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The World Wide Web: A Technology to Enhance Teaching and

Learning?
Ronald D. Owston

York University

Nothing before has captured the imagination and interest of educators simultaneously around the globe more
than the World Wide Web.1 The Web is now causing educators, from pre-school to graduate school, to re-
think the very nature of teaching, learning, and schooling. Claims have been made that the Web can free
teaching and learning from the physical boundaries of classrooms and time restraints of class schedules.
Traditional lectures and demonstrations can become Web based multimedia learning experiences for
students. Learning resources of the college and university can be augmented by learning resources of the
world via the Web. Moreover, the Web can help us re-focus our institutions from teaching to learning, from
teacher to student.

Although there is, perhaps, some merit to these claims, they are expecting much from a tool developed only
several years ago at CERN, Geneva's European Laboratory for High Energy Particle Physics, to share
research in the high energy physics community. In this article, I would like to come to terms with the
hyperbole surrounding the Web, by offering an analysis of its present contribution to teaching and learning in
K-12 and higher education. The framework that I will use for the analysis was suggested by Gordon Davies,
Commissioner for Higher Education in Virginia, in an address to Educom's National Learning Infrastructure
Initiative (Davies, 1995). He stated that for technology to address the "big problems" of higher education it
must respond to three questions:

Does it make learning more accessible?

Does it promote improved learning?
Does it accomplish the above while containing, if not reducing, the per unit costs of education?

These are tough questions--and they apply to K-12 as much as to higher education. School and higher
education administrators, governments, and the public are demanding answers to these kinds of questions.
Some will say that the use of the Web is inevitable, so there is no need to justify it. I believe, however, that if
the Web is to be worthy of our time and investment, it must meet the challenge that these questions bring.
Wherever possible, I will support my analysis with examples of what individuals and institutions are actually
doing with the Web.

Can the Web Make Learning More Accessible?

Each of us likely has a different interpretation of what "access to learning" means, although most will agree
that it means making education more attainable by more people. That is, providing educational opportunities
in the workplace, community, or the home, for those unable to attend school or college because of cultural,
economic, or social barriers. Dedicated distant learning institutions and traditional colleges and universities
have provided opportunities to students unable to attend campus for some time. Until recently, they relied
mainly on correspondence, traditional print instructional materials, and, perhaps, audio and video cassettes,
or television. That is starting to change now as educators devise new ways to capitalize on Web based
technology. An inviting, graphical screen layout, interactive multimedia learning materials, simplified access
and searching of databases, exponential growth of new resources around the world, and open technical
standards that allow any brand of modern computer to access the Web are some of the advantages institutions

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see in the Web to make learning more accessible. Here are some examples of how the Web is being used
today to provide increased access to education.

Access to Higher Education

Britain's Open University (http://keats.open.ac.uk/zx)2 is a prime example of a dedicated distance education

institution that uses the Web to support its mission of providing accessible education. The institution
normally requires students to spend some time on campus in residency, however it finds that there are always
some students who cannot fulfill this requirement. In the summer of 1994, it experimented with offering
electronically an advanced psychology course aimed at this kind of student, using Web and other Internet
tools. Students reportedly relished the opportunity to be able to continue their studies without interfering
with family commitments; instructors found the experience exhausting yet exhilarating; and the project
evaluator wrote that the level of contact and interaction among students and instructors very similar to
regular summer classes. The following year Open University offered two computer science courses to
students throughout the world via the Web. They intend to continue to expand their list of offerings, and even
have a Web form on-line, which students can complete to suggest courses they'd like to see offered over the
Internet!

City University (http://www.cityu.edu/inroads/welcome.htm), in Bellevue, Washington, another dedicated distance

learning institution, operates with the mission of "making education available to all who desire it...without
interrupting commitments to work and home." Recently, they established EDROADS (Education Resource
and Online Academic Degree System) to take advantage of Internet based technology to offer their programs.
At present, they provide on-line an MBA degree program and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Systems.
Through the university's World Wide Web site, students around the world apply to the university, register for
courses, and complete course work electronically. They can also send questions and assignments to the
instructors from the Web site and participate in specialized live forums at the program and course level.

