The Best Internet Programs/BESTINTERNET.bin/latest/roadmap/smith.txt

Internet Message Format | 1995-02-10 | 16KB

Date:         Wed, 8 Feb 1995 11:16:52 -0600
From: BITNET list server at UA1VM (1.8a) <[e-mail]>
Subject:      File: "SMITH LESSON"

MAP-EXTRA: GUEST LECTURE

As we bring the Roadmap workshop to a close, I want to give you an
opportunity to think about what role the Internet will play in
education in the years to come.

I can think of no better person to speak on this topic than
Richard Smith.

"Richard Smith discovered the information resources of the Internet
while doing work as a Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh.
He taught the use of the Internet in graduate courses and followed
these by giving workshops called "Navigating the Internet" in 1991.

In the summer of 1992, Smith decided to offer a course on Internet
training -- over the Internet -- hoping to get 30 or 40 people to
participate. A total of 864 people from more than 20 countries
registered for his "Navigating the Internet: An Interactive Workshop."
A second workshop drew more than 15,000 participants from more than
50 countries.

The result of these ground-breaking international workshops is that
Smith has trained literally thousands of people around the world in how
to use Internet resources. This led to Smith being dubbed the "Internet
Mentor" in the January 1993 issue of American Libraries. He plans to
do bigger and better Internet workshops in the future because he enjoys
offering a service that is much needed and appreciated." (1)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am proud to introduce *my* mentor, Richard Smith:

-----

Patrick Crispen asked me to write a segment for his Roadmap
distance education workshop.  I'd like to give some general
thoughts on this new form of distance education and the new
technologies that are becoming a prominent force in the education
community.

Vice President Al Gore speaks about building an information
superhighway that will keep the United States competitive in the
world of growing high technology.  The National Information
Infostructure (NII) is already in the making which will include
present computer, television and telephone, and telecommunication
technology, and promises that it will be available to everyone as
every classroom, library, hospital and clinic in the country should
have access to the network. (Recently Post Offices!) It is now so
common that the comic strip Outland makes fun of it with their
cyberpunk characters and MTV, Nightline, FX and other commercial
entities are now on-line.

This new means of communications is predicted to change the pattern
of scholarly work.  From the computer at home or office the
educator can now access hundreds of library catalogs, journal
indexes, reference books, full text books and journal articles,
major art exhibits, employment notices, or federal government
information.  Communication with colleagues on topics as diverse as
diabetes research, history of the Ancient Mediterranean, women in
science and engineering, university administration or the
Pittsburgh Pirates take place daily. There are thousands of
discussion groups available on almost any imaginable topic.

While this network of networks has its beginnings in the 1970's, it
is only recently that this communication phenomenon has expanded
beyond the computer and information science fields.  Today
librarians, health professionals, historians, lawyers, and many
other professionals are finding the Internet a valuable research
and education tool; the largest growing segment of the Internet
community is commercial firms.

Yet an important impact of this network has yet to be developed--
the delivery of information in formal education.  There is now
being generated formal credited courses via the Internet that may
change the way that current distant education or distant learning
takes place.  This aspect of distance education will continue to
grow as the number of schools equipped with telecommunications
equipment and computers increase and costs of such equipment
decreases.

An initial attempt to use this network for education was an
experimental course attempted two years ago.  In the summer of 1992
I decided to offer a workshop on how to use this network, not in a
classroom or at a conference, but on-line over the Internet itself.
I expected 30 to 40 people to sign up and ended up with 864
participants.  The class consisted of e-mail instructions  for
accessing Internet resources and what to do once access was
achieved.  In theory, a person would read the e-mail in the morning
and follow the instructions for an hour to master the particular
segment being taught.  In reality, the three week course was a bit
much for most participants so that instructions were saved for
perusal at their convenience, a major advantage of this type of
distance education.

"Navigating the Internet: An Interactive Workshop" was so popular
that a second class was given within two months.  The announcement
for the second class allowed two weeks for registration.  The
registration had to be stopped when enrollment reached 15,000.
The last workshop given from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
"Navigating the Internet: Let's Go Gopherin'" (a popular Internet
interface) attracted 19,994 from 54 countries.

These informal basic e-mail courses demonstrate the potential of
this communication medium for distant education.  With the addition
of graphics, hypertext, compress video, sound and multimedia,
information distribution for educational courses in distance
education will be revolutionary.  Several universities are now
initiating degree programs that can be taken over the Internet.

Telecommunications technologies have provided a vast array of
teaching opportunities for educators and librarians charged with
providing information to students, staff, researchers and faculty.
The technology permits expanded communication among
teachers/student, and also provides a means of increasing
teacher/teacher and student/student communications.

Narrow casting for specific audiences and for specific subject
areas, both for formal credit courses and informal workshops, is an
option being considered by many educators and librarians.

Unlike traditional distance education systems which relied heavily
on print base materials supported by audiotape, telephone contact,
videotape, color slides, study pictures, or kits containing
samples, The Internet gives increased access to graphics, sound,
and video files via software like Mosaic, as well as real time
communications. Innovative computer and telecommunication
technologies' expand and enhance traditional distance education by
adding additional means of communication.

To be productive, distance education must be able to communicate
information between participants in an effective and efficient
manner.  Computer and telecommunication technologies are providing
unique ways to communicate, and examples of the benefits and
drawbacks of using these techniques are abundant in the literature.

Hiltz used computer-mediated communication as both an adjunct
function of supplementing traditional classroom instruction and as
a primary mode of course delivery for postsecondary education.
Electronic conferencing, where students answered questions and
reacted to other student responses produced communications in the
"virtual classroom" and was found to be a positive yet different
type of communications from the traditional classroom.  This change
in communication was noted by others where the experience showed
that communication within a paperless network tends to spread power
horizontally across the writing community, with instructor's
information equal to the student's, and every message, because of
identical font and identical screen size, commanding the same
respect when read by a student.

In a distance education class at Houston Community College System,
years of experience in giving credited courses by modem found that
distance education had several benefits over traditional classroom
instruction and older distance education courses.  Some of the
results showed these