We should inform our teaching and use of the web with what we've learned from other net communications mediums, from successful teaching models and from hypermedia studies. We should look to the discussions about mutivariate, reader-determined texts and about net composition as social activity when we think of the web. At the same time, we should concern ourselves with the details of web compositions, the organizational shapes and compositional strategies needed to make web projects successful on their own terms. The first step is detailed analysis of what's happening when we write on the web.

For example, it has been often noted that hypertexts should be seen as more than just a way to include pictures with words. Hypertexts allow for multiple dimensions in documents, alternative pathways, and collaboration which may transform hypertexts beyond multimedia and into social activity. I agree with these potential claims, and think that the web in particular has the possibility for realizing these goals. But, I think that as instructors teaching composition on the web our focus must also be directed at the points where text and new media mix, in many cases at ways of mixing pictures with words. In fact, by focusing here, we will be better able to see where web projects succeed and fail in terms of larger goals.

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