Archives: Expert Predictions

Designing a Web of Intellectual Property

The rapid progress of technology creates holes which current law cannot fill. This imposes responsibility on the technologists involved in the definition of standards for the web, as well as creators of browser software … Previously, legislation has been the main way in which society has controlled the inner working of the social system for information exchange. Now it is time that media designers take their responsibility seriously and create technology not limited by current legislation, but rather, if appropriate, built on the traditional purpose of intellectual property protection.

Creating a Virtual Classroom for Interactive Education on the Web

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.

Creating a Virtual Classroom for Interactive Education on the Web

With workshops held in our training facility we know what type of computer hardware, software and network connection our students will have. For an electronic course an Internet connection will be required, but will we require students to have a graphical browser for the Web? This requirement could exclude some students from participation, but would greatly increase the functionality that we can make use of for the materials. Even with a graphical browser, some students may find limited network bandwidth does not provide a satisfactory learning environment.

Creating a Virtual Classroom for Interactive Education on the Web

While we may now be able to directly impact a broader group of people, this group will likely be much more diverse in its background and computing experience. Will we want to set up individual computer accounts for this larger group on our system? Will we provide support for these people through our consulting phone and e-mail service? Should we instead look at a method to provide hands-on experience through a more generic method? Certainly there will be a number of security issues and the necessity for fire walls to protect our production computing environments if we wish to accommodate this larger audience.

Creating a Virtual Classroom for Interactive Education on the Web

While distance education can provide efficient utilization of scarce resources, more fair distribution of knowledge, and timely dissemination of new knowledge, limitations in its effective use exist. Student motivation is critical. On-line instructors may need to take more time for the electronic course. Limits to the number of students may be required to maintain quality interaction. While generalizations in the effectiveness of distance education are dangerous, a common set of advantages and disadvantages are emerging.

The ‘ICP OnLine’: Jeux sans frontires on the CyberCampus

Effective learning of a complex and content-rich cognitive skill takes place most effectively through its rehearsal in an environment that, as closely as possible, simulates the real-world environment in which that skill would be put into practical use (hence, for example, flight simulators for trainee pilots). Multimedia and virtual reality can model such environments.

The ‘ICP OnLine’: Jeux sans frontires on the CyberCampus

The university lecture is, for example, a paradigmatically passive non-participatory activity; simple “page-turning” multimedia may provide the learner with some degree of engagement in the learning process, but may still be “inter-passive” rather than properly interactive; high-quality multimedia should involve the learner in active task-based problem-solving.

The ‘ICP OnLine’: Jeux sans frontires on the CyberCampus

Freed from the residential constraint, telematics-based programs can support the “mass-customization” of learning through pick-and-mix learning-on-demand.

The ‘ICP OnLine’: Jeux sans frontires on the CyberCampus

If structured high-quality learning materials are available online to whoever has access to a computer and modem, without constraints of time and place, then the traditional residential teaching university becomes – from the students’ perspective at least – largely redundant. (This would then also enable universities to recapture their historical role as centers for research and for the “pursuit of knowledge,” as is exemplified in the UK for instance by residential research activities at the Milton Keynes campus of the Open University.)

The ‘ICP OnLine’: Jeux sans frontires on the CyberCampus

There is nothing natural about taking 18-year-olds out of the world for three years into the cloistered halls of academia; there is nothing in the nature of history or physics or economics or whatever else, as disciplines, that determines that they can be neatly bounded and bundled up in three-year packages … with new technologies relentlessly redefining the way we work and live, it may not merely be an anachronism to continue to embrace the model of the traditional residential university as the primary locus of learning – it may arguably be an impediment to appropriate learning and ultimately a threat to growth, both economic and personal.

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