Imagine you're reading an article on your computer about tourism in Europe. There's a reference to Paris, so you click on the word with your mouse. Immediately you link to a computer in Paris where you see a map of the city. On the map you spot the famous museum, le Louvre, click on it, and begin to browse the works of the Impressionist painters. Your interest in museums now piqued, you select the British Natural History Museum from a listing of other international museums, and link to it...

Welcome to the World Wide Web!

Nothing before has captured more the imagination and interest of educators simultaneously around the globe as has the World Wide Web. The Web, as we'll call it, is causing teachers, from pre-school to graduate school, to re-think the very nature of teaching, learning, and schooling. With the Web, teaching and learning can be freed from the boundaries of classrooms and class schedules. Traditional lectures and teacher presentations can become multimedia learning experiences for students.

 

Learning resources of the school can be augmented by learning resources of the world via the Web. Moreover, the Web can help us re-focus our institutions from teaching to learning, from teacher to student.

In this book, we'll explore what all the excitement is about, from what the Web is and how it works, to ways you can exploit its powerful capabilities in your teaching. But before we do so, we should begin with the question that's probably foremost on your mind, "Why should I bother with the Web? I've got classes to teach, assignments to grade, faculty meetings to attend..." And the list goes on. How important is the Web in the overall scheme of things educational? Do I really need to learn to use it? Can I justify the time? Since you've picked up this book, you're probably at least curious about the Web. Maybe even anxious to start using it! Let's look at the case for using the Web in education, so that you'll be able to answer these questions for yourself.

We'll examine details of the Web in the next chapter. For now, think of it as a unique way of linking text, images, sound, and video resources on computers connected to the Internet, the world-wide network of computer networks. With the Web you can navigate seamlessly from one computer to the next, following your own interests, exploring topics in depth, without regard to where the resource is physically located on the globe. Typically, when you view Web information on your computer screen you'll see "pages" of formatted text with pictures and graphics. When you click on highlighted text or an icon, you link to another page or access an image, sound, or video resource. These resources may be on the same computer or on another computer located elsewhere on the Internet. Each Web page you'll see has a unique Internet address that identifies it, just as your own name, street, city, state, and ZIP code uniquely identifies you. You'll see these addresses written as http://... throughout this book. In the next chapter, we will go into detail about this topic too.

To make a case for Web use in education, we should begin with criteria to assess its present impact and potential contribution. For any kind of technology to be worth its salt educationally, I believe it must pass three questions:

* Does it make learning more accessible?

* Does it promote improved learning?

* Does it accomplish the above while containing, if not reducing, the costs of education?

These are tough questions. They can--and should--be applied to all innovations that we bring into our classrooms. EDUCOM, the national consortium of colleges and universities that deals with information technology issues and policy, calls for them to be asked. School and higher education administrators, governments, and the public are demanding answers to these kinds of questions as well. Unfortunately, in the past, they haven't been asked. We can all think of innovations brought into our classrooms that were not thoroughly scrutinized, which we now are embarrassed to mention. Some will say the use of the Web is inevitable, so there's no need to justify it. I believe, however, that if the Web is to be worthy of our time and investment, it must meet the challenge that these questions bring. So let's see how the Web measures up.

Each of us probably has a different interpretation of what "access to learning" means, although most will agree that it means making education more attainable by more people. That is, providing educational opportunities in the workplace, community, or the home, for those unable to attend school or college because of cultural, economic, or social barriers.

 

Thanks to some forward-thinking educators, the Web can help make education more accessible. What's more, it's happening today, particularly in higher education.

Dedicated distant learning institutions and traditional colleges and universities have provided opportunities to students unable to attend campus for some time. Until recently, they relied mainly on correspondence, traditional print instructional materials, and, perhaps, audio and video cassettes, or television. That's starting to change now as educators devise new ways to capitalize on Web-based technology. An inviting, graphical screen layout, interactive multimedia learning materials, simplified access and searching of databases, exponential growth of new resources around the world, and open technical standards that allow any brand of modern computer to access the Web are some of the advantages institutions see in the Web to make learning more accessible. Here are some examples of how the Web is being used today to provide increased access to education.

