2.1 Introduction

Traditional classroom education has not changed much during the last 200 years, but our world has. Teachers present information to a group of students in a classroom or lecture theatre. Students are mainly passive recipients because large groups do not allow a lot of interaction. Compulsory education stops at the age of 15 in most nations. This was appropriate for the Industrial Age, where people often worked in the same profession their whole life, but is inadequate for the Information Age. Nowadays, some professions simply die out, or the tools used change (e.g. in accounting), so people are forced to learn new skills. We can see how hard it is for our parents' generation to adapt to new technologies, like programming a VCR for instance, or using a computer. Thus, education throughout a person's life will be needed.

The Conference Board of Canada (1991) defined skills which will be essential for people in the 21st century [Bat93]:

good communication skills (reading, writing, speaking, listening)
ability to learn independently
social skills: ethics; positive attitudes; responsibility
teamwork
ability to adapt to changing circumstances
thinking skills: problem-solving; critical/logical/numerical
knowledge navigation: where to get/ how to process information.

With traditional teacher-centred education alone we will not be able to achieve all these skills. Student-centred Active Learning will be necessary. Learners will have to be able to learn independently in small groups, which can sometimes be separated in time and space. In this instance, teachers will work as advisors to help the students in their active leaning process.

Changes will be especially important in distance education where course material (print, audio, or video) has traditionally been sent by postal mail, or has been broadcast via radio or television. This ``one way'' delivery of information has no component that we could call ``interactive''. Studying at home can be boring and often frustrating if students do not understand parts of the course material, and there is nobody to ask for help. Online Education, which will be discussed in the last section of this chapter, can improve both classroom and distance education.

In the remainder of this chapter I will present software which is called computer assisted instruction (CAI). This is software which lets the computer act like a tutor or teacher. Unfortunately, experience has shown that CAI alone is not as successful as first expected. Since most programs are not online, and therefore do not provide any communication features, the social aspects are missing. Secondly, I will discuss intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) which combine the idea of CAI with artificial intelligence. These are programs which should work like intelligent tutors who get to know their students and teach them in a unique way. Thirdly, the research area of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) will be presented.

The reason I added this section is that the outcomes of the above research areas are essential for online education, which the last section of this chapter is dedicated to, since the idea of online education is the combination of computer-mediated communication with instructional software.

How hypertext and hypermedia can improve online education will be discussed in Chapter 3.