1 Using a Cognitive Flexibility Hypertext to Develop Reading Comprehension. An Ongoing Case Study with Students of a Media Studies Degree.

This paper presents an ongoing case study on the use of the platform DidaktosOnLine (Moreira et al, 2005). The participants in the study are a class of first year students attending an English language course of the Media Studies degree, at the School of Education of the University of the Algarve. DidaktosOnLine was developed at the University of Aveiro by Moreira and his research team and is based on Cognitive Flexibility Theory (Spiro et al, 1987). This is a constructivist theory of learning and instruction which defends that information should be presented from multiple perspectives through the use of cases that function as examples of knowledge in context. According to Spiro et al (1987), multiple representations of knowledge and the development of cognitive flexibility are facilitated by the use of hypertexts which facilitate navigating through complex knowledge domains. As this theory emphasizes repeated presentations of the same material in reorganized sequences and from different perspectives, cognitive flexibility hypertexts provide non-linear links that help implement multiple dimensions of knowledg