Advanced Educational Uses of the World-Wide Web

Structure of the Presentation

• A Framework for Computer Assisted Learning

• Going Beyond Document Delivery

• Educationally Attractive Features of WWW

• Closed Corpus and Open Corpus Approaches

• Closed Corpus Approach

• Open Corpus Approach

• Synthesizing Closed and Open Corpus Approaches

• Server-based Response Analysis

• Transcending Statelessness

• Challenges

A Framework for Computer Assisted Learning

• Learner

• Materials/Resources

• Mentor/Instructor

• Feedback

• Social Environment

• Technical Environment

Going Beyond Document Delivery

• Good educational material requires substantial efforts

• Appearance and Content

• Keys to Quality

  • Successive Refinement

  • Individualization: Interaction, Assessment

  • Individual history is important; Transcending statelessness

Educationally Attractive Features of WWW

1. Internet growth: connectivity and resources.

2. Simple, uniform access to Internet resources.

3. HTML simplicity, power, portability.

4. Appeal of multimedia.

5. Public domain software.

6. Customization (e.g., external viewers).

7. Easy for providers.

8. It's a Web!
   Content & Context vs Container/Carrier

Closed Corpus and Open Corpus Approaches

Closed Corpus Approach

• Mentor controls/decides resources available to Learner

• Mentor focuses Learner effort/attention

• Like learning from a good textbook

• Traditional CAL is largely closed corpus.
  Includes interaction and assessment based on an individual's responses and history.

• CDs (closed delivery?) work well here.

• Web becomes purely an access mechanism for predefined corpus

  • Extensions of books and lecture materials

  • Very important, early, easy application:
    Use new media to replicate and to extend a well-chosen subset of earlier experiences.

• Assessment (a cornerstone of good CAL) might appear harder with the Web than with traditional CAL

Open Corpus Approach

• Take the Web as it is

• Like learning from a large library/bookstore

• Huge amount of material available

• Learning through curiousity and serendiptity

• New opportunities for learning

• Confusion between "freedom" and lack of guidance

• Learning should not remain only accidental

• Risk of frustration: "I know it's there, but where?"

• Teach students to use the Web to "structure" their knowledge and discoveries

Synthesizing Closed and Open Corpus Approaches

• In reality, almost every educational use of the Web does this.

  • General and subject-oriented catalogs and search engines

  • Additional purpose-specific guides and resources

• Statelessness is a technical virtue and an educational handicap.

• Education includes assessment and active assistance.

• Other educational activities also require "history"

Server-based Response Analysis

• Traditional CAL: Flow of control based on analysis of learner responses

• WWW: Response Analysis (and "branching") done via CGI-compliant program on server.

• Build on techniques and experience in "traditional" CAL response analysis.

• Server providing response analysis need not be the source of the document initiating the request for analysis.

• Analysis (and "branching") combines input from this document with server side information. Contribution of each can vary to accomodate broad range of applications.

• This strategy allows record keeping for various purposes, including assessment and improvement of materials.

• Can incorporate human (expert) evaluation.

Transcending Statelessness

Transcending Statelessness

• Virtual Sessions

  • Identify user

  • Who keeps history

  • Session length

  • Time-out and Disappearing Clients

  • Cleaning up

• Cross-session profile management

• Managing/limiting load on server

Challenges

• Technical, Economic, Social, Educational

• Unfocused Wandering

• Cost, Capacity, Copyright

• Accessibility of inappropriate materials

• Educator involvement

• Lowering the technological threshold