Britain's Open University (http://keats.open.ac.uk/zx) is a prime example of a dedicated distance education institution that uses the Web to support its mission of providing accessible education. A leader in worldwide distance education since its founding in 1969, the Open University has some 200,000 students around the world studying over 300 courses. The university normally requires students to spend some time on campus in residency, however it finds that there are always some students who cannot fulfill this requirement. In the summer of 1994, it experimented with offering electronically an advanced psychology course aimed at this kind of student, using Web and other Internet tools. Students reportedly relished the opportunity to be able to continue their studies without interfering with family commitments; instructors found the experience exhausting yet exhilarating; and the project evaluator wrote that the level of contact and interaction among students and instructors very similar to regular summer classes.

 

The following year Open University offered two computer science courses to students throughout the world via the Web. They intend to continue to expand their list of offerings, and even have a Web form on-line, which students can complete to suggest courses they'd like to see offered over the Internet!

City University (http://www.cityu.edu), in Bellevue, Washington, another dedicated distance learning institution, operates with the mission of "making education available to all who desire it...without interrupting commitments to work and home." Recently, they established EDROADS (Education Resource and Online Academic Degree System) to take advantage of Internet based technology to offer their programs. At present, they provide on-line an MBA degree program and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Systems. Through the university's World Wide Web site, students around the world apply to the university, register for courses, and complete course work electronically. They can also send questions and assignments to the instructors from the Web site and participate in specialized live forums at the program and course level.

Two examples of traditional institutions using the Web as the backbone of their distance learning efforts are Birkbeck College of the University of London, England, and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. In 1995, Birkenbeck's highly-regarded Crystallography Department (http://www.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/PPS/index.html) began to offer a 15 week course called The Principles of Protein Structure entirely over the Internet. At the heart of the course were Web-based interactive, graphical learning modules created by 30 experts in protein structure from around the world. The Web activities were supported by on-line discussions with other students and course consultants. Some 250 students from countries around the world participated, including Brazil, China, Slovenia, and Croatia as well as Western countries. Students and course consultants were split into study groups of 15 to 20. One of the groups' activities was to prepare and publish at the course's Web site, a research report on an assigned protein. Evaluations of the course were extremely positive.

 

 One participant, a doctoral student, posted his views of the course at the university's web site. Among the chief benefits he said were that he could study at his own convenience, access course resources simply by the click of a mouse, and maintain contact with a large number of scientists easily and informally.

A selection of standard, full-credit undergraduate and graduate courses is offered globally through CyberEd at the University of Massachusetts' Dartmouth Division of Continuing Education (http://www.umassd.edu/cybered/distlearninghome.html). CyberEd courses make extensive use of the Web complete with images, sound, and video, to present material, test, communicate among students and faculty, and submit assignments. Its goal is "to create a distance learning environment that rivals the traditional classroom environment in the quality and content of the learning experience...to encourage a new educational paradigm in which the instructor is no longer regarded as the sole source of all knowledge." Reports by participants and visitors posted at its Web site suggest that CyberEd is well on this way to achieving its goal.

As the list of established, accredited colleges and universities extending access to their programs to students with the Web grows, a new kind of institution--the "virtual university"--is emerging to challenge the established ones by providing universal access to on-line courses and degrees. While not yet accredited, these institutions are blazing the trail in what will no doubt become a common way of study in the near future. They don't have a physical campus. The world is their campus! They make use of print materials as well, but all interaction among students, faculty, and the institution, and a considerable amount of instruction occurs on-line, in most cases using the Web, electronic mail, and computer conferencing. Some of the early starters in this field are Athena University (http://www.iac.net/~billp/VOU-Home.html), Spectrum University (http://www.pacificnet.net/~spectrum/campmenu.html), and International University College (http://www.iuc.com).

The Web is not only enabling improved access to colleges and universities. Some experimentation in on-line access to education is happening at the public school level too, though it is not as widespread primarily because of state regulations on compulsory attendance. Three areas ripe for growth in Web use are home schooling, alternative schooling, and extension courses.

A small segment of the parent population has always chosen to withdraw their children from public school and educate them at home. Reasons for doing so vary from geographic isolation, political views, or religious conviction to a belief that they can do a better job at educating their child than the school. The Web is becoming an essential tool for these parents and children to access educational resources and to maintain contact with other parents and children participating in home schooling. As well, the richness of the Web promises to make home schooling an increasingly popular option for parents. Because of the Web, no longer will children educated at home suffer from lack of access to quality learning materials and contact with peers, two problems that plague home schoolers. Already Web sites for parents and children are springing up with curriculum resources, lists of individuals and organizations offering help, and information on legal matters. One such site is The Homespun Web of Home Educational Resources (http://www.ICtheWeb.com/hs-web/index.html).

