Category Archives: Learning Webs Project

Appendix C — Hardware Specifications and Costs

Prices shown are current as of December 1995.


Windows NT Server

Pentium 120 MHz, with Intel Triton Chipset
32 Megabyte (MB) RAM
PCI bus Video with 1MB VRAM
4 Gigabyte (GB) SCSI Hard Drive with PCI Wide SCSI Controller
1.44 MB floppy drive, Mouse, Keyboard
15″ Monitor
Quadruple Speed CD-ROM
28.8 kilobit per second FAX/Modem
Intel PCI ethernet 10/100 network connection
Windows NT server software
Web Server Software
Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
Tape Backup (4 GB storage)

Total Exclusive of GST/PST is . . . . . . . . . . . . . $11700

The above machine as configured will act as the information server. One is required for each campus.

Instructor and Staff Workstations

Pentium 100 MHz, with Intel Triton Chipset
16 Megabyte (MB) RAM
PCI bus Video with 4MB VRAM
1.2 gigabyte (GB) EIDE Hard Drive
1.44 MB floppy drive, Mouse, Keyboard
Windows NT Workstation Software
17″ Monitor
Quadruple Speed CD-ROM
Sound Card (Sound Blaster Compatible) with speakers
Intel PCI ethernet 10/100 network connection
MS-Office 95 Pro Software

Total Exclusive of GST/PST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $4825


Student Workstations

Pentium 75 MHz, with Intel Triton Chipset
16 Megabyte (MB) RAM
PCI bus Video with 1MB VRAM
850 Megabyte (MB) EIDE Hard Drive
1.44 MB floppy drive, Mouse, Keyboard
Windows 95 Operating System
15″ Monitor
Quadruple Speed CD-ROM
Sound Card (Sound Blaster Compatible) with headphone
Intel PCI ethernet 10/100 network connection
MS-Office Pro 95 Software

Total Exclusive of GST/PST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3300

 

Appendix B — Web Sites of Interest to Educators

Note: These links were current as of December 1995. The ones with the strike through font are no longer accurate.


College, University and Public School Sites

Colleges

Camosun College Home Page
Camosun Email Addresses
Camosun Phone Numbers
College and University Home Pages
College and University (by Geography)

Distance Learning

Open Learning Agency
The Open University
Open U. — Distance Ed
Teaching and Learning on the Web
TeleEducation NB
Virtual Online University

Private Schools

Virtual High

Universities

The University of Calgary Home Page.
UVicINFO – University of Victoria
View UBC – University of British Columbia

Virtual Classrooms

The Bridges Initiative Inc
Media Links: Virtual Classroom

Back to the top, Appendix B


Commerical Sites

Commercial Services on the Net

Book Publishers

Being Digital Homepage
Book Publishers Listing
Books Unlimited
BookWire Home Page
John December Index Page
Duthie Books
The Electric Bookstore – Home Page
Knopf homepage
Oxford University Press
Random House
Online BookStore (OBS) – Home Page
Whole Internet Catalog

Computer

Hardware
The Apple Virtual Campus
ATI
Creative Labs
Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc.
IBM
Intel
Intel Trade-up Program
Maxtor
NEC
Ositech
Quantum
Western Digital
Xircom
Software
Adobe Systems Incorporated
Corel
Javacontest
QUALCOMM Home Page
Vendors
NECX Direct Login Page
VENDOR URLs

Education

Cyber HighSchool
Jones Education Networks
Kaplan Educational Centers
Peterson’s Education Center

Financial

Financial News

Health

Healthworks

Telecommunications

AGT Planet
BC TEL Advanced Communications – Web Site Index
ISDN
Stentor: The Alliance of Canada’s Telephone Companies

Back to the top, Appendix B


Curriculum

Career

Career & Technology Studies

English

Computers and Writing
EnglishClasses
Purdue On-Line Writing Lab Web Server Home Page
UF/IBM Writing Project
Writing Across the Curriculum

History

Heritage Post Interactive

K-12 – Miscellaneous

Children’s Sites
Education Centre
Ed Web K-12
K-12 Information Home Page
NASA K-12 Initiative

Literacy

The Center for Literacy (Philadelphia)
Literacy and Education
Literacy Technology Laboratory
National Center for Adult Literacy

