Networked learning on the WWW and Distance Education

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abstract:

living in this technologically information age, it is hard not to be lured by the dazzle of on line technologies. the use of these online technologies like www has particular significance in distance education. the www has an outstanding communication capability for delivering study materials and information in different forms to the distance learners. this capability greatly extends the educational opportunities of the www available to instructional designers and provides a wealth of possible activities for teaching and learning. the communications capabilities of the www are usefully divided into two main categories, synchronous and asynchronous. synchronous communications are those that occur in real-time while asynchronous communications involve some form of delay. this paper describes instructional applications for each of these modes on the www. this paper also provides information about realities of networked learning environments and insights into their potentials for supporting flexible teaching and learning in the open university.

1. introduction:

towards the end of the 20th century and into the 21st century, the world has undergone and will continue to undergo significant educational changes as a consequence of the uptake and the application of information and communication technologies specifically the communication capability of www. there are some areas like flexible delivery & networked learning where the www provide advantage to distance education and educators. nunn [1] describes flexible delivery as term which signifies the desirable social goals of increasing access to education and democratizingn teaching and learning process by giving greater control to students. the www supports many different forms of communication, which can be used in myriad of ways in student centered learning environment to support cooperative, communicative and collaborative activities among distance learners and their teachers. language plays an important role in the learning process and forms of communication and talk are integral component for learning [2]. with networked learning, the www provides a forum for communication and discussion for subsequent use. networked learning provides a means for the organization, communication and exchange of ideas and information among learners and teachers and other parties in the learning process. networked learning can be described as “the bringing together of learners via personal computers through www, with a focus on them working as a learning community, sharing resources, knowledge, experience and responsibility through reciprocal collaborative learning [3].” face to face teaching and learning on campus is now also incorporating some forms of networked learning, freeing staff and learners to work at times which suit them and to use resources, and methods of working together, that were not possible a few years ago [4].

www based applications and learning environments that are included and described by the category of networked communication include: communication via e-mail is a form of asynchronous collaboration. people enter messages that are sent to other people who read them, and perhaps respond, at a later point in time. bulletin boards, such as the nearly ubiquitous usenet newsgroups, are another form of asynchronous communication, to an open audience. listserves based on e-mail are a very similar form of asynchronous, group communication. desktop video teleconferencing, on the other hand, allows real-time, synchronous collaboration, although bandwidth is consumed quickly with this technology. chat sessions are a text-based version of synchronous collaboration, as are multi-user dungeons (muds), object-oriented muds (moos), or multi-user shared hallucinations (mushes), where a number of people participate simultaneously in a shared conversation or activity.

distance educators[5] now a days do expect to flourish and grow are asynchronous and synchronous collaboration applications between desktop computers, some of which may be hooked to a projection system so that many people in the same location can participate. all the desktops will be connected through the internet. an instructor can sit at a desktop workstation and communicate with a "classroom" of students, each of whom has a workstation in front of him and a connection to the internet. the students no longer have to be in the same room; they can interact with other students and teachers in different locations.

the real power of digital technologies is not yet tapped; other applications on the desktop for doing exciting and robust synchronous and asynchronous collaboration are just now emerging. we will know about different www based communication technologies in this paper later.

2. impact of networked learning on distance and campus-based learners

there is good evidence that networked learning is having an impact on campus-based learning as well as on the learning opportunities available remotely. indeed, one of the effects of networked learning is to blur the boundaries between these two kinds of learning environment. we therefore see it as important to be able to tap into the experiences of students in each of the following situations:

those students who spend the great majority of their study time at a distance from the institute they are registered (and who are significantly involved in networked learning)

comparable students who are spending the great majority of their study time at the institute they are registered and who are not significantly involved in networked learning

students who are spending significant amounts of their study time at the institute and who are also significantly involved in networked learning.

part of the point of carrying out such comparative studies is to get a clear sense of the degree to which networked learning makes a satisfactory substitute for conventional face-to-face learning and teaching arrangements. but it is also necessary to identify some key areas in which networked learning brings educational (as well as logistical or economic) benefits: to show where it can add real value [5].

