Teaching and Learning Haterials and the Internet IAN FORSYTH (>First published in 1996, Apart from any fair dealing forthe purposes of research or private study, or eiiciam or review, a permitted under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 198, this publication ‘ay only be reproduce, stored or transmitted, inary form or by any mean, withthe prior Permission in writing ofthe publishers, of in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences iswied by the Copyright Licensing Agerey. Enguies conceming reproduction outside those terme should be sont to the publishers at the ‘undermentioned adress Kogan Page Limited 120 Pentonville Road London NI 9IN (Olan Forsyth, 1996 Dritish Library Cataloguing in Publication Data ACIP record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 07494 20596 Designed and typeset by NC Murray Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, Guildford and King's Lysm eNanerone Contents Preface Preparing material for the Internet Why use the Internet for teaching and learning materials? General considerations Getting started: the Internet and instructional design Forms Specific considerations Cost considerat ns, economic benefits and budgets Developing areas An A-Zof the Intemet Conclusion References and selected reading Index 1B 35 45 87 105 123, 141 173 175 179Preface Disclaimer This book is about educational and training course material being delivered using the Internet. Itis not about the technical consid- erations of the Internet, although these are mentioned as needed. For example, itis not my purpose to develop an argument for a particular platform, browser or any other operating system. IfI were to do that, I would be offering a snapshot of the Internet as of today’s date and some of what I wrote would be out of date as I typed. The information you require for these technical specifications is best found on the Internet at the time you are ready to offer your course. You will note that [ use ‘the Internet’ as a generic term. I find ‘World Wide Web’ (WWW) or ‘surfing'the net’ to be a problem in education and training, term: The purnose of this book This book examines the educational and administration consid- erations of offering, a course, course materials or course delivery via the Internet. While the technical specifications of the capabilities of the Intemet will change over time, there is a need to consider course material and the appropriate means of handling it on a delivery ‘mechanism such as the Internet. One of the first considerations is to look for features that indicate the course is relatively stable. If the course material is stable, less course maintenance will be needed. As access to the Internet becomes easier, the features you should be looking for are:changes in the short term; % the appropriate use of technology in relation to access by learners and a consideration of the materials and learning strategies or processes, ‘There are also educational and training questions raised by the possi- bility of informal access to your course material by a learner. The Internet is seen as being in the public domain and a learner finding your course material will consider it is available. In other cases, a iearner comes across an information site that relates to their work or study. A question needs to be addressed about how the learner gains some sanctioning or accreditation for this informal learning outside a procedural based learning structure or institution providing sanc- tioned learning “There are publications on the Internet and in hard copy about the use of the Internet. In most cases this information is about the possi- bility of achieving the Marshall McLuhan (The Medium is the Message) notion of the ‘global village’ - or is it a village with global access to information? Access to formal education and training on the Internet has a slightly different purpose. In writing this book I have focused on the formal educational and training possibilities available to edu- cators and trainers and learners through the use of the Internet as a means of delivery. Readers may well ask why I have not used the Internet to publish this book. The explanation is that this is « book, not an Internet docu- ment. It is a book about the educational use of the Internet. The technology will change and will enhance existing features suchas text, file transfer, chat and bulletin boards, graphics and illustrations, audio and video, modelling and virtual reality. It is possible to see how these features can be used for education and training. It is possible to develop instructional Uesign considerations, while the iterations of technology will only make these features more accessible, If people want to join a discourse on the use of electronic commu- nications there are sites on the Internet, I have created one dealing specifically with the Internet as an instructional design tool. Jan Forsyth Sydney, 1996 vit Preparing Material for the Internet chapter 1 The Internet is a changing entity. Several years ago the Internet was a computer-based, text-driven communications system for scientists and academics. In the era of the Cold War it was devised to maintain networks if ‘The Bomb’ was dropped. In the last three years a layer of communications interface called the World Wide Web (WWW) has emerged and with it the use of graphic devices, for point-and-click navigation and an exponential growth of home pages giving access to information ranging from the libraries to parts catalogues. One of the areas for use on the Internet or through WWW is the delivery of educational and training material and the support of education and training. This summary chapter discusses the four key elements of preparing information for the delivery of educational and training material on the Internet. Figure 1.1 is an indication of the key elements in an Internet page. Tre content of the figure represents one way of organ- izing information and this is used in the following figures as a worked example of some ways of navigating material being made available to the learner, This :epresents a structured approach to learning materi- als developed by teachers and instructional designers. In part, this summary is designed to show how I would draw together information for a short course on the Internet. Thus it is a model for developing Your own course for delivery on the Internet as a course designer. (Note: The screen dumps in this publication were developed using Netscape 2.02.)‘Teaching and Learning Materials and the internet } ‘Notes on Preparing Educational and Training Information for Delivery on the Internet “Tesco dune frig bang Tee edgy ase a an oxi of esnips me 0360, “Sade ese fees nia mcd ecg fee eet re yea Be vowetrto delop sawn et Figure 1.1 An internet screen In this figure [have provided a generic screen design. Ihave indicated several elements of a screen: > the standard Internet navigation at the top for the browser you are using; % the information in the centre; > some words have been underlined; the possibility of other navigational tools at the bottom of the screen. ‘The words that are underlined indicate that there is more information available at that point. If the learner clicks on an underlined word or phrase, further information is revealed in a set of screens. On the Internet these would be the links to further information about those topies or concepts or tasks available to the learner. ‘As indicated in the screen, you will need to identify the outcomes for the learners. This means that you will need to identify all the elements of information in the course and provide your learners with | Attributes to facilitate the development of navigation of your course | materials. You should discuss this with the person putting your course Preparing Material for the internet onthe Internet. This may be you. Ifo, discuss the linkages with other teachers ora critical friend’. This need not be a teacher or learner: theit role is to test the logic of the navigation links you have made. ‘The need for navigation is to make sure the course information is available in a form other than a scrolling text. This allows learners to access the material from multiple viewpoints and covers various learning styles. As the sophistication of your design develops, it should also increase the entry points of learners to the material. This will improve the flexible delivery options of the material. From the example above, a few of the information screens and possible contents that can be generated from the three underlined terms in Figure 1.2 appear in the screen dumps that follow (Figures 13-15). ‘The learning outcomes /eompetencies ‘te empties onde you wb le le maint per ose ozs ‘ome be patie soma Figure 1.2 A statement of the learning outcomes for an Internet course From the page shown in Figure 1.2 the student is able to navigate to topics on information, contents or assessments. This page serves as a menu. If the student were to click on the underlined word ‘informa- tion’ they would be presented with a further screen.