A Brief History of Our Methods and Our Madness

The Internet

Since we wish to study instruction that uses the Internet, we start by pointing out what everyone knows - the growth of the Internet is phenomenal. The associated slide shows the Internet in 1970 - what was then ArpaNet - an amusing picture in light of the over thirty MILLION hosts on the Internet now. If you are interested in the current status, see http://www.nw.com/zone/WWW/top.html (Network Wizards Survey).

The above is the latest chart from this source. The plot of the same data on a logarithmic scale illustrates that we are experiencing pretty much straight exponential growth with an order of magnitude increase every 3 years.

The Oral, Print, and Electronic Traditions.

More significant than the growth of the Internet is its role as a communications medium. Our view of these media is influenced by work of Andrew Odlyzko, Brian Gaines, and others who are interested in the future of electronic publication. We want to make two points:

1. The majority of Americans and Europeans gets the majority of its news from electronic media. Radio and Television are the information chanels. Yet in the classroom we rely on the oral tradition and for academic authority we rely on the printed word. This may work and may even be laudable when educating a small percentage of the population but it creates a disconnect when trying to educate everyone.
2. Gaines' idea is that if we post a question to the Web, we might not only discover an existing reference (stored knowledge) but get an answer from an expert who created the answer in response to the question. From an operational point of view the question and the medium generated the answer.

   There are now agents which could be programmed to do this without the expert - rather than access the Network Wizards graphs above, could I not send out a program to collect and report the data? Recently Tim Berners-Lee announced his next goal to be that of turning the Web into a giant database, and Netscape just announced browsers with higher level search capabilities. This is datamining. Once the mining operations have started, can production be far behind?

A Brief History of Web-based Pedagogy

The development of new technology usually starts by transferring old material into new formats and settings. The first attempts at using the Web to teach transferred text. The Web is not a good medium for text-based material. The next attempts implemented primitive forms of interactive assessment. This at least exploits some of the advantages of the Web. Web-based assessment is discussed in detail later. The next step was transferring the whole notion of authoring, delivering, and managing a course to the Web. This has been exploding exponentially.

Hidden away in all of this are attempts to understand the Web as a new medium for instruction. Some have tried to find new ways to teach based on sound pedagogic principles but not simply as a reaction to the technology. That is one very positive direction in which the Web is moving.

The other discussion point is that of the commercialization of course management, delivery, and content. This may be good, bad, or indifferent, but it is happening rapidly. More of this will be discussed under course management systems.

A new source of examples of Web-based courses is available at http://database.telecampus.com. This link appears several times in the presentation.

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