3. different communication capabilities www

all new educational approaches place novel demands on learners and teachers. these demands can sometimes negate the educational benefits that might, in principle, be derived from the new approach. it is important to distinguish between demands that originate in the technology and demands that are intrinsic to new educational methods. the latter are the more problematic; particularly since many of the kinds of c&it tools associated with networked learning are becoming more user friendly. the focus on students' approaches to learning in various kinds of communication modes, will allow us to provide a better understanding of networked learning methods and study skills[5] the following sections describe instructional applications for each of these modes.

3.1. synchronous communications on the www

there are several discrete forms of asynchronous communication[6] supported by the www. these are as follows:

3.1.1 e-mail

the www enables students to communicate with each other through e-mail.the use of a class list enables students to find out details of other students in their class and to communicate with them.

many instructors use e-mail as a means to encourage communication between students in courses of study. even when courses are offered on-campus, students enjoy being able to communicate electronically with their classmates. a common resource in a www based course in a class list proving an e-mail link to each student.

students wishing to communicate with others in the group need simply to click on the student’s name. this action will result in most browsers returning an e-mail form addressed to the student into which the message can be entered. most browsers also provide the facility to attach files and documents to e-mail messages which provides a means for students to exchange material as part of the communication.

3.1.2. bulletin boards

the provision for e-mail communication within a www course does not mean that it will be used. a number of course designers encourage student communication in this way by creating bulletin boards, which are used for class discussions.

newsgroups : some lecturers create newsgroups for their classes and encourage students to use the newsgroup as part of their course involvement. students are encouraged to read the postings, to make contributions of their own and to reply to the postings of others. to encourage student participation, many teachers make involvement in class discussions a compulsory part of the course and grade students according to the quality and quantity of their involvement’s.

listservs : a www course is using a newsgroup to support student communication.

many courses on the www use listservs as a means for public communication. the listserv is an e-mail-based application, which enables messages to be broadcast via e-mail to all students in a class. when students respond to postings, their responses are similarly broadcast to the group as a whole.

www discussion groups : many designers are now using software applications as part of support student communication. in such applications, students enter their responses to a discussion using forms on a purpose-built page and the www server automatically inserts the student comment into the discussion, as a thread or a new topic.

the use of forms and special-purpose www applications provides a means for teachers to create

discussion groups as part of www documents. a form is available at the end of each posting to enable a reader to reply. the data is entered into the separate fields and submitted to the server, where it is processed and added to the list of correspondence.special software is needed by the server to enable and support this form of www learning activity. it is now quite common place in many sites and relatively easy to customize to suit the needs of particular courses.

3.2 synchronous communication

synchronous communication[6] enable online communication in a number of ways ranging from chatting through brief e-mail messages, through voice communication to videoconferencing.

3.2.1. web chatting

internet relay chat (irc) was an early application of the internet that supported (almost) synchronous communication. irc enable users to communicate through typed messages in a variety of chat rooms. there are now many www chat rooms and chatting is a common feature of many web pages. www chatting enables users to participate in on-line discussions. message are sent through forms and added to the www page.

a www chat room can be used in many ways in open learning and distance education. perhaps the most obvious use is to enable students and their teacher to pursue a line of inquiry or discussion in real-time. students frequently use chat facilities to get to know others in their class and to discuss aspects of the course of study among themselves.

chat rooms are very useful extensions to www materials in instances where students are required to work collaboratively. the chat room provides a means for small groups to speak among themselves, to organize their thoughts, to discuss how tasks will be completed and to provide feedback on progress. as with all www documents, entrance to the chat room can be restricted by the use of a password in instances when the discussion is not meant to be broadcast or when the participants are to be restricted.

a chat room is mostly used in educational setting instances where the discussion benefits from the immediacy of the message and reply.

3.2.2. internet phone

internet phoneapplications enable the internet to be used for real-time 2 way audio communication and audioconferencing. there are a number of programs now which enable the internet to become a telephone and to support audioconferencing applications among users. this is an extension of the text-based chatting described in the previous section.

audio conferencing has been used widely in distance education instructional programs previously. its application on the internet suggests it will continue to be used in this way. the application provides a means for learners and instructors to communicate directly and supports many of the features of face-to- face teaching.

it is not difficult to imagine the ways in which audioconferencing can enhance distance education learning environments. it provides a very strong interactive element to the environment where communication and discourse can be employed freely. other benefits cam be derived from settings where students can use the facility to communicate among themselves between instructional episodes. the use of the internet enables this service to be used at much cheaper rates than conventional telephone will allow, especially when used for audioconferencing.