Two examples of traditional institutions using the Web as the backbone of their distance learning efforts are
Birkbeck College of the University of London, England, and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. In
1995, Birkbeck's highly-regarded Crystallography Department (http://www.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/PPS/index.html) began to
offer a 15 week course called The Principles of Protein Structure entirely over the Internet. At the heart of the
course were Web based interactive, graphical learning modules created by 30 experts in protein structure
from around the world. The Web activities were supported by on-line discussions with other students and
course consultants. Some 250 students from countries around the world participated, including Brazil, China,
Slovenia, and Croatia as well as Western countries. Students and course consultants were split into study
groups of 15 to 20. One of the groups' activities was to prepare and publish at the course's Web site, a
research report on an assigned protein. Evaluations of the course were extremely positive. One participant, a
doctoral student, posted his views of the course at the university's web site. Among the chief benefits he said
were that he could study at his own convenience, access course resources simply by the click of a mouse, and
maintain contact with a large number of scientists easily and informally.

A selection of standard, full-credit undergraduate and graduate courses is offered globally through CyberEd
at the University of Massachusetts' Dartmouth Division of Continuing Education
(http://www.umassd.edu/cybered/distlearninghome.html). CyberEd courses make extensive use of the Web complete
with images, sound, and video, to present material, test, communicate among students and faculty, and
submit assignments. Its goal is "to create a distance learning environment that rivals the traditional classroom
environment in the quality and content of the learning experience...to encourage a new educational paradigm
in which the instructor is no longer regarded as the sole source of all knowledge." Reports by participants
and visitors posted at its Web site suggest that CyberEd is well on this way to achieving its goal.

As the list of established, accredited colleges and universities extending access to their programs to students
with the Web grows, a new kind of institution--the "virtual university"--is emerging to challenge the
dominant paradigm of higher education by providing universal access to on-line courses and degrees. While
most are not yet accredited, these institutions are blazing the trail in what will no doubt become a common
way of study in the near future. They don't have a physical campus. Faculty may be located anywhere in the
world. They make use of print materials as well, but all interaction among students, faculty, and the
institution, and a considerable amount of instruction occurs on-line, in most cases using the Web, electronic

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mail, and computer conferencing. Some of the early starters in this field are the School for Transformative
Learning of the California Institute for Integral Studies (http://www.caso.com/iu/providers/ciis.html) that offers an
accredited PhD, and Athena University (http://www.athena.edu/athena.html), Spectrum University
(http://horizons.org/campus.html#Top), and International University College (http://www.iuc.com) that offer other
kinds of unaccredited programs.

Access to K-12 Education

The Web is not only enabling improved access to colleges and universities. Some experimentation in on-line
access to education is happening at the public school level, though it is not as widespread. Three growing
areas where the Web is facilitating increased access are in home schooling, alternative schooling, and
extension course delivery.

Home schooling.

A small segment of the parent population has always chosen to withdraw their children from public school
and educate them at home. Reasons for doing so vary from geographic isolation, political views, or religious
conviction, to a belief that they can do a better job at educating their child than the school. The Web is
becoming an valuable tool for these parents and children to access educational resources and to maintain
contact with other parents and children participating in home schooling. As well, the richness of the Web
promises to make home schooling an increasingly popular option for parents. Because of the Web, children
educated at home will be less likely to suffer from lack of access to quality learning materials and contact
with peers, two problems that plague home schoolers. Web sites for parents and children are springing up
with curriculum resources, lists of individuals and organizations offering help, and information on legal
matters. A list of these sites can be found at Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com/alternative/home_schooling/).

Alternative schooling.

A second area poised for growth in Web use is alternative schooling. Students at alternative schools, like
their home schooling counterparts, often lack access to quality learning materials as well. This is changing,
however, as alternative schools gain access to the Web.

The Virtual High School (http://www.wondertree.org/vh/index.html), in British Columbia, is an example of a private

school that capitalizes on Internet technology to provide an alternative to the traditional school. Although its
name is slightly misleading because students do gather in a physical classroom in Vancouver, Virtual High
makes extensive use of technology in its innovative project based curriculum. The Web is central tool in their
students' pursuit of knowledge. There are no formal courses at Virtual High as students are encouraged to
"undertake to set up a personal business, and turn it into a sustainable and financial success."

