EDUCATION 2000 - IMPLICATIONS OF W3 TECHNOLOGY

The current development of the World Wide Web (W3), the globally inter linked hypermedia network of text, pictures and images, presents uniqu e opportunities for education. The distributed nature of the W3, and t he ease with which users can gain access and contribute to it sets it apart from any other hypermedia system. However, to date the W3 has be en used predominantly as a means of delivering information, either in the form of lecture notes or virtual libraries. Such usage neglects th e power of the W3 as an environment through which programs may be acce ssed and controlled interactively. The capabilities of the W3 in the l atter respect are evolving at an enormous rate. If education is to exp loit the tools so provided, it must cease to view the W3 as a simple a uthoring environment and instead consider how the access to applicatio ns that this environment can provide can be harnessed in support of th e learning process itself and in the management of the educational env ironment of the student. The above argument is illustrated by examples taken from the Interact project, which was the first TLTP (Teaching a nd Learning Technology Programme) project to utilize W3 technology. Wi thin this project two tools were developed, the Interact Communication Facility (ICF) and the Presentation Manager (PM). The ICF permits sim ulations to be integrated into the hypermedia environment provided by W3 while the PM provides greater and more convenient control over simu lations so integrated. These tools permitted the creation of a learnin g environment, the Interact Simulation Environment (ISE), which greatl y extends the availability of the simulations as a learning resource a nd the opportunity for dialogue about the simulations as they are used in learning. The basic principles which underpin the creation of this environment in engineering are shown to be extensible to other domain s and to non-Interact based applications. In a separate but related pr oject, commercial applications such as MATLAB are also shown to be con trollable over the W3. The weaknesses of the ISE are, however, also di scussed and the benefits liable to be accrued from re-implementation o f this environment in Sun's new Java language are considered. The pote ntial of Sun's new browser Hotjava to further revolutionalize the educ ational opportunities provided by the W3 is seen to be but further evi dence of the dynamic nature and real opportunity that this new technol ogy provides for education. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd