Online Learning: Is This the Classroom of the Future?
Today, the search for knowledge often extends beyond the traditional boundaries of school walls.
When it comes to learning, technology is breaking the constraints of space and time. IT is
enabling real-time communication and online learning even in the most isolated schools of the
United States by giving schools access to the most sophisticated and updated information of the
world at anytime and anyplace. It is no longer necessary for teachers and students to be in the
same classroom anymore.
Many pundits feel that the real key to online learning is not the technology itself, but its potential
to provide interactive education. Research indicates that students who interact with information
retain more of that information. As a result, the learning experience of the future is likely to
include more multimedia.
In the past century, paper was the main medium students and teachers used to express their ideas.
Now, this medium is changing to multimedia, including audio clips, video clips, and DVDs.
Technology is likely to change and improve the delivery of multimedia to students over the next
20 years, but teacher-student interaction will remain as the centerpiece of learning, both in the
classroom and online.
In 1998, South Dakota, which was recognized as the leading state in school technology
innovations during 2000 and 2001, began implementing a project to make technology available to
every school system in this rural state and provide networking infrastructure needed to help
students become better educated. The Connecting the Schools (CTS) project had three welldefined phases: distribution of hardware and software in all the schools, the building of a Digital
Dakota Network (DDN) infrastructure across the state, and the creation of a distancelearning/videoconferencing infrastructure.
In June 2000, a T-1 (1.544 mbps) digital network already covered 375 schools (99 percent of the
total), with over 400 T-1 and 3 OC-3 (155 mbps) connections. Elementary schools (grades 1-6)
were wired with a frame relay circuit that provides data services; middle and high schools (grades
7-12) were wired with asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) technology for delivering of data and
video. More than 220 distance-learning rooms were implemented in the state’s middle and high
schools.
The CTS project allows students even in the deepest rural areas of the state to take classes like
German, calculus or computer programming even if there is not a specialized teacher in those
areas. This means schools are able to have access to the best teachers in the state, no matter where
they are located, and to offer a much wider curriculum, bringing students a customized education.
The ability to customize and personalize education via such network-based applications may
mean that instead of fragmenting knowledge into courses or subjects, and grouping children by
age, we will see groupings of children in schools that are formed around common interests.
A new feature of the Web has been the development of course delivery systems, which include
course materials, assessment facilities, conferencing, chat software, and management tools for
student administration and monitoring. Some examples of these systems are WebCT,
LearningSpaces, and TopClass. Although these systems are fairly new in the market, they are
growing rapidly in popularity. By January 2002, WebCT had over 5.2 million student accounts at
over 2,300 institutions in 79 countries, and was available in 10 major world languages. Although
its use is more common among colleges and universities, some high schools have already started
implementing these virtual learning environments over the Internet.
How will distance learning likely change educational methodology during the next years? As the
required hardware becomes less expensive, more schools will be able to afford to implement
distance-learning rooms and to deliver courses to students via high-quality data and video feeds.
In addition, software is becoming more user friendly and customizable in order to meet
expectations of any student and any teacher at any place; this, too, will facilitate the course
delivery process.
Thus far, we have learned that online course content needs to focus on interactivity and not just
content. It is interactivity and student participation that are the keys to learning in an online
classroom. For instructors, this means that pedagogy and not technology is decisive for the
achievement of online learning.
If pedagogy is the key to success, how can we be sure that a good teacher in a traditional class
will perform the same in an online classroom? Also, will all traditional teachers be required to
teach in online classrooms? These issues present a challenging task for schools: Teachers should
receive adequate training in the technology and online instructional methods if they are to be
expected to create and deliver a satisfactorily interactive online course.
Both faculty and students will have to change. In traditional environments, teachers are the ones
who control what goes on in the classroom, and students are often expected to listen carefully to
the teachers and to interact only when called upon to do so. In other words, in traditional settings,
teachers perform active roles while students are relegated to primarily passive roles. For online
courses to be successful, teachers must often be willing to give up a degree of control and allow
the students to take an active role in the learning process. Students need to be oriented to their
new roles, adopt active attitudes, and become full participants in the interactive learning
processes enabled by online classrooms.