Extension courses.

The third area soon to grow in Web use is in the offering of extension courses to students presently in high
school and to adults seeking to complete their schooling through home study. The Web offers the same
advantages of access to these two groups as it does to university students. High school students will soon see
Web based courses in subjects their own school does not offer, courses to prepare for the Advanced
Placement exams, and regular college courses offered to them for advanced credit. Adults seeking to
complete their high school education will soon see courses offered over the Web and courses to prepare them
for the GED high school equivalency exam.

Indiana University's Division of Extended Studies (http://www.extend.indiana.edu), which offers high school and
some advanced credit college courses within the state and worldwide, is an example of an institution that is
beginning to make use of the Web. Students can study independently on-line, communicate with the
instructor, submit assignments, and receive course guides electronically from the university's Web site.

New Barriers to Access

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Although the Web breaks down the long-standing physical and temporal barriers of access to education, it
can create new kinds of barriers for students. These include computer hardware that malfunctions, difficulty
in setting up software to access an educational institution or Internet service provider, and encountering
constant busy signals when dialing up from home. Once a student gains access the problems are not over
either. Heavy on-line traffic can overload popular Web sites so that they respond very slowly or simply do
not respond, and annoying drops in telephone line connections occur all too frequently. Added to these
technical problems is the cost of dialing up the institution if the student is not within local calling distance,
and the cost of using an Internet service provider when the institution cannot be accessed directly.

Though perhaps not as intractable nor systemic, these new barriers can undermine an otherwise well
designed on-line educational experience and lead to both student and instructor frustration. Evans and
Wideman (1995) present a sobering chronicle of what happened in an on-line undergraduate economics
tutorial when technical difficulties interfere with on-line learning. Most serious was the loss of critical mass
for student discussions. Students who managed to get on-line found their peers who couldn't get on-line were
not contributing, therefore they felt less inclined to contribute themselves. The result was a downward spiral
in the caliber of discussion.

Clearly, providers of on-line educational programs must ensure that ample technical support is available for
participants, particularly in the early stages of the program when participants are most likely to encounter the
greatest number of problems. At the same time they run the risk of disaster if their institution's computing
infrastructure (e.g., number of incoming telephone lines, capacity of servers, and bandwidth of internal
networks) is not adequate for the anticipated load.

Can the Web Promote Improved Learning?

As we have just seen, there is promising indication that the Web is a viable means to increase access to
education. Evidence on how it can promote improved learning is not as forthcoming. In fact, there is debate
in the instructional design literature about whether there are any unique attributes of media that can promote
improved learning (Clark, 1983, 1994; Kozma, 1991, 1994). This debate stems from the observation that,
after more than 50 years of research on instructional media, no consistent significant effects from any
medium on learning have been demonstrated. Educational television is a case in point. Initially, hopes were
high that television would have certain characteristics that would lead to improved student learning, but none
have been found. Some argue that no effect can possibly be demonstrated, because any improvement in
learning that may accrue will come from the instructional design, not the medium that delivers the instruction
(e.g., Clark, 1994).

The issue becomes further complicated when the Web is used as a tool for learning, as opposed to a medium
for delivering pre-determined content. By a learning tool, I mean use of the Web simply as a vehicle to
search for and retrieve information. Clearly, a tool can make a task easier to do--and we likely can do it much
more quickly with the tool. But the central question is when we no longer have the tool to use, have we taken
away with us some unique skill or ability that could have been acquired only with that tool (Solomon,
Perkins, & Globerson, 1991). To illustrate, this question can be phrased in terms of a tool we are probably all
more familiar with, the word processor. The question then becomes, as a result of using a word processor, do
we develop certain beneficial writing skills that we can carry over when we write by hand. Furthermore, are
these skills ones that we otherwise would not likely develop? To date, no research has been able to
consistently demonstrate this kind of effect with any computer based learning tool.