Mathematics

Experimental Math Pages
Math on the Web
Math and Science Resources
Mathematica

Media Literacy

The Computer Museum
An Educational Guide to the Web
The Faculty Lounge
The Info Zone
Media Education
Online User

Music

Digital Traditional Music
Music Scores Online
Music World

Science

Astronomy
Explore the Universe with NASA’s Astro-2
Welcome to the Planets
Biology
The Tree of Life
The Visible Human Project
Earth and Ocean Sciences
JASON Project
Rainforest Action Network
Sea World World Wide Web
Volcano World
Health
Healthwise

Miscellaneous

Academy One
BBC Education
Cyberschool
Discovery Home Page
Discovery System Computer Communications and Resources Tutorial
Education Center Home Page
Education Room
Education Virtual Library
The Faculty Lounge
Global School Net Foundation
GrassRoots (Ed. Resources)
Home Education
Internet sites for education
Interactive Learning Centre
Learning Through Collaborative Visualization
Links to Other Education Resources
MayaQuest Learning Adventure
NCSA Education Program Home Page
Online Teaching and Learning
Optical History
Project 2000 Home Page
SciEd – Science and Mathematics Education Resources
Virtual Education
Welcome
Western Civilization
The World Lecture Hall
The World-Wide Web Virtual Library: Education

Student Developed

http://trinculo.educ.sfu.ca/pgm/depress/greatdepress.html

Back to the top, Appendix B


Entertainment

The Beatles
MovieWeb
Music Library Home Page
Paramount
Puzzles
Sports BC
Universal Pictures

Back to the top, Appendix B


Freenets

Calgary
National Capital Freenet
Victoria
World-wide List of Freenets

Back to the top, Appendix B


Government

Some useful government URL’s

Federal

Canada Business Service Centres
Canadian Heritage Information Network
Community Access Canada – CNet
Champlain: Canadian Government-Information Explorer
Environment Canada
gopher://debra.dgbt.doc.ca:70/
Industry Canada
Natural Resources Canada
Network Services and Interfaces Laboratory
Parliament of Canada

Other

Education, Culture and Employment, GNWT
http://otabbs.ota.gov:80/E611T128
Manitoba Government Home Page
New Brunswick Sites
Northern Learning Network
Ontario Government

Provincial

Alberta
Alberta Research Council
British Columbia
B.C. Government Information Services
Information and Technology Access Office
BC Ministry of the Attorney General
Ministry of Education
Ministry of Skills, Training and Labour
BC Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture
BC Queen’s Printer

Back to the top, Appendix B


Internet Providers

Crimson Information Services Home Page

Alberta

AGT Planet

British Columbia

IslandNet
The Victoria Virtual Venture
Wimsey Information Services

North America

Global Network Navigator Home Page

Back to the top, Appendix B


Media Online

The Media List, 1/25/95

Broadcasters Online

Australian Broadcasting Corp.
CBC – Email Addresses
Home Page of The Corporation for Public Broadcasting
The National Public Telecomputing Network
Radio HK

Newspapers Online

Chinese Journal
The Daily News Worldwide
The Electronic Telegraph
The Gazette Online
The Gate
The Globe and Mail
Hamilton Spectator
Electronic Newstand
Journalisme Quebecois
The Journalist’s Resource Centre
Mercury Center Main Menu
Nunatsiaq News
Oklohoma
Washington Free Press
Winnipeg Free Press

Journals

Business
Business Week
Entrepreneurial Magazine
Entrepreneur Weekly
Fortune
Computer
Byte
Computer-Mediated Communications Magazine
The Computer Paper
Dataquest
Dr. Dobb’s Journal
Mercury Inc.
Off the Record
PC MAGAZINE on the WEB
PC Repair Depot
PC Review
Toronto Star – Jim Carroll
Welcome to ZD Net
WindoWatch
Wired
Education
Mining the Internet
Online Educators Magazine
Internet and WWW
Information Week
Internet Week
MMWire
TechWeb
Webmaster
WebReview
WebSurf
Popular
Aircraft Shopper Online Home Page ( Aviation )
Auto Online
Biztravel
Car Magazine Online
E-Flight
http://www.world.net/magazine/
The Southern Aviator
TIME Magazine Home Page
Utne Lens
Scholarly
HyperNews
Interact
Interactive Age
Interactive Teacher
Journal of Technology Education
Mother Jones
The Olive Tree
On line Publications
Swiftsure Weekly
Switched on Gutenberg
Tech Files on Windows ’95

