In a physical classroom there is a standard set of audio-visual equipment and tools available to the instructor. These might include a chalkboard, overhead projector, video cassette player, possibly a sound system, and even the textbook. Professional instructors know how to make best use of these tools. The virtual classroom will need equivalent equipment and tools in the form of network-based software applications … The growth of electronic publishing on the Internet should ensure a good supply of electronic textbooks over the coming years … Bandwidth limitations to the students desk also makes many … tools unusable. It is not acceptable to have to limit participation in the virtual classroom to only those with the best Internet access and interface. Just as html has provided a standard which allows participation by users with diverse implementations of both low-end and high-end browsers, audio-visual tools will require similiar standardization.
Predictor: Dwyer, Dan
Prediction, in context:Dan Dwyer, Kathy Barbieri and Helen M. Doerr of the Cornell Theory Center, a national center for high-performance computing, presented research titled ÒCreating a Virtual Classroom for Interactive Education on the Web,Ó in which they discuss new opportunities for distance education over the Internet, at the third annual WWW Conference in 1995. They write:ÒIn a physical classroom there is a standard set of audio-visual equipment and tools available to the instructor. These might include a chalkboard, overhead projector, video cassette player, possibly a sound system, and even the textbook. Professional instructors know how to make best use of these tools. The virtual classroom will need equivalent equipment and tools in the form of network-based software applications. Some of these virtual tools have a relatively long history on the Internet and provide obvious applications. Other are still emerging and their potential use in a virtual classroom is not yet understood. With the appropriate design, the student should be able to take advantage of these tools without leaving the comfort of their favorite Web browser interface. Some of those considered for our classroom are: – The textbook: Many courses have a textbook used to guide the direction of the course or for background material. While our on-line materials provide some of this function, these may sometimes not provide all of the details that a users needs É The growth of electronic publishing on the Internet should ensure a good supply of electronic textbooks over the coming years. – The chalkboard: É The instructor might make use of the shared whiteboard offered by a tool like NCSA Collage (NCSA, 1994) to answer a question from a student … – Video cassette recorder: Use of mpeg movies and audio clips can be effective additions to textual materials … Audio clips of the instructor might be helpful in some instances … – The sound system: … Allowing all students to “hear” the questions and answers helps everyone learn and encourages additional questions to clarify a point. Use of a listserv to redistribute e-mail questions or a usenet newsgroup are simple methods for sharing this interaction. A more dynamic question and answer period could be created using a chat session … – Video teleconferencing: … Body language is one component of physical contact that is difficult to convert to pre-packaged text and still images. Incorporation of these might be accomplished in the future through video teleconferencing technologies over the Internet … The creation and use of audio-visual tools is still problematic. The same functionality or at least interoperability must be available across all popular graphical user interfaces É Bandwidth limitations to the students desk also makes many of these tools unusable. It is not acceptable to have to limit participation in the virtual classroom to only those with the best Internet access and interface. Just as html has provided a standard which allows participation by users with diverse implementations of both low-end and high-end browsers, audio-visual tools will require similiar standardization.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Getting, Sharing Information
Subtopic: E-learning
Name of publication: WWW Conference '95
Title, headline, chapter name: Creating a Virtual Classroom for Interactive Education on the Web
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
www.igd.fhg.de/archive/1995_www95/proceedings/papers/62/ctc.virtual.class/ctc.virtual.class.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne