2.5 Online Education

The term online education refers to CAI software which focuses strongly on communication. Both communication between student and teacher as well as inter-student communication is important. Early CAI software (PLATO, TICCIT, HyperCard) did not provide any communication facilities. Additionally, in contrast to traditional CAI, the role of the human teacher is very important in online education.

When my wife and I went to China to teach in 1983, we lugged a miserably heavy duffel bag full of correspondence-course print material for our two daughters. Doing the lessons was awkward; we couldn't mail back our daughters' work and expect to get useful response from Victoria in less than months. In the term ``distance education'', distance was the key word.
If we made the same trip today, our daughters would need only access to a computer and modem hooked up to a phone line. Given that, a student in China would be no more ``distant'' from British Columbia education than a student in Vancouver, Kelowna to Toad River. The distance would be about 60 cm, the gap between her computer monitor and her face.
Crawford Kilian, Vancouver, 1996

This statement suggests that online education is not just a crazy idea of computer scientists, but can be a major benefit to distance education. The question arises whether online education can enhance our social and intellectual capacities when applied not only in real long distance cases but also in urban areas, e.g. for adult education. Developers in the area of CSCW hope that hypertext and hypermedia together with computer-mediated communication (CMC) will expand the potential of online education by amplifying active and purposeful learning [Har90].

Another point which is sad but true is the fact that governments all over the world have reached the limit of elasticity regarding taxation for education [Bat93]. Last year, for instance, several thousand Austrian students went into the streets to protest against governmental cuts. Online education may reach a much higher number of students without building more schools.

2.5 Online Education

When my wife and I went to China to teach in 1983, we lugged a miserably heavy duffel bag full of correspondence-course print material for our two daughters. Doing the lessons was awkward; we couldn't mail back our daughters' work and expect to get useful response from Victoria in less than months. In the term ``distance education'', distance was the key word.
If we made the same trip today, our daughters would need only access to a computer and modem hooked up to a phone line. Given that, a student in China would be no more ``distant'' from British Columbia education than a student in Vancouver, Kelowna to Toad River. The distance would be about 60 cm, the gap between her computer monitor and her face.
Crawford Kilian, Vancouver, 1996

2.5.1 Key Attributes of Online Education

2.5.2 Online education in the Traditional Classroom