Back to the top, Appendix B


Other Sites of Interest

Motor Sports

British Racing

Multimedia Sites

ACM SIGGRAPH
MPEG Gallery
http://www.halcyon.com/
Multimedia Medical Reference Library
PDS Home Page
The InterNIC Home Page

Project — Building Learning Webs

Andragogy
Dewey Web
An Educational Interface to the Internet
The Emory World Wide Web Project
Highways for Learning
ILTweb: LiveText: Constructivist Project Design Guide
ILTweb: LiveText: Power Tools
Internet Survey
Reinventing Schools: The Technology Is Now
Software For Learning
Software Library
Visual Basic WWW Depot
Writing for Modern Technology: Course Home Page

Travel and Weather

Canadian Airlines International Ltd.
Maui Weather Today
Hawai`i Home Page
800 numbers
African National Congress
BEV Home Page
Eclectic
State of South Dakota
TravelAssist
Web Travel

WWW Sites

Computer-Mediated Marketing Environments Home Page
Cyberschool
Galaxy Education
Globewide Network Academy Course Catalog
Grants — Yahoo
Grant Web
Highways for Learning
Hyper G
Hypertext Sources
Institute for Academic Technology
Multiple Intelligences – Gardner
National Center for Adult Literacy
New Media Centres
Office of Technology Assessment
Skillmaster
US Gov’t Educational Services
Webpages of Scholarly Societies
Yahoo

Back to the top, Appendix B


Reference

Business

BC Yellowpages
Canada Business Service Centres/Centres de services aux entreprises du Canada

Education

Mr. MP Chapman’s Bookmarks
Critical Approaches to Cultural Studies
EDUCOM WWW Server
hyptxt & lit theory
IKE – IBM Kiosk for Education
Int. Soc. for Interactive Instructional Tech.
Project McLuhan

ERIC Sites

Canadian Educational Resources
AskERIC Home Page
ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation
ERIC Clearinghouse for Math, Science and Environmental Studies
ERIC Clearinghouse for Reading, English and Communications

Gopher Sites

C-EDRES

HTML Info

User’s personal HTML pages at Camosun
Mailing Lists
U.S. Geological Survey

Internet Info

EFF’s (Extended) Guide to the Internet
Find an IP Address
Info from UK
Internet Distribution Services
Internet Resources on the Web
The Internet Plaza
Netiquette
Stats
Surfing the Stuff on the Internet at the INI
Understanding the Internet

Libraries Online

Children’s Literature Web Guide
The Information Superlibrary
IPL The Internet Public Library
Project Gutenberg Home Page
SCREENsite Reference Shelf
Virtual Library

Listservs

Dr. E’s Compendium of Educational Listservs
List of Listservs
LISTSERV Home Page

World Wide Web Reference

About The World Wide Web
bricolage frontispiece
Canadian World Wide Web Master Index
Canadian WWW Servers – Geographical Server List – Revision 0.1
Cyberspace Sampler
FAQ
JHU/APL’s WWW & HTML Developer’s JumpStation – ver 1.5 (12 June 1994)
Mike’s Web Page
Mother Jones
NCSA Mosaic Home Page
The OutPost Network
Overview of the WEB
Presenting Java(tm)
Publishing on the WWW
Web66
WebMuseum: Bienvenue! (Welcome from the keeper)
WEB Wizard for Windows
World of Weasels
The World Wide Web Unleashed — Chapter 25: Education, Scholarship, and Research
WWW Constructivist Design Guide
WWW FAQ
WWWW – the WORLD WIDE WEB WORM
Yahoo – A Guide to WWW

Back to the top, Appendix B


Software

Adult Education

Yaho Search on Adult Education

CD-ROM

Edutainment

Clipart

More Clipart
Multimedia

FTP Sites

CSUSM Windows World
Apple QuickTime
IslandNet.Com Local Files
Netscape
Windows

Instructional Software

Instructional Software for downloading (IKE)

Windows 95

Win 95 on Net
RealAudio Homepage
Games on the Internet
QUEST Home Page

 

Next — Appendix C — Hardware Specifications and Costs

Appendix A — Internet Basics

Reproduced with the permission of the British Columbia Standing Committee on Educational Technology (SCOET), now part of the Centre for Curriculum and Technology Transfer.

