living, hypertext promises fast information, but this is not necessarily educational.
On the other hand, hypertext does enable a new form of knowledge - one that promises to facilitate the establishment of connections between different forms of representation. The ease at which various sorts of information can be connected may serve to reduce interdisciplinary boundaries and help students to draw connections between multiple types of knowledge forms. At the same time, however, the move toward multiple voices and the death of the author removes possibilities for speaking from positions of authority - a necessary condition for educational and political endeavors.
Overall, the decision of whether to use hypertext for educational purposes is not an easy one; it entails some losses as well as some gains, but this is exactly why philosophers of education need to take up the issue of how technological artifacts reproduce and create social and political practices.
