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Web of Thought: Ways to Make the World Wide<br />

Web Educationally Relevant<br />

Delwyn L. Harnisch<br />

Department of Educational Psychology<br />

University of Ill<strong>in</strong>ois at Urbana-Champaign, USA<br />

harnisch@ux6.cso.uiuc.edu<br />

V<strong>in</strong>ce Gracia<br />

Office of M<strong>in</strong>ority Student Affairs<br />

University of Ill<strong>in</strong>ois at Urbana-Champaign, USA<br />

vgracia@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu<br />

Matt Markus<br />

Axon Software, USA<br />

When brows<strong>in</strong>g the World Wide Web one comes across many forces that could be viewed as<br />

detrimental to the educational process. For example, the Web often places a higher premium on pizzazz than<br />

content. Also, the non-l<strong>in</strong>ear nature of hypertext navigation can be potentially distract<strong>in</strong>g to some learners.<br />

Yet, the World Wide Web’s ability to allow ord<strong>in</strong>ary computer users to easily unleash the power of the<br />

Internet’s massive <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion archives has helped fuel the drive to place schools on-l<strong>in</strong>e. As more educational<br />

<strong>in</strong>stitutions beg<strong>in</strong> to make the on-l<strong>in</strong>e transition, we must formulate methods for Web-based <strong>in</strong>struction that<br />

ensure the realization of the educational potential of this medium. To this end, we have constructed four<br />

example areas on the Del Harnisch (DLH) homepage that emphasize the essence of Web-based education. We<br />

discuss the motivational, educational, and technical aspects of these examples and hope that they contribute to<br />

an on-go<strong>in</strong>g discussion concern<strong>in</strong>g Web-based <strong>in</strong>struction.<br />

Collaboration on the Web<br />

Today’s educational system is modeled upon a classroom sett<strong>in</strong>g that is basically hierarchical <strong>in</strong><br />

nature. The educational process is marked by cooperation between teacher and students <strong>in</strong> order to achieve<br />

various mandated educational goals. Until recently, a similar top-down organizational structure dom<strong>in</strong>ated the<br />

bus<strong>in</strong>ess world. Now, however, organizational structures are <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>gly be<strong>in</strong>g flattened - cooperation has<br />

given way to collaboration. Collaboration allows groups to build knowledge synergistically where learn<strong>in</strong>g<br />

becomes a dynamic and an excit<strong>in</strong>g activity. Yet, despite the benefits of collaboration, less than 2 percent of<br />

the United States’ education budget is used to purchase collaborative technologies [Leebaert 1995]. One of the<br />

ma<strong>in</strong> objectives of the DLH homepage is to heighten awareness about the impact of collaborative technologies<br />

<strong>in</strong> the classroom without plac<strong>in</strong>g schools at f<strong>in</strong>ancial risk.<br />

The first example of Web collaboration on the DLH homepage is the Virtual Tutor applet. The Virtual<br />

Tutor was developed as an example of a collaborative Web technology that would allow students to <strong>in</strong>teract<br />

live with a remote tutor. The Virtual Tutor was designed with two objectives <strong>in</strong> m<strong>in</strong>d. The first objective was to<br />

illustrate to the educational community the benefits of on-l<strong>in</strong>e education <strong>in</strong> a non-passive way. The second<br />

objective was to grant learners access to distributed educational resources. For example, the Virtual Tutor<br />

makes it possible to run a highly <strong>in</strong>teractive after school homework help page. Also, students can use the<br />

Virtual Tutor to discuss special assignments and problems with real scientists. Technically, the Virtual Tutor is<br />

a software package written entirely <strong>in</strong> Sun Microsystems’ Java language and is based on a client/server<br />

architecture. When a learner enters the Virtual Tutor page the Virtual Tutor applet is served to the learner’s<br />

mach<strong>in</strong>e. Once the applet has started runn<strong>in</strong>g it sets up a white-board and a chat area on the learner’s side and<br />

connects back to a special Java based server runn<strong>in</strong>g on the host. On the server side a similar white-board and<br />

chat area are spawned thus complet<strong>in</strong>g an <strong>in</strong>teractive l<strong>in</strong>k between the student and the teacher. By mak<strong>in</strong>g the<br />

Virtual Tutor bytecode available for non-commercial use we hope to facilitate the transfer of cutt<strong>in</strong>g edge Web<br />

technology from the laboratory to the classroom.

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