Articulating hypermedia theory

For my final project, I'm working with another deacon in my diocese to create some web-based materials on the diaconate, which is exciting. It's great to feel that the work I'm doing on this is not just hypothetical but can actually be used now.

In collaborating with someone outside this class to produce a web-based project, however, I've had to do some explaining about what the point would be of turning a print text into a web-text. The reading we've been doing on media theory has been useful in trying to explain and justify the idea.

It's interesting this time to be working collaboratively, adapting someone else's content rather than my own. When I worked on the text-webtext project, it was all my material, so I made my editing and organizational choices without any discussion or need to explain or justify my choices while doing it.

Now, I am taking someone else's work and talking about changing and adapting it to a web environment, and the author has some questions about it. I can understand. It's got to feel a little precarious handing over your work to someone and not knowing exactly how they may change it or why. 

He's been asking me what the point of changing it will be - what will be added by converting his text and power point slides to a web text. He wanted to know also how emphasis will be given to different parts of the content, because, as its creator, he knows what he stresses when teaching it and would like to ensure that the same things are stressed in whatever way that happens in the web format.

It was a good question. In a straight print text, things are sometimes emphasized by italicizing them, but it's not good to overdo this, because it can get annoying after a while.

In brochures or newsletters or newspapers, you have the added flexibilities of changing the color, size and shading of the words and using word art and images. You can also organize information visually using a variety of elements. 

Powerpoint allows these capabilities to a slightly more limited degree, because the size of the writing space is limited to one slide at a time. Powerpoint allows, however, for sound and motion, which changes the palette again.

Because of it's one-screen-at-a-time limitation of the slide space and the capabilities of adding sound, motion, and videos as well as text, color and images, powerpoint moves text closer a web format. Some of the choices made to adapt a print text to a slide show will transfer easily to a web format, though the web format will be layered more than linear.