My purpose in raising this issue is to highlight that we cannot simply ask "Do students learn better with the
Web as compared to traditional classroom instruction?" We have to realize that no medium, in and of itself,
will likely improve learning in a significant way when it is used to deliver instruction. Nor is it realistic to
expect the Web, when used as a tool, to develop in students any unique skills. The key to promoting
improved learning with the Web appears to lie within how effectively the medium is exploited in the
teaching-learning situation. Fetterman (in press), for example, employs a "threads" of conversation technique
to record and classify student and instructor on-line discourse. Unlike in a live classroom where
conversations disappear, the medium allows every thought to be captured for future examination,
elaboration, and extension. The result is richer, more thoughtful discussions, not because of the medium, but
because of the way the instructor stimulated and orchestrated the environment made possible by the medium.

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From this perspective, the Web appears to offer at least three distinct advantages that can be capitalized upon
by the instructor to promote improved learning.

Web Appeals to Students' Learning Mode

One of the primary advantages of Web use is that it appeals very much to the way our students now prefer to
learn. Seymour Papert (Papert, 1993) calls the computer the "children's machine," because students in our
public schools and in a good many in colleges and universities do not know a world without the computer.
They relate to the computer in ways that baffle adults. It is an integral part of their world. They play, are
entertained by, and learn with the computer. They tend to be more visual learners than previous generations
because their world is rich in visual stimuli. They also thrive on interacting with the device. So it is fitting
that we design learning materials and opportunities that capitalize on what we know about how our students
prefer to learn. That is just what many of our colleagues in schools and post secondary institutions are doing.
The Web is at the heart of many of these initiatives.

Public schools have been very quick to exploit the rich, multi-sensory interactive nature of the Web. A visit
to the University of Minnesota's College of Education Web site, called Web 66 (http://web66.coled.umn.edu), will
give you a feeling for how extensively schools are using the Web. This site has probably the most
comprehensive listing of Kindergarten to grade twelve schools anywhere. Some 6600 schools, almost half of
which are elementary, in nearly 60 different countries are listed. Although you cannot truly tell how many of
them make regular use of the Web for teaching and learning, it is probably safe to say that if a school is
motivated enough to establish its own Web home page and list it with Web 66, it is making use of the Web in
its classrooms too.3 If that is not a clarion call to educators, the prediction by Online Kids Report (Jupiter
Communications, 1995) that children's use of the Web is expected to increase by 1400 percent to 14.5
million users over the next five years certainly is.

As we would expect, because they have more ready access to the Internet, college and university faculty
make use of the Web more frequently than schools. There is also one site to which we can turn to get an
indication of how extensively faculty are using the Web. This site, the World Lecture Hall at The University
of Texas at Austin (http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture), maintains a registry of college and university course
home pages. When you browse through the registry, you will find course home pages of faculty throughout
the world listed alphabetically, from Accounting to Zoology. Some home pages contain little more than a
course syllabus, but many others contain interactive learning materials, lecture notes, assignments, exams,
links to course-related resources, and instructions for students on how to make best use of the course's Web
site. Presently, there are several hundred courses registered. The World Lecture Hall registry is undoubtedly
only the "tip of the iceberg" in terms of Web use because not all faculty would bother to register their courses
there (or even know about the site), but it is clear that many faculty see the Web as a resource they want their
students to use.

Web Provides for Flexible Learning

We saw in our discussion of accessibility that the Web is a viable tool to help students gain an education
without being on campus. A growing number of faculty now want to provide their regular, full-time students
greater flexibility in accessing their courses as well. When you browse through courses listed in the World
Lecture Hall, you'll discover many courses where faculty have dramatically reduced the amount of face-to-
face contact between instructor and student, or in some cases, entirely eliminated it. In lieu, they provide
Web based study projects and on-line activities that students can access at their convenience.

