One of the more explosive growth areas of the World Wide Web is the opportunity it affords for distance learning, and with courses ranging from "Rhetoric of the Road" at the University of Texas-Austin to "Slacker Studies" at the State University of New York-Cobleskill, today's students are in the driver's seat. Web-based distance courses can run the gamut from text-based, e-mail, correspondence-type classes to full-blown interactive multimedia presentations. The vast majority of courses more closely resemble the text-based model, but we are beginning to see video, audio and even some interactivity in many offerings. Of particular interest are the newer interactive multimedia technologies found on the Web (Java, VRML, Shockwave, etc.), their use in course delivery, the challenges these technologies present to both faculty and administrators, and how these challenges may be overcome.
Interactive Multimedia Technologies
It seems that every day there's another announcement from Netscape or Microsoft or some start-up in Silicon Valley about an exciting new piece of technology that will deliver audio, or animation, or 3-D graphics, or allow one to wander through virtual spaces on the Web - and all for free! Whether it's called Live Audio or Shockwave or Java or Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) or Active X or QuickTime Video, what we have is a multimedia smorgasbord that faculty can indulge in putting to use in their courses.
What do these kinds of technologies do that hasn't been done before? Physics faculty using Java created an applet on projectile motion that allows the user to set the launch angle and coefficient of linear air resistance. It then animates the trajectory of the body and calculates some of its properties numerically. (See: medb.physics.utoronto.ca/Web/Website/appletgallery.html.)
What's new and fascinating about applets like these is that they offer hard-to-do simulations of physical events, are free to the user, can be demonstrated on a variety of computer operating systems (Mac, Windows, etc.), are highly interactive, and can be accessed at any time by anyone in the world with an Internet connection. The good news for educators is that for the first time we have an innovative mix of technologies that makes courseware delivery over the Web a very potent educational force.
What would an interactive multimedia course module delivered over the Web look like? Physics faculty, for example, could videotape real-world phenomena that depict certain laws of physics, i.e., the Ferris wheel and the "whip" for circular motion. They could then supplement the video with audio lecture material, allow students to manipulate variables in a Java program, use VRML to create 3-D walk-through virtual models of how the laws of projectile motion apply, provide animation on the behavior of balls on a track, conduct a synchronous two-way conversation with one student or the entire class via chat lines, correspond with individual students asynchronously via e-mail, and then quiz and grade students using online interactive exams.
Besides the appeal that a rich lode of sensory modalities holds for those catering to different learning styles and the obvious razzle-dazzle, are there other reasons for using multimedia in teaching? A fascinating glimpse of the power of multimedia to positively impact learning can be seen in the world of physics. Laws of physics that run counter to students' common sense notions of how the world works provide a stimulating catalyst for further investigation. In "The Initial Knowledge State of College Physics Students" (Journal of Physics, 1986), I.A. Halloun and D. Hestenes demonstrated, for example, that freshman physics students' intuitive notions of the behavior of a ball leaving a track are often contrary to the laws of circular motion, a major topic in freshman physics. Other research indicates that these misconceptions may be overcome through the use of video and animation. In one experiment conducted at the University of Massachusetts, the path of a ball on a circled track was videotaped; a segment of the track was then removed and another video segment captured the path of the ball as it was about to leave the track. When queried at this point as to where the ball will go next, many students get stuck: their intuitive senses tell them the ball will go off in an upward path or a downward path but not the straight ahead path that it actually takes. A third video segment showed the actual straight-lined path of the ball leaving the track. An animation done in Director and then put on the Web with Shockwave showed that a circle is really composed of an infinite number of straight lines and when the ball hits one of them it goes off in a straight line. This straight line path is, in fact, counterintuitive to a large number of students. Our research indicated that students using these multimedia supplements to their regular course materials did significantly better on tests than students who did not use them.
A number of sites offer robust distance learning offerings. The World Lecture Hall (www.utexas.edu//world/lecture/) offers hundreds of courses from universities all over the world, many with multimedia components. Java & VRML applets used in education are featured at www.gamelan.com, (See also: sdsc.edu/vrml/worlds/html and Webspace.sgi.com for VRML sites). The Internet University (www.caso.com/iuhome.html), a compendium of more than 30 colleges and universities, offers over 700 courses. Other exemplary sites include San Francisco State University's "Introduction to Multimedia" course, which features excellent design, interactive multimedia, graphics, streaming audio, and chat features (www.cel.sfsu.edu:80/MSP/msp.html).
