HyWrite: writing in hypermedia eLearning environments

The paper focuses on the practical reality of eLearning in Higher Education with special emphasis on media integration from the perspective of a spiral curriculum.[12] It presents an innovative model of media art education integrated in a creative writing program and concentrates upon the re-design of writing with the help of hypermedia in customized eLearning environments. HyWrite is the name of an authoring tool, an "educational facilitator", currently being developed at the University of Passau.This tool is meant to be used both in higher education for teacher training purposes and in secondary education as a teacher and student's hypertext writing assistant. HyWrite is backed by an elaborate didactic design based on students' active participation and all-round involvement in the learning process. The didactic goals pursued are on the one hand the acquisition of a set of primary skills like for instance essay writing and on the other hand getting acquainted with a host of complementary skills not explicitly mentioned by the curriculum yet presupposed by the Information and Knowledge Society. These skills are dealt with in a systematical approach and reflect the actual state of affairs, namely what "every schoolboy and girl should know".[3] An overview of the above mentioned competences is available in the core skill cluster below. The skill cluster under discussion covers competences pertaining to four ranges of action: writing techniques, media literacy, aesthetic features combined with ergonomic design from the point of view of accessibility and usability, and -last but not least- the social skills imposed by cooperative work.