One interesting example of this is at Oregon State University, where Philosophy 201 is offered entirely on-
line, using the Web and electronic mail (http://www.cs.orst.edu/department/instruction/phil201.S95/). The developers
see the course as an opportunity to "enhance student autonomy and intellectual community" and to create a
"self-paced, expert-directed, time/place independent environment for learning." All student readings are
available on the Web and students debate issues raised during the course in electronic "virtual
conversations." E-mail provides a way for students to contact the instructor directly and for the instructor to
broadcast news to all registered participants. Internet visitors are invited to join class discussions provided
they identify themselves as such. This is a refreshing addition to the course as it potentially broadens the
range of opinions expressed in on-line discussions.
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Important to note, however, is that in courses like Philosophy 201, faculty have not removed themselves
from the educational process. Their roles have shifted from being deliverer of instruction, to being the creator
of learning experiences for students and academic guide. While some may decry the loss of face-to-face
contact between instructor and student, it is not difficult to find faculty who believe the quality of interaction
and learning that takes place on-line is actually superior. Owen, (1993), for example, argues that interaction
is more thoughtful and considered when students have the opportunity to reflect on their responses to
questions and discussion topics before posting them to an electronic public forum. He also contends that
students who are shy or uncomfortable about participating in class discussions often no longer feel that way
in on-line forums. My own experience in offering a graduate education course almost entirely on-line
confirms this observation (http://www.edu.yorku.ca/~rowston/digital.html).

Interaction of the kind just described where participants contribute at different times is called asynchronous
communication. Web tools are available that permit synchronous communication as well. These tools allow
live audio and video to be carried over the Internet, enabling the creation of an on-line learning environment
that simulates a real classroom. Yet this virtual classroom still allows students the flexibility of taking part in
the class from any Internet connection in the world. Fetterman (1996) describes how he uses an inexpensive
videoconferencing setup to personalize his on-line instruction, supplement office hours, provide electronic
videos for students to download, and collaborate with colleagues. The widespread application of this
technology is currently hampered by the relatively slow speed of most Internet connections, which results in
poor sound and picture quality. As techniques for improving the compression of these types of data and
higher speed Internet connections become more common, we will no doubt see increased use of this
technology.

Although the emphasis in K-12 education is more on use of the Web for project based work and resource
access than content delivery, the Web's influence on making learning more flexible is not lost in K-12
schools. When computers are introduced into classrooms, teachers inevitably report that they change their
teaching style to allow students greater autonomy in their learning. They tend to shift their style of teaching
from a didactic to a more project based approach. Teachers in the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow project,
which placed large numbers of computers in classrooms across the country, are just one group who have
reported these kinds of changes (David, 1992). The Web is a tool that fits well with this new learning
environment. It empowers students to become part of the Internet community and to take advantage of the
wealth of learning opportunities available through the Internet, without having to master arcane computer
commands.

Web Enables New Kinds of Learning

Academic, community, business, and government leaders are calling upon our schools, colleges, and
universities to graduate a different kind of student than a generation ago. This is in response to the challenges
posed by the new global economy, where the knowledge and skills of a nation's workers are key to its
competitive success, rather than in the past when factors like natural resources and geographic location
reigned supreme. Among the skills called for in students are critical thinking, problem solving, written
communication, and ability to work collaboratively (e.g., see Uchida, 1996). Although these skills have
always been valued, the call for them represents as much a demand that schools place increased emphasis on
their development.

In the hands of able teachers, the Web can play a prominent role in fostering development of these skills in
students. It would be absurd to state that the Web is the only tool that teachers and students should use, but
there is a natural match between the Web and development of these skills. For example, since the Web is part
of the free-wheeling environment of the Internet, all imaginable kinds of information and data can be found,
the quality and value of which varies tremendously. Literally anyone can create a Web page, as there are no
restrictions or widespread refereeing processes in place. Thus teachers can encourage students to explore the
Web with the goal of having them weigh evidence, judge the authenticity of data, compare different
viewpoints on issues, analyze and synthesize diverse sources of information, and construct their own
understanding of the topic or issue at hand. By doing so, teachers will be well on their way to having
students develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. It is true that teachers have always had students
do this kind of task with print material. What the Web can offer that traditional media cannot is information
that is instantly available, often very up-to-date, worldwide in scope, and presented in a more motivating
format for students to explore.
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Students can develop written communication skills readily by using the Web too. Writing to an authentic
audience--rather than only to the teacher--has long been viewed as critical for the development of students'
writing ability (e.g., Graves, 1983). The argument is that when students have a real audience to write to and
have a purpose in writing to that audience, they will be more conscious of their vocabulary, syntax, and
grammar. On-line work, in general, provides this kind of authenticity, whether it's an elementary student
writing to a "key pal" on the other side of the globe, a high school student of a foreign language
communicating with a native speaker in a distant country, or a university student querying researchers about
their latest work (as in the Birkbeck College course described earlier). E-mail, electronic reply forms, and
Internet newsgroup readers are part of most Web browsing tools today, so students don't have to leave the
Web to do on-line writing. Teachers who design projects or assignments that incorporate this feature of the
Web will be giving their students an ideal opportunity to develop their writing skill. Early on teachers must
set standards of what is acceptable and be vigilant of their students' on-line writing, however, because most
individuals when first writing on-line tend to write rather hastily and informally (Zuboff, 1988).