Are you REALLY on the Internet?

What about you? Are you really connected to the Internet? Most people don’t realize that you can tell a lot about the kind of connection you have by what you can do with it. Can you send electronic mail to other people on the Net? If you can then you have basic access. But if you can’t do anything else then you may be missing out on a number of services that are changing the way people work, teach and learn.

Basic access to the Internet opens you up to the universe of electronic mail, and approximately 30 million people you can correspond with. It also provides access to hundreds of e-mail discussion groups covering subjects that include education, training, curriculum development, media, politics, communications policy development, business and virtually every existing or developing technology.

But the Internet is much more than just e-mail. Can you use Gopher to browse directory listings and information from institutions and organizations around the world? Do you have access to Mosaic or Netscape to cruise the multimedia pages of the World Wide Web? The Web brings vast amounts of information right to your desktop, providing communication tools with more intuitive interfaces, enhancements for colour, images sound and video, both real time and pre-recorded. Fourteen million people have this type of multimedia access to the Internet.

It is a real challenge for post-secondary institutions to offer fully interactive multimedia Internet access to faculty, staff and students. Multimedia access requires more powerful communications facilities than are needed for the transmission and receipt of an institutions’ e-mail or even multiple simultaneous Gopher sessions.

Full colour graphics, formatted text, video and sound are the elements being transferred with these services. For institutions with minimal connections to the Internet, all it takes is a handful of Mosaic users to bring traffic on their local networks to a grinding halt. High bandwidth access to telecommunications services is, however, not always available, especially in remote regions of the province. But things are changing. As the power and utility of these information systems continue to grow, more is being invested in the necessary infrastructure to carry all of this information to and from our institutions.

Growth statistics for the month of February produced by John Quarterman, Editor, Matrix News, (mids@tic.com), indicate that the Internet has been nearly doubling in size every year for the past six years. Commercial use of the Internet has exploded recently and thousands of companies, from multinational manufacturing companies to local cafes and bookstores, can now be found on the Internet alongside the research and educational organizations that have been there for years. And it is only a matter of time before interactive Internet access is offered to homes through local cable or telephone companies. So I’ll ask you again, are you really connected to the Internet?

– Mike Quinlan

Internet Basics


I. Three ways to get CONNECTED

  1. Get connected at work.
  2. Dial in to a computer that is an Internet host using terminal emulation software, SLIP or PPP.
  3. Dial in to a centralized commercial service bureau (e.g. AOL, Delphi, BIX) that provides Internet access.

Getting connected at work is the easiest solution because there is usually someone there to do the necessary configuration, and (hopefully) to help you learn. Dial-up access to the Internet can be acquired through most post-secondary institutions for staff, some students, and in some cases, the general public. Dial-up access is also available through Internet service providers that have appeared over the past two years, such as Free-nets (BC has at least eight), and commercial providers. People in most major centres can take advantage of commercial service bureaus, but they are generally the most expensive because they charge a premium for access to their services and even more for access to the Internet.

SLIP and PPP (Serial Link Protocol and Point to Point Protocol) are programs that provide more powerful dial-up access to the Internet. SLIP and PPP essentially connect your computer’s operating system to the Internet letting you run more than one Internet application at a time using graphical, mouse-driven software. Other communications software connects you with a single terminal window and a blinking command prompt.

(For a listing of local access providers in your area, pick up a copy of Jim Carroll’s Canadian Internet Handbook).

II. E-MAIL

The most common method of communication on the Internet is the exchange of electronic mail. With an Internet address, you can correspond with millions of people around the world. The first thing you need is an account on a computer that is an Internet host. Next, you need to familiarize yourself with the software that you will be using to send and receive e-mail. Regardless of which software you use (or are required to use) the basics should include the following:

  • A method of indicating who the message is going “To:” using some variation of “user@institution.bc.ca”
  • A means for creating short forms or “aliases” for long e-mail addresses.
  • A place to indicate a “Subject:” for the message heading.
  • A place to indicate who should receive copies (“cc:”) of the message (if any).
  • An editor of some kind to allow you to compose your message and make changes. You should also be able to save this document outside of your mail program for use elsewhere, or import text from other documents for inclusion in the message.
  • A means of “sending” the message when you are finished composing and editing, or canceling if you change your mind at the last minute.

