CHAPTER 12 DISTANCE LEARNING ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB

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CHAPTER 12 DISTANCE LEARNING ON THE WORLD WIDE
WEB

• PRESENTED BY THERESA JAMES

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TOPICS TO BE COVERED

• Distance Teaching The Old Paradigm
• Introducing the World Wide Web
• Creating and Publishing Web Documents
• Teaching and Learning with the Web
• Transitioning to Distance Education
• The Future of Net-Based Learning
• Conclusion
• Question Period

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Distance Teaching The Old Paradigm

• Traditional form called talk, chalk, and a hairy
  arm
• Role of student is to listen and retain whats
  said
• Efficient way when content is well organized and
  learners are motivated to pay attention
• Does not work with topics that are too detailed
  or complicated

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Why Active Learning

• Two different approaches
• First To transfer effectively and efficiently,
  a block of information from teacher or computer
  to learners
• Second Constructivism - With use of technology,
  information presented to learner in many forms,
  from many sources, and asks learner to make sense
  of it
• Constructivism approach is more learner focused
  and less teacher focused

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Introducing the World Wide Web

• World Wide Web is fastest growing part of the
  Internet
• Mosaic first of graphical user interfaces for the
  Web
• Netscape came next with more features and speed
• Both are browsers
• Web makes it easy to get access to data, software
  and people

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Creating and Publishing Web Documents

• Most word processing software have ability to
  save in Web format
• Web writers use HTML - hyper text markup language
• Alternate method is Adobe Acrobat
• Acrobat allows for complex layouts but users need
  proper helper application

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Teaching and Learning with the Web

• Appropriate vehicle for computer training for
  several reasons
• Computer trainers are up to the challenge
• Those being taught are already at a computer
• Computer skills need to be used regularly
• Courses can be updated routinely
• Wealth of material available on the Web

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Transitioning to Distance Education

• Moving classes from classroom to being available
  on the Web should be made in 4 phases
• Phase 1 Distribution
• Phase 2 Activity Development
• Phase 3 Automation and Interactivity
• Phase 4 True Distant Delivery

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Phase 1 Using the Web to Distribute Materials
to a Non-Distant Class

• Make the Web a part of regular class
• Translate/convert word processed documents,
  slides and graphics to proper formats
• Advantages of going from paper to the Web
• Youll soon find an easy way to convert and train
  someone to do it for you

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Phase 1 Continued

• Less paper - be able to provide more handouts
• Material can be easily updated
• Can use Web as a resource to improve course
  material
• Graduates can refer back to your latest versions
• Attract new students who stumble across your Web
  page
• Makes you open to other professionals in your
  field - good for sharing of ideas

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Phase 2 Adding Web-Based Activities to a
Classroom-Based Course

• Provides following resources to your class once
  Web is incorporated as part of learning process
• external experts - technical notes
  
• newsgroups - software archives
  
• FAQ files - simulated people
  

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The Importance of Structure

• Must get the learners to benefit from the Web as
  quickly as possible

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WebQuest

• This is an assigned inquiry task on the Web that
  is either short-term or long-term
• they should contain these six steps
• 1. Introduction 4. Description
• 2. Task 5. Learning advice
• 3. Information resources 6. Conclusion

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Phase 3 Adding Interactivity and Automation

• Most online courses stop at Phase 2 because Phase
  3 requires more technical skills
• Tasks for this phase could involve
• interactive FAQs
• testing
• tutorials
• meeting scheduling
• course evaluation
• feedback database

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Phase 4 Making a Course Available to Distant
Learners

• This phase can be quick or slow-paced
• Start with just a few students in a classroom
  setting and monitor what happens while you are
  not physically present
• Adjust according to your findings
• Gradually make course partly virtual
• If you want, you may proceed to completely virtual

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The Future of Net-Based Training

• As the Internet use increases in popularity for
  all aspects of life, watch for these new
  developments
• RealAudio
• VRML
• HotJava
• Moo's
• These will be a major factor in distance learning

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Conclusion

• talk, chalk and a hairy arm
• Web is increasing in popularity
• Changing in order to accommodate distance
  learning takes 4 steps
• Distribution
• Activity Development
• Automation and Interactivity
• True Distant Delivery
• What is the future of distance learning?