A second area poised for growth in Web use is alternative schooling. Students at alternative schools, like their home schooling conterparts, often lack access to quality learning materials as well. This is changing, however, as alternative schools gain access to the Web.

 

 

The Virtual High School (http://bc-education.botany.ubc.ca/VH/index.html), in British Columbia, is an example of a private school that capitalizes on Internet based technology to provide an alternative to the traditional school. Although its name is slightly misleading because students do gather in a physical classroom in Vancouver, Virtual High makes extensive use of technology in its innovative project-based curriculum. The Web is central tool in their students' pursuit of knowledge. There are no formal courses at Virtual High as students are encouraged to "undertake to set up a personal business, and turn it into a sustainable and financial success."

The third area soon to grow in Web use is in the offering of extension courses to students presently in high school and to adults seeking to complete their schooling through home study. The Web offers the same advantages of access to these two groups as it does to university students. High school students will soon see Web based courses in subjects their own school does not offer, courses to prepare for the Advanced Placement exams, and regular college courses offered to them for advanced credit. Adults seeking to complete their high school education will soon see high school courses offered over the Web and courses to prepare them for the GED high school equivalency exam.

Indiana University's Division of Extended Studies (http://www.extend.indiana.edu), which offers high school and some college credit course within the state and worldwide, is an example of an institution that is beginning to make use of Internet e-mail. In some courses students can communicate with the instructors, submit assignments, and receive course guides electronically. Integration of the Web into these courses is surely to be the next step at Indiana and for other institutions offering similar courses elsewhere.

As we've just seen, there's plenty of evidence that the Web is a valuable means to increase access to education. Evidence on how it can promote improved learning is not as forthcoming. In fact, there's an on-going debate in the instructional design research literature about whether there are any unique attributes of media that can promote improved learning. This debate stems from the observation that, after more than 50 years of research on instructional media, no consistent significant effects from any medium on learning have been demonstrated. Educational television is a case in point. Initially, hopes were high that television would have certain characteristics that would lead to improved student learning, but alas, none have been found. Some researchers go as far as to argue that no effect can possibly be demonstrated, because any improvement in learning that may accrue will come from the instructional design, not the medium that delivers the instruction.

The issue becomes further complicated when the Web is used as a tool for learning, as opposed to a medium for delivering pre-determined content. By a learning tool, I mean use of the Web simply as a vehicle to search for and retrieve information. Clearly, a tool can make a task easier to do--and we likely can do it much more quickly with the tool. But the central question is when we no longer have the tool to use, have we taken away with us some unique skill or ability that could have been acquired only with that tool. To illustrate, let's phrase this question in terms of a tool we are probably all more familiar with, the word processor. The question then becomes, as a result of using a word processor, do we develop certain beneficial writing skills that we can carry over when we write by hand. Furthermore, are these skills ones that we otherwise would not likely develop? To date, no research has been able to consistently demonstrate this kind of effect with any learning tool.

Clearly, these are issues we cannot hope to resolve in this book. My purpose in raising them is to highlight that we cannot simply ask "Do students learn better with the Web as compared to traditional classroom instruction?"

 

We have to realize that no medium, in and of itself, will likely improve learning in a significant way when it's used to deliver instruction. Furthermore, it's unrealistic to expect the Web, when used as a tool, to develop in students any unique skills. What can we expect of the Web, then, in terms of student learning? I believe that there are at least three distinct learning advantages to Web use.

One of the primary learning advantages of Web use is that it appeals very much to the way our students' now prefer to learn. Seymour Papert, famed MIT developer of the computer language LOGO, calls the computer the "children's machine." Rightly so, because students in our public schools and a good many in colleges and universities do not know a world without the computer. They relate to the computer in ways that baffle adults. It is an integral part of their world. They play, are entertained by, and learn with the computer. They tend to be more visual learners than previous generations because their world is rich in visual stimuli. They also thrive on interacting with the device. So it is only fitting that we design learning materials and opportunities that capitalize on what we know about how our students learn. That's just what many of our colleagues in schools and post secondary institutions are doing. The Web is at the heart of many of these initiatives.

Public schools have been very quick to exploit the rich, multisensory interactive nature of the Web. A check of the University of Minnesota's College of Education Web site, called Web 66 (http://web66.coled.umn.edu), will give you a feeling for how extensively schools are using the Web. This site has probably the most comprehensive listing of Kindergarten to grade twelve schools anywhere. Well over 1000 schools are listed, about 40% of which are elementary schools! Although you can't truly tell how many of these make regular use of the Web for teaching and learning, it's probably safe to say that if a school is motivated enough to establish its own Web home page and list it with Web 66, they're making use of the Web in their classrooms too.