Electronic mail is no longer restricted to the exchange of text messages. Many e-mail packages allow you to send and receive any type of file that you can store on your computer along with your text message (e.g., a colour graphic, a spreadsheet, a database file). These are called “attachments.”

E-mail Etiquette

Electronic mail is a rapid, efficient, inexpensive and very convenient method of correspondence. The unreachable – presidents of institutions, busy academics, reclusive artists – can now be reached as telephone tag is reduced or eliminated and distance becomes irrelevant. Mail messages can also be edited and forwarded to others, or filed into a database for future reference.

Tips to consider:

Are you using the correct forum for communication? Would a telephone call, fax, or long formal letter be more appropriate? You may want to follow up an important e-mail message with a telephone call, fax or hard-copy by traditional mail to ensure that your correspondent has indeed received your message. For e-mail to truly facilitate communication, the correspondents must be on-line frequently. E-mail becomes stale very quickly.

Many correspondents pressed for time simply scan a lot of their e-mail, deleting some messages and filing others to be read later if they have time. To ensure that your message gets read, give it a relevant and appropriate subject heading, keeping the text direct and to the point. Bullet any lists.

Be careful with the use of capital letters. Just because you capitalize a word doesn’t increase its importance to the reader. Your correspondent may actually think that you are shouting!

Signatures are also helpful when communicating in a professional capacity. A good signature should include your full name, title, place of employment, phone and fax numbers, e-mail address and WWW home page URL (if you have one!).

A liberal use of white space is appreciated by most readers as the human eye fatigues quickly looking at lengthy lines of text. Your computer monitor may be extra wide, but that doesn’t mean that your correspondent’s is! Make sure that your text wraps properly for the more common 80 column screen. Always construct your message with the readers comfort and attention span in mind.


III. LISTSERVS:

How to get more e-mail

Once you are comfortable using e-mail you might want to subscribe to one or more electronic mail discussion groups. There are thousands of discussion groups (called Lists or List Servers) on the Internet distributing vast amounts of information to subscribers. You can even create your own. Participants make important contacts while engaging in useful discussions and exchanges of information. But finding the right list can be a challenge. Word of mouth or electronic mail may provide a lead to a discussion group on a specific topic of interest, or you may want to ‘go out on the net’ to see what is available.

The Educators Guide to E-mail Lists is a collection of lists of interest to educators. It is sub-divided into categories such as history, humanities, science, and literature. To get a copy of this guide, ftp to: nic.umass.edu and look in directory pub/ednet for file educatrs.lst

For more lists:

If you have access to Gopher, search Gopher Directories using the search tool VERONICA for the keywords: Gopher Jewels. Within a Gopher Jewels directory, you should find reference to a List of Lists directory. Look through that directory for discussion groups of interest. If you don’t have access to Gopher but want to start browsing an extensive selection of Listserv lists, send e-mail to:

listserv@bitnic.educom.edu

In the body of the message, type:

list global

When subscribing to a list, follow the directions precisely and be sure to keep the information on how to resign from any list that you join. Usually you will subscribe by sending an e-mail message with the subject line left blank to the computer where the list is maintained. You will likely be asked to enter a line into the body of the message similar to

subscribe list-name your-name

Lists are usually better when a moderator is involved. The moderator screens duplicate and inappropriate messages. When answering a question, be sure to reply only to the individual posing the question unless your answer is appropriate to all participants. Remember, everyone else has overflowing e-mail bins too!


IV. GOPHER:

Gopher software was developed at the University of Minnesota to provide a logical, intuitive and easy-to-use interface to search the Internet. Appropriately named, Gopher is as aware of the routes (or tunnels) to other Gophers on the Internet as a prairie gopher is of the subterranean tunnels of its neighbors. Gopher allows you to interactively navigate the Internet using a series of interconnected menus maintained on computers all over the world and will search those computers for specific information based on key words.