Getting Courses on the Web: The Players
Major players in getting an interactive multimedia course on the Web include: administrators who see it as a service to their students, a source of additional income and good PR (they would need to provide for a Web infrastructure: server, telephone dial-up lines and modems, etc.); faculty; and, finally, content developers who would translate course materials into interactive Web multimedia presentations.
Administration
There seems to be a great willingness on the part of universities to provide distance learning opportunities. They see it as going after a market that typically does not come through their doors: students who live far away, or are disabled, or are employed full-time, etc. Moreover, with the coming of age of the baby boomers' offspring, college enrollments are about to explode and many universities lack the physical space to house more classes. We're seeing school enrollments grow as we have not seen since the mid-1960s and early '70s. K-12 school enrollment is currently at 51.7 million (exceeding the peak baby boom generation of 50 million) and is projected to rise to 54.6 million by 2006. We need only look at schools such as the University of Delaware (www.udel.edu/twkee/Webfocus.html), with its more than 100 distance learning courses, two distance degree programs and over 1700 enrollments from 12 states, or the Western Virtual University, (www.concerto.com/smart/vu/vu.html), a distance learning consortium created by the governors of 11 western states, to see the handwriting on the wall.
Much of the distance learning/WWW debate is played out in the economic arena: state legislatures, governors, university trustees are focusing on how they can get the biggest educational bang for the buck. They also need to think about that other university down the road or indeed around the world offering distance learning/Web courses/degrees and how these programs might lure their own students away. Courses without buildings, heat, utilities, etc. can make a lot of economic sense, both to prospective students and to the schools that offer them. This kind of thinking is driving university agendas and the bottom line can come down to "Embrace distance learning," or face eminent downsizing or even closing.
Faculty
A faculty buy-in is imperative for robust distance learning/Web development to occur. Without this buy-in, the consequences can be disastrous, as shown by what recently happened at the University of Maine where faculty felt they were not involved in the distance learning conversations and, as a result, vociferously protested the addition of a degree-granting distance-learning-only campus and ultimately forced the resignation of the University's chancellor.
Why do faculty resist? Professors may not be interested in seeing their lectures iterated ad infinitum via videotapes or Web courses without receiving any royalties or other compensation. Or it may be that they don't view Web learning as a forum for viable teaching. Moreover, many professors fear for their jobs. They have witnessed how technology has replaced workers in a number of areas - newspaper publishing and commercial printing turned topsy-turvy when programs like Quark Express and Pagemaker replaced linotypers and strippers. Indeed, faculty can visualize the way the administration may be thinking, "Why hire three English professors to teach six sections of college writing when one professor plus a few teaching assistants can do it over the Web?"
Despite these negatives, we do know that there are hundreds of class offerings on the Web and we can safely assume that many faculty are interested in pursuing this type of instruction. In fact, many offer it as a supplement to their current classroom offerings. College administrators need to begin having dialogues with professors and teachers' unions on the issues involved in Web-based distance learning. Possible outcomes include ones where, in exchange for reduced classroom teaching loads or even no classroom teaching, professors could offer courses on the Web. If class size became too large for professors to accommodate the requisite e-mail, chat, homework, etc., graduate student TAs could be called upon to help with the load or increased compensation could be offered. If this tradeoff means that there is no one to teach the class to the on-campus student, then the administration must figure out on a cost/benefit basis what the best course of action to follow would be: not to offer the online course, to hire a part-time lecturer, or some other solution.
Web Content Developers
Who can create these projects? Faculty is one obvious source, but given the plethora of new technologies and the time it takes to create courseware (and typically these are not activities that lead to tenure), it is the rare faculty member who would pursue such a course. Populating the contemporary college campus, however, is a savvy group of students who are adept at these technologies and who can produce world-class applications and programs. (See, for example, a Shockwave-based tutorial on Archimedes at Howard.uml.edu/archimedes.index.html). Lest we forget, it was Marc Andreessen of Netscape fame who honed his skills creating its predecessor, Mosaic, while earning $6.75 hour at the University of Illinois. Moreover, art majors have been given a new lease on life with the growth of the Web and often make excellent Web page designers. One need only look at many college home pages to see effective student design work (see, for example, www.uml.edu/DCE ). Other options, albeit more costly, include outsourcing and using in-house personnel.
Weaving a Web Strategy
We are at a challenging place in the world of education, a confluence of three major forces: a market-driven push for universities to attract more students at lower costs, a robust Web instructional delivery system, and a large cadre of capable Web page developers. All these trends point to the World Wide Web as a central arena for distance learning development. Savvy universities would be wise to begin putting in place their strategies for interactive multimedia Web course offerings.
Howard Kaplan is the founding director of the Multimedia Program and the Internet Institute at University of Massachusetts-Lowell. [email protected].