Teachers can also foster development of collaborative skills with the Web. This is typically done by
structuring group projects where members are in different geographic locations, yet have a common goal to
reach or problem to solve. Again, the Birkbeck College Principles of Protein course is illustrative, this time
as an example of how collaborative projects can be structured. Recall that one of their assignments in the
course was to work in "virtual" teams to prepare a research report on an assigned protein and to publish the
report on the Web. For K-12 students, many global collaborative projects exist. All rely on e-mail as the
underlying Internet tool, although the Web is fast becoming the starting point and location for archives of
global discussions. KIDLINK (http://www.kidlink.org) is one of the largest of these projects with over 48,000
children in 77 countries and all continents participating since 1990 in global dialogs and projects. A recent
visit to the Web site revealed the announcement for Blue Print Earth, a collaborative project where students
were challenged to invent social and political scenarios to make the Earth a better place to live for future
generations.

Can the Web Help Contain Costs of Education?

Now that we have seen how Web use can contribute to greater access to education and improved learning, we
need to consider the cost of doing this. There are the three main areas of cost for a Web based course:
hardware and software, course development, and on-going course support.

The hardware and software costs of a Web based course include the Internet connection itself and all
necessary computer hardware and Web related software to deliver a course. On a typical campus, these
resources would be shared with other users in the same department, college, or across the entire campus. For
a low enrollment course, the added costs for that one course would likely be relatively small, perhaps
necessitating some minor hardware or software upgrades. However, as enrollment in the course increases, or
if multiple Web based courses are added, the demands on the campus computing infrastructure could be
enormous. Campus networks may have to be significantly upgraded, high capacity dedicated servers
purchased, and many more modems and incoming telephone lines installed to handle the volume of traffic
created by students dialing up from home. These costs could add up to several hundred thousand dollars or
more. Clearly, such expenses have to be adequately budgeted for by the institution, and in some cases, they
may simply be unaffordable. One suggestion, made by the American Association of Higher Education, and
adopted by many institutions across the continent, is to create a "Teaching, Learning, and Technology
Roundtable" to bring together disparate parties on campus to systematically plan the fiscal and pedagogical
implementation of technology in teaching (e.g., see http://www.georgetown.edu/irvinemj/roundtable/).

Most college and university courses available on the Web today are developed and offered by individual
faculty members at their own initiative. Therefore, course development costs are often hidden, but
nonetheless very real. Faculty who develop these courses spend great amounts of time above and beyond
what they would spend on courses offered by traditional means. Not only do they have to plan the academic
content and pedagogy, they have to plan and develop the Web resources associated with the course. If Web
use on our campuses is to move beyond the domain of the motivated early adopters of the technology,
incentives in the form of faculty training, technical support, honoraria, and professional recognition will have
to be provided--all of which have costs associated. Institutions will also have to consider establishing
instructional support centers to assist faculty with Web site development. Inter-institutional collaboration and
sharing of Web resources is another way of reducing the onus on individual faculty while at the same time
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constraining costs. The Institute for Academic Technology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill is
spearheading a promising initiative in association with members of EDUCOM and the private sector to
collaborate on the development of Web based teaching modules and related tools
(http://www.iat.unc.edu/dle/dle.html). If successful, this initiative could provide a model for inter-institutional Web
development and sharing.