3.2.3. videoconferencing

internet videoconferencing supports 2-way video and 2-way audio communication between many remote learners.

videoconferencing has been used extensively in distance education in the past but really only instances where students have been able to congregate at special delivery and receival points. internet technologies have now yielded applications that enable videoconferencing to be supported on the internet.

there are a number of internet videoconferencing programs, perhaps the most well known is cu-seeme which was the first. it is not difficult to find a range of experimental and actual learning settings on the internet, which are exploring the instructional possibilities of videoconferencing. the facility of 2-way video and 2-way audio among many remote users offers many learning opportunities.

3.2.4. audiographics

audiographics describes telecommunication settings where remote users are linked thorugh a real-time communication channel, for example, telephone, and are linked through a shared computer interface. this technology has been used widely with non-internet based communications systems and is now emerging as an internet application. internet videoconferencing, audioconferencing and interactive computing are combined in audiographics.

netmeeting supports the connection of multiple users across the internet and provides participants with functions and applications such as :

¨ internet phone

use of the application to enable users to link and communicate using voice in one-to-one or one-to-many forms.

¨ multipoint data-conferencing

support for multipoint data conferencing allows two or more people to communicate and collaborateas a group in real-time over the internet or corporate intranet. netmeeting enables users to work together by sharing applications, exchanging through a shared clipboard, transferring files, collaborating on a shared whiteboard, and communicating with a text-based chat feature.

¨ application sharing

multipoint application sharing enables you to share a program running on your computer with other people in a conference, allowing them to see the same data or information that you have on your pc. netmeeting works with existing windows-based programs, allowing applications to be shared transparently without requiring any special knowledge of conferencing capabilities. when an application has been shared, the other people in the conference see the actions people in the conference see the actions that are performed as the person sharing the application works on the program (e.g., editing content, scrolling through information, etc.). in addition, the person sharing the application can choose to collaborate, allowing other people in the conference to take turns editing or controlling the application. each member of the conference does not need to have the given application on their system ? only the person that is sharing the application.

¨ shared clipboard

the shared clipboard allows a user to exchange the contents of the clipboard with other participants in a conference. this allows, for example, a user to copy information from a local document and paste it into the contents of a shared application as part of a group collaboration. this capability provides seamless exchanges of information between shared applications and local applications, using the familiar cut/copy/paste operations.

¨ file transfer

the file transfer capability in netmeeting enables you to send a file to a specific person or all the people in a conference. your can right-click on a person in the conference and choose to send them a file, or you can drag a file into the microsoft netmeeting window and have a file automatically sent to each participant in a conference. the file transfer occurs in the background as everyone continues sharing an application, using the whiteboard, or chatting.

¨ whiteboard

the whiteborad program is a multi-page, multi-user drawing application that enables you to sketch diagrams, organization charts, flow charts, or display other graphic information with other people in a conference. whiteboard is object-oriented (versus pixel-oriented), allowing users to move and manipulate the contents by clicking and dragging with the mouse. in addition, you can use a remote pointer or highlighting tool to point out specific contents or sections of shared pages. this capability extends the application sharing feature of netmeeting by supporting ad hoc collaboration on a common drawing surface.

¨ chat

chat provides a text-based mechanism to communicate with participants in a conference. chat can be used to communicate about common ideas or topics with fellow conference participants, or record meeting notes and action items as part of a collaborative process.

it is not difficult to imagine the many useful applications of programs like this in instances when business and training has to be completed and participants art at remote sites.

4. conclusion

the real-time communications aspect of the www is still in its development stages. we know from other internet developments, what the technology can do and some of the applications that can be served. such applications place high demands on bandwidth and often these demands cannot be met. the domain of networked learning is dangerously fragmented: in effect there are two largely separate 'worlds' of networked learning. most research and practical experience has been in the areas of asynchronous text-based or synchronous multimedia communications in table 1 [7]. but further work needs to be done to provide a theoretical framework which can systematise knowledge of the potential benefits of the different combinations of media and different kinds of interaction which can be found in the space of networked learning possibilities represented in table 1.