Instead of encountering a command-line waiting for you to enter a series of mysterious and cryptic instructions, Gopher displays easy-to-understand menus that allow you to search for the information you need by using the arrow keys and the <Enter> key. Gopher either displays the information requested on screen or takes you to a new menu to help narrow the search. If the information sought is in a format other than text, such as a graphic or a document with complex formatting, Gopher will save this to a file on your local computer for later access. Also, as you travel far and wide on the Internet, Gopher menus allow you to retrace your steps back to where you started.

There are thousands of organizations, institutions and businesses with Gopher servers on the Internet now, from NATO and the World Health Organization to local bookstores. Access to well-organized lists of these services has greatly improved. The InterNIC organization maintains the Directory of Directories containing information on Internet resources, products and services to direct the user to computing centers, network providers, information servers, directories, library catalogs, data and software archives, and training services.

To discover whether or not you have access to Gopher at your institution, login to your computer account, type “gopher” and the rest should happen automatically. If nothing appears on your computer screen, contact your system administrator to find out when your institution will get access to Gopher.


V. WORLD WIDE WEB:

The most dramatic development on the Internet lately has been the explosive growth of the World Wide Web. The Web integrates the power of Gopher, incorporating full colour graphics, fully formatted text, audio and digitized video clips into your search. While Gopher leads you through a series of menus to your destination, the Web takes you directly to the pages containing the information you want; information which usually appears as fully formatted text with colour graphics.

World Wide Web browsing software such as Mosaic or Netscape work best when connected to the Internet over a high speed (ethernet) network. It is possible to use a dial-up connection to access the Web, but make sure you have a high speed (14.4 kbps +) modem. Limited data transfer rates can make this a tedious and time consuming experience.

Browsing the Web

Mosaic, developed by the National Centre for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), has an elegant easy-to-use interface and is a popular browser used to read Web documents. It is available in both MS Windows and Macintosh formats and can be downloaded for free off the Internet at: ftp.ucs.ubc.ca in: /pub/win3/winsock and /pub/mac/info-mac/comm/tcp, respectively. Netscape is available for free at ftp.mcom.com in /pub.

The ability to transmit formatted pages of information, including full colour graphics, has generated the greatest amount of activity on the Internet. Businesses are taking full advantage of this new method of “publishing on demand” by posting everything from product information to company annual reports. The use of interactive “forms” also allows users to place orders or leave messages.

Institutions are developing Web-based course and calendar materials, as well as general campus information and reference material. Research projects such as the Visible Human Project at the National Library of Medicine are posting examples of their project results, full colour cross sections of a human body at 5 mm intervals for doctors and students to view.

With millions of users world-wide, the Internet is the “information highway,” at least in its developing stages. While debates and discussions about the future of the information highway continue to vacillate between Stentor, the CRTC and the federal government, the Internet continues to extend its tendrils out into libraries, museums, offices, cafes and homes. The applications and services that travel over its lines are limited only by the imaginations of the thousands of software developers sharing their tools on the Net, the institutions and organizations developing worthwhile content, and the will of government regulators to let access expand in an equitable and timely manner.

Next — Appendix B — World Wide Web Sites of Interest to Educators

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Next — Appendix A — Internet Basics

Summary

This paper has pointed to a growing body of research that indicates economic and social changes have made lifelong learning essential to all. In the late twentieth century the acquisition of a diploma or a degree is the beginning of the learning process rather than the zenith. Information technologies have brought dramatic change to world economies. They, in turn, have put pressure on traditional jobs and institutions. Conventional industrial and resource based jobs are disappearing. No segment of society is untouched. These dramatic transitions are having an effect on the education system. While today’s public school systems are striving to adequately prepare children for the educational demands of the information age, adult learners face heightened demands for lifelong learning. This project has presented a plan to build electronic learning webs in an ABE environment. Faculty developed hypermedia instructional systems are capable of supporting and enhancing the development of independent, self-directed, lifelong learners so critical to this new paradigm.

An examination of other earlier computer-based learning systems has shown that all are based on a behaviourist, model, which arranges instruction around pre-set, specific learning objectives and outcomes. The proposed hypermedia systems would implement cognitive research on the development of adult learners using the emerging information technologies. The computer mediated communication capabilities of the rapidly growing world wide connection of computers called the Internet offer opportunities for applying these approaches beyond the four walls of the classroom.