Once a course Web site is operational, costs continue to accrue as a Web site is always a "work-in-progress."
On-going maintenance is required, which includes posting new materials and removing dated materials,
verifying that links to other Web sites are still valid, improving the layout and design, and adding
functionality. These tasks are considered essential for any good Web site. Added to this is a general
expectation by the Web using community, that good sites incorporate the latest features of Web browsers
(e.g., tables and forms) and exploit the latest Web technology (e.g., RealAudio sound, video, Java applets,
and other multimedia tools). Again, if faculty develop sites themselves, these costs are hidden but cannot be
overlooked in our consideration of costs.

I will not attempt to quantify any of the above three categories of expenses here. Suffice to say is that all
three represent expenditures above what an institution otherwise would incur. Perhaps the most effective
strategy of minimizing the impact of these costs is to concentrate Web development efforts and resources on
the courses that generate the greatest enrollment. The experience of Maricopa Community College District,
one of the highest enrollment systems in the country, offering some 2500 courses to 90,000 students, is
particularly instructive in this regard (Twigg, 1995). Maricopa, in developing a teaching with technology
strategy, discovered that 44 per cent of their enrollment is concentrated in just 25 courses. To put this into
perspective, these 25 courses that supply nearly half of its enrollment represent one per cent of the total
number of course offerings. Not surprisingly, they include courses such as introductory accounting, biology,
chemistry, economics, and English. Most four-year higher education institutions will likely find a similar
pattern. The conclusion that we can draw from Maricopa's analysis is that if we direct Web integration efforts
toward this one percent, the greatest impact for a given investment will be had.

While efforts to minimize per unit costs are essential for most institutions, one also needs to consider the
value added by Web use. For example, if an institution's goal is to increase accessibility to its programs, use
of the Web in its courses will create the opportunity for students to participate who are not able to be on
campus when the courses are normally offered. The result could be that the need to offer special sections of
course to meet the schedules of these students is eliminated. At the same time, pressure on classroom space
and physical facilities may be eased. Another example, as we saw earlier, is that the quality of courses can be
enhanced with the Web by creating unique learning experiences for students, more in harmony with the way
many now prefer to learn. Most institutions strive for the highest possible quality in their courses, therefore
the Web may well contribute to this mission.

K-12 Costs

So far our discussion on cost has focused mainly on issues more relevant to higher education. The cost of
developing and offering Web based courses in K-12 education would be similar, however that is not likely to
be the most common application of the Web in schools. Instead, the Web is more likely to be used to bring
into the classroom new learning resources and opportunities. There is a case to be made that for the relatively
small investment of obtaining Web access, significant value can be added to a school's resources. These
resources may be in the form of access to specialized, externally developed, on-line high school courses, that
a local school could not hope to offer because of budget, small enrollments, lack of facilities, or lack of
qualified teachers. They may be opportunities for students and teachers to consult with resource people, such
as renowned scientists and writers that otherwise would not be possible without great expense. Or the
resources may be classroom materials such as maps, reference books, magazines, and newspapers, and
teacher materials like curriculum guides, teaching units, and professional reference materials that schools
need not purchase.

Web resources for schools, available at no charge, abound. The Texas Education Network (TENET) is one
example. TENET's well-designed Web site (http://www.tenet.edu) provides "one stop shopping" for K-12
teachers. The site features a set of links to K-12 school and teacher resource home pages; the "Halls of
Academia" that has a set of links, classified by school subject, to academic resources; a set of links to
museums of the world and virtual field trips to other interesting sites; a set of links to library reference
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materials, books, and libraries worldwide; and a set of links to software archives and reference information.
Each set of links is further subdivided to make the links more accessible. For example, the set of museum
links contains the subcategories of Architecture Centers, Art Museums, Cultural and Historic Centers,
Natural History, and Science Centers. From these subcategories you can link to sites like the U.S. Holocaust
Memorial Museum, the Natural History Museum in Berne, Switzerland, the ancient Mayan City of Tulum in
Mexico, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The cost of obtaining art books,
photographs, and print documents from even these five sites alone would be well out of reach of all but the
most affluent school libraries. Yet they are available for viewing at no cost beyond the initial cost of an
Internet connection and a computer.

