Training for the Virtual World: The Reality of Learning

Fort McCoy

January 5, 2000

Mary F. O’Sullivan, Ph.D.

Reality is relative

• Alexander Graham Bell: invented the telephone for symphonies

• Department of Defense: devised internet for cold war information safety

• Tim Berners-Lee: created html for scientific document sharing

Thirty years that changed everything: 60s & 70s

• 1969 DoD’s Advanced Research Projects Agency -- 4 computers

• 1971 Ray Tomlinson invents email -- 2 dozen computers

• 1973 first international connections

• 1976 Wang Laboratories creates first word processor -- $30,000

Thirty years that changed everything: 80s

• 1980--400 university, government, and military host computers

• 1984--1000 host computers

• 1989--100,000 host computers

Thirty years that changed everything: 90s

• 1991 Tim Berners-Lee invents hypertext

• 1992 Internet links 17 networks, 33 countries, 1 millions hosts

• 1993 Mosaic, 1.5 million host computers linked in 100 countries

• 1994 3 million host computers

• 1995 Dial-up access with AOL etc. and 20-30 million computers

Speed of Development

• Over 20 years from the Internet to the WWW--4 computers to 100,000

• Two years from the invention of html to the first browser-- 15 times to 1.5 million computers

• Two years from the first browser to dial-up-- an increase of 20 times to 20-30 million computers

Next on the web:

e-Education

Why e-Education?• Gartner Group: Dataquest

– 1995 -1998: 27%-50% households had computers

• Kenneth Green 1999:– 54% of all college courses use email– 38.9% have syllabus online– 28.1% have a website

• PC Week article on DoD: http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,2391276,00.html

Training for the Virtual World: spring 2000

• My background

• Course contents

My Background

• Humanities to techno-geek– 25 years teaching communication– 1987 1st computer– 1988 began teaching in computer-

supported classroom– 1989 went online– 3 years teaching online

• http://learn.western.tec.wi.us/mfo

Course Content Highlights

• Examples for inspiration

• E-mail

• Discussion Lists

• Asynchronous and Synchronous Conferencing

• Designing Learning Modules

• Designing Websites

Examples of Online Instruction

• Smart Planet: http://www.smartplanet.com/learn.asp

• Learnativity: http://www.learnativity.com/

• World Wide School http://www.worldwideschool.org/

Examples of Potentials

• VOICe: http://www.western.tec.wi.us/voice/

• Translate Mail http://www.t-mail.com/ translates email

• The Nine Planets http://www.anu.edu.au/Physics/nineplanets/nineplanets.html

Discussion lists and Email• Enable student collaboration

http://www.western.tec.wi.us/mfo/elecwrit/mail180.htm

• Facilitate communication between student and instructor

• http://www.western.tec.wi.us/mfo/elecwrit/disc180.htm

• Simplify distribution of materials

• Provide transcript of all communication

Asynchronous and Synchronous Conferencing

• Creates a virtual classroom for discussion

• Asynchronous allows for thoughtful conversation

• Synchronous allows for immediate feedback

• http://www.western.tec.wi.us/webboard/webboard.dll/~commskills

Designing learning modules

• Planning before creating

• Designing to take advantage of hypertext

• http://www.western.tec.wi.us/mfo/elecwrit/ass180.htm

The Point

• eEducation is already happening and those who ignore it will not have input into shaping what may well be the most significant development in education this century.

• Use of computer-mediated communication is exploding.

What Next?

• TCP/IP

• 2003-- America's Mars orbiters will serve as relays for SCP

• Solarnet with .mars and .earth addresses

• Eventually past the solar system and...

picardjl@enterprise.starfleet.ufp