Structural Types of Hyperlinks

Now that we have discussed some of the basics of hyperlinks, there are three structural types of hyperlinks that will control how your students will navigate your site. The type you provide will allow your students to “follow the straight and narrow” path that you want them to follow, or your navigation scheme will allow them to wander and explore. All three of these types of links serve a specific purpose.

Sequential links are best used for linear content. Your students can only move forward or backward one page at a time. This type of structure works best if you want your students to follow a particular sequence of instructions (i.e. how to bake a cake or the method to calculate the molar weight of Sulfur Acid, etc.). This type of structure provides for minimum student control.

Hierarchical links are best used when you think your students are going to need extra practice in an area. The links are linear but offers branching to extra work areas. Those who need the practice can branch to extra work and study areas, versus those who are quick learners and can move straight on.

Web links are best used in a constructivist learning environment. You provide links to different sites so students can obtain multiple perspectives of the same topic. Be sure to include links to points of view to which you may not agree - they make for great discussions.

Site Maps are a means to let your students know where they can go your site. Think of them as an active table of contents. It helps the student to determine the organization of the site, its content, and provides a method for moving quickly from one page to another. Site maps help to bridge the gap between instruction which may be objectivist (sequential) to that which may be constructivist (“webbin”). Site maps come in many different forms such as:

1. History Maps which tell the student where he has been. These are the easiest to construct because of the linking convention used in a browser. The browser automatically color codes links that have been visited.
2. Time Dependent Maps which display content in the sequence of which they were accessed.
3. Homepage maps which list the main pages on the web-site with links to and from all main sub-sites. Basically the same as a History Map but not as extensively linked.
4. Hierarchical Maps show the relationship between sub-sites of information and the instructional units. Think of these types of maps as a road map which presents the student with pre-requisite information, relationships to major topics and sub-topics, or a guided “road.”

You can also mix and match these types of maps throughout your site. The important factor to realize is that you want your students to be able to reach any page within your site within three mouse clicks are less. This usually means inserting a site map and hyperlinks from every page which can lead the learner to every other page on the site.

Next month (November) I will begin a series of articles which deal with visual elements of an instructional site. These elements include the use, misuse, and abuse of animation, gif/jpg files which can have a tremendous impact on web-page loading.