Conclusion
I began this article by saying that the World Wide Web has captured the imagination and interest in educators
everywhere. But the days of frivolous experimentation in schools have long passed. Before we introduce any
new technology into our classrooms we must be able to justify its contribution. The public expects no less
from us.

We examined the Web's contribution from the perspective of three questions: Does the Web increase access
to education? Does it promote improved learning? Does it contain the costs of education? We saw that a
promising case exists for the Web in all three areas. The case is rooted largely in how educators are actually
using the Web today. Many of these uses are merely extensions of what is already being done with more
established media. This is not surprising, because with any new technology, we tend to think it in terms of
the frame of reference with which we are most familiar (e.g., the automobile was first thought of as a
"horseless carriage"). No doubt further research and development on the application of the Web to teaching
and learning is needed. Nonetheless, in the meantime, it merits serious consideration as we search for ways
to revitalize and enhance what we do in our schools.

References

Clark, R. E. (1983). Reconsidering research on learning from media. Review of Educational Research, 53(4),
445-459.

Clark, R. E. (1994). Media will never influence learning. Educational Technology Research and
Development, 42(2), 21-29.

David, J. L. (1992). Partnerships for change (Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow Report No. 12). Cupertino,
CA: Apple Computer.

Davies, G. K. (1995, June). Higher education's big problems: Can technology help solve them? Keynote
address at the semi annual meeting of the Educom National Learning Infrastructure Initiative, Keystone, CO.

Evans, J. C., & Wideman, H. H. (1995, October). Enhancing economics education with on-line interactive
tutorials. A paper presented at the annual Educom conference, Portland, OR.

Fetterman, D. M. (in press). Ethnography in the virtual classroom. Practicing Anthropology.

Fetterman, D. M. (1996). Videoconferencing on-line: Enhancing communication over the Internet.

Educational Researcher, 25(4), 23-27.

Graves, D. H. (1983). Writing: Teachers and children at work. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Jupiter Communication (1995). Online Kids Report. New York: Author.

Kozma, R. B. (1991). Learning with media. Review of Educational Research, 61(2), 179-212.

Kozma, R. B. (1994). Will media influence learning? Reframing the debate. Educational Technology
Research and Development, 42(2), 7-19.

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Owen, T. (1993). Wired writing: The writers in electronic residence program. In R. Mason (Ed.), Computer
conferencing: The last word (pp. 125-147). Victoria, BC: Beach Holme.

Papert, S. (1993). The children's machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York: Basic
Books.

Solomon, G., Perkins, D. N., & Globerson, T. (1991). Partners in cognition: Extending human intelligences
with intelligent technologies. Educational Researcher, 20(3), 2-9.

Twigg, C. A. (1995, November/December). The one percent solution. Educom Review, 16-17.

Uchida, C. (1996). Preparing students for the 21st century. Arlington, VA: American Association of School
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Zuboff, S. (1988). In the age of the smart machine. New York: Basic Books.

Footnotes

The World Wide Web is a unique way of linking text, images, sound, and video resources on computers
connected to the Internet. Typically, when you view Web information on your computer screen you see
"pages" of formatted text with pictures and graphics. By clicking with the mouse on highlighted text or an
icon, you seamlessly link to another page or access an image, sound, or video resource on the same computer
or on one somewhere else on the Internet.

2 Every Web page has a unique Internet address that identifies it, just as your own name, street, city, state, and ZIP code uniquely
identifies where you live. These addresses, known as Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), are written in the form http://...

3 A home page is the first page of a collection of related Web pages, much like a combination of the cover and table of contents of a book.

Author Note

Ronald D. Owston is Associate Professor of Education and Director, Centre for the Study of Computers in Education, York University, 4700 Keele St., North
York, Ontario, Canada M3J 1P3 (rowston@yorku.ca). His specializes in computer applications to teaching and learning.

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