 

If that is not a clarion call to educators, the prediction by Online Kids Report (Jupiter Communications, 1995) that children's use of the Web is expected to increase by 1400 percent to 14.5 million users over the next five years certainly is.

As we'd expect, because they have more ready access to the Internet, college and university faculty make use of the Web more frequently than schools. There's also one site to which we can turn to get an indication of how extensively faculty are using the Web. This site, the World Lecture Hall at The University of Texas at Austin (http://www.utexas.edu/world/lecture), maintains a registry of college and university course home pages. A home page is the first page of a collection of related Web pages, much like a combination of the cover and table of contents of a book. When you browse through the registry, you'll find course home pages of faculty throughout the world listed alphabetically, from Accounting to Zoology. Some home pages contain little more than a course syllabus, but many others contain interactive learning materials, lecture notes, assignments, exams, links to course-related resources, and instructions for students on how to make best use of the course's Web site. Presently, there are some 500 courses registered. The World Lecture Hall registry is undoubtedly only the "tip of the iceberg" in terms of Web use because not all faculty would bother to register their courses there (or even know about the site), but it's clear that many faculty see the Web as a resource they want their students to use.

We saw in our discussion of accessibility that the Web is a very effective vehicle to help students gain an education without being on campus. A growing number of faculty now want to provide their regular, full-time students greater flexibility in accessing their courses as well.

 

 

 When you browse through courses listed in the World Lecture Hall, you'll discover many courses where faculty have dramatically reduced the amount of face-to-face contact between instructor and student, or in some cases, entirely eliminated it. In lieu, they provide Web-based study projects and on-line activities that students can access at their convenience.

One interesting example of this is at Oregon State University, where Philosophy 201 is offered entirely on-line, using the Web and electronic mail (http://www.cs.orst.edu:80/info/department/instruction/phil201). The developers' see the course as an opportunity to "enhance student autonomy and intellectual community" and to create a "self-paced, expert-directed, time/place independent environment for learning." All student readings are available on the Web and students debate issues raised during the course in electronic "virtual conversations." E-mail provides a way for students to contact the instructor directly and for the instructor to broadcast news to all registered participants. Internet visitors are invited to join class discussions provided they identify themselves as such. This is a refreshing addition to the course as it potentially broadens the range of opinions expressed in on-line discussions.

While some may decry the loss of face-to-face contact between instructor and student, it is not hard to find faculty who believe the quality of interaction and learning that takes place on-line is actually superior. They argue that interaction is more thoughtful and considered when students have the chance to think about their responses to questions and discussion topics before posting them to an electronic public forum.

These faculty also say that students who are shy or uncomfortable about participating in class discussions no longer feel that way in on-line forums.

Interaction of the kind just described where participants contribute at different times is called asynchronous communication. Web tools have just become available that permit synchronous communication as well, that is communication that allows participants to carry on live conversations.

 

 

So if teachers feel that they'll lose the spontaneity that comes with live discussions, they can have that with the Web too. What's more, with Web tools, video can be used to create a learning environment that simulates a real classroom because students can see and hear each other. Yet this virtual classroom still allows students the flexibility of taking part in the class from any Internet connection in the world. The technology to do this is still in its infancy, however rapid progress is being made in its development.

Although the emphasis in K-12 education is more on use of the Web for project-based work and resource access than content delivery, the Web's influence on making learning more flexible is not lost in K-12 schools. When computers are introduced into classrooms, teachers inevitably report that they change their teaching style to allow students greater autonomy in controlling their learning. They tend to shift their style of teaching from didactic to a more project-based approach. Teachers in the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) project, which placed large numbers of computers in classrooms across the country, are just one group who have reported these kinds of changes. The Web is a tool that fits well with this new learning environment. It empowers students to become part of the Internet community and to take advantage of the wealth of learning opportunities available through the Internet without having to master arcane computer commands.

Academic, community, business, and government leaders are calling upon our schools, colleges, and universities to graduate a different kind of student than a generation ago. This is in response to the challenges posed by the new global economy, where the knowledge and skills of a nation's workers are key to its competitive success, rather than in the past when factors like natural resources and geographic location reigned supreme. Among the skills called for in students are critical thinking, problem solving, written communication, and ability to work collaboratively.

 

 Although these skills have always been valued, the call for them represents as much a demand that schools place increased emphasis on their development.

In the hands of able teachers, the Web can play a prominent role in fostering development of these skills in students. It would be absurd to state that the Web is the only tool that teachers and students should use, but there is a natural match between the Web and development of these skills. Let me explain.

The Web is part of the free-wheeling environment of the Internet. All imaginable kinds of information and data can be found, the quality and value of which varies tremendously. Teachers can encourage students to explore the Web with the goal of having them weigh evidence, judge the authenticity of data, compare different viewpoints on issues, analyze and synthesize diverse sources of information, and construct their own understanding of the topic or issue at hand. By doing so, teachers will be well on their way to having students develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. It's true that teachers have always had students do this kind of task with print material. What the Web can offer that traditional media can't is information that is instantly available, often very up-to-date, worldwide in scope, and presented in a more motivating format for students to explore.

Students can develop written communication skills quite readily by using the Web too. Researchers who study student writing stress that writing to an authentic audience--rather than only to the teacher--is essential for the full development of students' writing ability. The theory is that when students have a real audience to write to and have a purpose in writing to that audience, they will be more conscious of their vocabulary, syntax, and grammar. On-line work, in general, provides this kind of authenticity, whether it's an elementary student writing to a "key pal" on the other side of the globe, a high school student of a foreign language communicating with a native speaker in a distant country, or a university student querying researchers about their latest work (as in the Birkbeck College course described earlier). E-mail, electronic reply forms, and Internet newsgroup readers are part of most Web browsing tools today, so students don't even have to leave the Web to do on-line writing.

 

Therefore, teachers who design projects or assignments that incorporate this feature of the Web will be giving their students an ideal opportunity to develop their writing skill.

Teachers can also foster development of collaborative skills with the Web. This is typically done by structuring group projects where group members are in different geographic locations, yet have a common goal to reach or problem to solve. Again, the Birkbeck College Principles of Protein course comes to mind, this time as an example of how collaborative projects can be structured. You'll recall that one of their assignments in the course was to work in "virtual" groups to prepare a research report on an assigned protein and to publish the report on the Web. For K-12 students, many global collaborative projects exist. All rely on e-mail as the underlying Internet tool, although the Web is fast becoming the starting point and location for archives of global discussions. KIDLINK (www.kidlink.org) is one of the largest of these projects with over 48,000 children in 77 countries and all continents participating from time to time since 1990 in global dialogs and projects. A recent visit to the Web site revealed the announcement for Blue Print Earth, a collaborative project where students were challenged to invent social and political scenarios to make the Earth a better place to live for future generations.

Now that we've seen how the Web can promote greater access to education and improved learning, we need to consider the cost of doing this. Much to their dismay, most educators concede that over the next decade public funding of schools, colleges, and universities is unlikely to increase significantly. In fact, many would be satisfied if funding remained the same, rather than decrease, as seems to be the current trend. To make the situation even more difficult, pressure is on our institutions to enroll more students without any increase in public funds. Clearly, if widespread use of the Web increases the per capita cost of education, proposals for its adoption will get short shrift.

Fortunately, the Web can actually lead to decreased per capita costs, particularly at the college and university level. But before we look at how this is possible, let's briefly consider the three main areas of cost for a Web-based course: hardware and software, course development, and on-going course support. Hardware and software costs include the Internet connection itself and all necessary computer hardware and Web related software to deliver a course. The largest course development costs are for the instructor's time and any needed technical support. On-going support costs consist of, again, the instructor's time, and that of any additional teaching assistants or instructors.

Most college and university courses available on the Web today are developed by individual faculty members with technical assistance from computing center personnel as needed. They make use of existing Internet hardware and software resources and are offered by the same instructor who developed it, possibly with the assistance of another faculty member or graduate teaching assistant. The initial development costs and costs of offering a course for the first time are usually much higher than a traditional course, especially when you take into consideration the time of the faculty member, teaching assistants, and technical assistants. But the Web comes into its own once these up-front costs are recouped. In theory, a totally Web-based course could be offered to very large numbers of students provided the Internet connection and host computer were adequate to handle the load. Added savings result for the host institution because valuable classroom space and associated infrastructure support are no longer required. In practice, not all university courses are suitable for being offered exclusively on the Web. Courses best suited are those that require mastery of a specified body of content. We've already seen some examples of how faculty-student interaction can be carried out effectively with electronic conferencing or e-mail to support such courses. Professional courses, specialized graduate courses, and courses requiring hands-on skill development may be less suited to Web use.

Institutions need not introduce Web technology into all of its courses to realize significant savings. They may wish to concentrate their development efforts and resources on the courses that generate the greatest enrollment.

 The experience of Maricopa Community College District, one of the highest enrollment systems in the country, offering some 2500 courses to 90,000 students, is particularly insightful in this regard (Twigg, 1995). Maricopa, in developing a teaching with technology strategy, discovered that 44 per cent of their enrollment is concentrated in just 25 courses. To put this into perspective, these 25 courses that supply nearly half of its enrollment represent one per cent of the total number of course offerings! Not surprisingly, they include courses such as introductory accounting, biology, chemistry, economics, and English. Most four-year higher education institutions will likely find a similar pattern. The conclusion that we can draw from Maricopa's analysis is that if we direct Web integration efforts toward this one percent, the greatest impact for a given investment will accrue.

Aside from the potential of decreasing per capita costs, opportunities exist for institutions who want to generate income by reaching markets that they would not normally tap. Because the Internet is available in most countries of the world, institutions so inclined have a global marketplace from which they can draw students. The institutions mentioned in the earlier discussion on access are aiming their courses at this market. Once an institution's courses are developed, its challenge becomes one of making potential students around the world aware of its offerings. This challenge is made easier by the Globewide Network Academy (GNA) (http://www.gnacademy.org). It's an international non-profit consortium of educational and research organizations whose mission is "to create a competitive market for online courses and degree programs." At their Web site GNA lists members' courses available on-line. Students in search of courses can investigate this site to see if any are available that meet their needs. Once they find a course of interest, students can link directly to the host institution's Web site to obtain details such as admission requirements, credit, and tuition.

Cost-savings in K-12 schools will not likely accrue in the same way as in higher education. Whereas in higher education the most cost-effective strategy is to integrate the Web into selected, existing courses, in public schools financial leverage can be realized by using the Web to bring to the classroom new, otherwise unaffordable learning resources.

 

Stated differently, for the relatively small investment of obtaining Web access, significant value can be added to a school's resources. These resources may be in the form of specialized on-line high school courses that a local school could not hope to offer because of budget, small enrollments, lack of facilities, or lack of qualified teachers. They may be opportunities for students and teachers to consult with resource people such as renowned scientists and writers that they would not be possible without great expense. Or the resources may be classroom materials such as maps, reference books, magazines, and newspapers, and teacher materials like curriculum guides, teaching units, and professional reference materials that schools need not purchase.

Examples of Web resources for schools, available at no charge, abound. In later chapters we'll look at a sampling of some of the best ones. For now let's look briefly at one of them, The Texas Education Network (TENET), to emphasize the point of how valuable these Web resources can be. TENET's well-designed Web site (http://www.tenet.edu) provides "one stop shopping" for K-12 teachers. The site features a set of links to K-12 school and teacher resource home pages; the "Halls of Academia" that has a set of links, classified by school subject, to academic resources; a set of links to museums of the world and virtual field trips to other interesting sites; a set of links to library reference materials, books, and libraries worldwide; and a set of links to software archives and reference information. Each set of links is further subdivided to make the links more accessible. For example, the set of museum links contains the subcategories of Architecture Centers, Art Museums, Cultural and Historic Centers, Natural History, and Science Centers. From these subcategories you can link to sites like the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Natural History Museum in Berne, Switzerland, the ancient Mayan City of Tulum in Mexico, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The cost of obtaining art books, photographs, and print documents from even these five sites alone would be well out of reach of all but the most affluent school libraries. Yet they are available for viewing at no cost beyond the initial cost of an Internet connection and a computer!

I began this chapter by saying that the World Wide Web has captured the imagination and interest in educators everywhere. But the days of frivolous experimentation in schools have long passed. Before we introduce any new technology into our classrooms we must be able to justify its contribution. The public expects no less from us.

We examined the Web's contribution from the perspective of three questions: Does the Web increase access to education? Does it promote improved learning? Does it contain the costs of education? We saw that a strong case exists for the Web in all three areas. The case is rooted in how educators are actually using the Web today, not solely on hypothetical advantages.

In the next chapter, we'll take a close look at how the Web works, discuss its unique features, and see how it relates to the rest of the Internet.