What are the attributes of an informatics based instructional system? Learners want to feel empowered and enabled by this technology to achieve their educational goals. ABE instructors are concerned that these systems meet sound adult learning principles and provides even greater facilitation for ‘debugging’ a student’s learning. They also want to know if information technology is able to ease the clerical workload of testing, filing and the myriad other tasks involved with a competency based system. Some stakeholders, particularly administrators, wonder about the value and cost of electronic learning webs compared to that of traditional technologies. For all stakeholders the most important issue is the ease with which the system can be modified to meet ever changing instructor and learner needs. Sherry’s ideal Integrated Learning System will have to help educators create a ” . . . world made transparent by the communications webs (Illich, 1971, p. 157).”

Before this can happen, major initiatives in education are required to provide appropriate hardware, software and human support. Computers have heralded a fourth revolution in education. The first was the establishment of formal learning, the second the invention of writing and the third the invention of the printing press. This latter technological invention dramatically affected how humans were taught. Like most technologies of the late twentieth century the information age is changing society at a much greater rate. This document has presented a plan to facilitate change in Camosun’s ABE department. The design first encourages instructors to become computer literate, and then communications technology literate. ABE faculty who are already learner rather than teacher-centred need technologies that will allow more effective and efficient delivery of instruction. This proposal provides a scheme to provide faculty new experiences in their roles as instructional designers, managers, and motivators of learners (Fahey, 1987, p. 22).

This project, then, has focused on providing the parameters for constructing electronic learning webs which make use of these approaches to facilitate meeting the needs of Adult Basic Education (ABE) learners. Good ABE practice involves competing instructional paradigms. On the one hand, ABE offers career focused, behaviourist learning objectives and individualized, competency-based learning conditions. On the other hand, as ABE faculty are dealing with more autonomous and sometimes more disadvantaged adult learners, there is a requirement for a responsive, constructivist learning environment. Adult education theorists acknowledge this paradox and recommend a focus on the adult student’s life experience to produce a curriculum closely tied to the student’s world. Thus ABE is fruitful ground for the development of instructional modules that will help build and support an information technology based lifelong learning infrastructure.

Provided here has been a model for the use of communication and knowledge technologies in the development of an integrated hypermedia instructional system. The resulting electronic learning web will not only makes use of sound andragogical structure. More importantly it will eventually superimpose this structure on the Internet — the closest approximation to a single encyclopedia of everything known by mankind. This rather daunting task will be accomplished through a synthesis of instructional design paradigms applied using of informatics — computers linked to electronic communication systems. The electronic learning webs created by ABE faculty will facilitate individualized learning and allow instructors to create customized learning modules that can accommodate students’ diverse learning styles.

To ensure that all of the above happens in the context of ‘good practice’, this project has presented a process leading to the development of hypermedia (HTML) based instructional modules focused on the needs of an Adult Basic Education student. The first step was a literature review of instructional design philosophy, theory and practice responding to the needs of a life long learner. The second was an examination of the fit of design theory with current instructional practice in the ABE classroom. Finally, from this review of theory and practice came the design framework to plan and pilot the development of hypermedia (HTML) instructional modules. Offered here, then, was an extension to the traditional educational technologies of chalk and talk, a synthesis of theory and practice in instruction and technology. This synthesis offers a way to extend the instructor’s influence beyond the confines of a classroom. The Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) skills developed by faculty over the course of the pilot project will provide them with the tools to structure information into ways that, for the adult learner, data can become knowledge.

The research on how the next generation ILS’s can be used to improve learning in colleges, institutes and schools is clear. These emerging technologies have the potential to be even more liberating than the printing press was for the forebears of today’s learners and instructors. The author has identified some important philosophical questions to consider before embarking on curriculum development of hypermedia instruction. Hypermedia will help ABE instructors create a ” . . . world made transparent by the communications webs (Illich, 1971, p. 157).”

This then is a synthesis of design philosophy and practice for an electronic learning web. The research is clear on how to expand instruction electronically beyond the walls of the classroom. Emerging technologies, properly applied can be as enabling and liberating as the printing press was for our forebears. Today’s technology, like yesterday’s has the power to enslave or enable. Those with an enabling vision for learners must take the opportunity to master new technologies and turn them to the needs and ends of both teachers and learners.

 Next — Bibliography