To fully exploit the Web as a vehicle for the delivery of courseware a more supportive learning environment is required which can still make use of all the power of the Web whilst still maintaining a level of control over navigation. We must provide a navigational mechanism that allows students to follow interesting links to resources anywhere on the Web whilst providing a simple means of returning to the point where the student left the set of materials which have been designated as being directly associated with the current educational objective.
Predictor: Nicol, David
Prediction, in context:David Nicol, Calum Smeaton and Alan Falconer Slater presented the paper ÒFootsteps: Trail-blazing the Web,Ó in which they suggest that current browsers do not provide much support for users navigating the Web, at the third annual WWW Conference in 1995. Nicol was with Signal Processing Division at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland. Calum Smeaton and Falconer Slater worked in the Department of Computing and Electrical Engineering at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. They write:ÒAlthough the Web provides a superb basis for the development of distributed educational resources, navigation through the resulting structure can be confusing. Although it is arguable that such free exploration should be encouraged, we feel that the pragmatic constraints often placed upon students requires that additional navigational aids be provided. These constraints are especially obvious where systems are being used to augment traditional laboratory work on science or engineering courses … To fully exploit the Web as a vehicle for the delivery of courseware a more supportive learning environment is required which can still make use of all the power of the Web whilst still maintaining a level of control over navigation. We must provide a navigational mechanism that allows students to follow interesting links to resources anywhere on the Web whilst providing a simple means of returning to the point where the student left the set of materials which have been designated as being directly associated with the current educational objective.Ó
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: Footsteps: Trail-blazing 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/60/footsteps.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne