Date: 16 Jul 1996
Education in the VRML Environment From Email
Conferencing to Virtual Reality Personal
observations obtained from first hand instruction
of off-line courses from January of 1995 to the
present.
The courses were Advanced
e-mail, and Computer Programming.
Both were delivered as part
of the Distance Education program of Loyalist
College, Belleville, Ontario Canada. Average
class sizes were 8 to 12 students who ranged
through all age groups, mostly seniors. The
courses were ten weeks in length and coincided
with the school term and were actually scheduled
for Monday evenings at 8:00 PM for three hours.
There were no summer terms. Advanced email has
run every term but, Computer Programming was only
delivered in the spring term of 1995.
A local BBS with internet
and fidonet service was contracted to provide
virtual classroom facilities where enrolled
students could interact through email discussion,
the exchange of files and lessons on both the
internet and fidonet as well as a community
network operated and maintained by the service
provider. Most of these features were regularly
employed once the initial newbie stress had
settled. The scheduled class time was ignored and
exchange occurred asynchronously and averaged 250
to 300 in total for each class term. Technical
problems were abundant at the start of each term
and seemed to increase proportionally to the
number of different platforms used by the
students. (PC, MAC, UNIX, Amiga etc.)
Software compatibility
problems began to arise as 286 technology was
replaced by the 386 and courseware and delivery
issues also arose as internet access became
common place, inexpensive and effective. These
difficulties are attributed to the natural growth
of the cyber community and were dealt with by
moving away from the BBS approach and connecting
students directly to the internet through the
college. This move reduced the tuition of the
course some 20% and afforded the opportunity to
explore the resources of VRML and HTML along with
class conference and personal email. Fidonet
access was regrettably sacrificed.
The Advanced Email course
was based on the popular Roadmap course that
started in September of 1994 by Patrick Crispen
and afforded the personal touch of a small class
and individual attention not available to the
60,000 students of the first Roadmap course and
Dr. Bob's explanations and tips.. An easy access
interface furnished by the service provider was
responsible for allowing neophytes quick and easy
access to class. This was particularly evident in
Joan Moulton's first email class "Getting to
Know Your Computer" , delivered in the same
format in September of 1994. Her students were
not only lacking basic computer understanding
but, had no functional understanding of email.
The courses were also
registered with the GNA (Global Network Academy)
. Several queries were received but, could not be
acted upon at the time due to access
difficulties. No responses have been received
since access was upgraded for the spring semester
of 1995.
Overall, the format was very
well received. Students learn to interact quickly
and only a few have serious connection problems.
The single disappointment being the lack of
pictures, sounds and visual interaction. That
disappointment was felt mostly by me as the
students were more overwhelmed with the initial
experience. Email works to deliver a message but,
a class should be more than the exchange of
messages. The result has been a more informed
community and an internet capable workforce.
I have to agree with all of
you that the VRML format provides an excellent
platform for class interaction. It is now
functional enough and cost effective enough to
warrant investigation. I have implemented a
'college' in Alphaworld at location 763S 651E.
The example course I have
installed is 'Internet 101'. It employs email as
well as web pages to deliver the section of the
course requested by the user. There is no
registration required at the moment but, I am
able to track it's use.
Further to that, I will set
aside a specific time period for PowWow chats
once the system inherits users. Using PowWow I am
able to 'cruise' the internet with six others.
Going to web pages that show the lesson content
in real time.
Well, I better get back to
it. Thank you for taking the time to read through
this and please use these tools. Cya Tony Olivero
TOlivero@Loyalistc.On.Ca
For class information and
transcripts contact: Trudie Lake
Tlake@Loyalistc.on.ca
FidoNet: n. A worldwide
hobbyist network of personal computers which
exchanges mail, discussion groups, and files.
Founded in 1984 and originally consisting only of
IBM PCs and compatibles, FidoNet now includes
such diverse machines as Apple ][s, Ataris,
Amigas, and UNIX systems. Though it is much
younger than {USENET}, FidoNet is already (in
early 1991) a significant fraction of USENET's
size at some 8000 systems.
BBS: /B-B-S/ [abbreviation,
`Bulletin Board System'] n. An electronic
bulletin board system; that is, a message
database where people can log in and leave
broadcast messages for others grouped (typically)
into {topic group}s. Thousands of local BBS
systems are in operation throughout the U.S.,
typically run by amateurs for fun out of their
homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line
each. Fans of USENET and Internet or the big
commercial timesharing bboards such as CompuServe
and GEnie tend to consider local BBSes the
low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they
serve a valuable function by knitting together
lots of hackers and users in the personal-micro
world who would otherwise be unable to exchange
code at all. See also {bboard}.
PowWow: On line chat system
with voice, pictures, drawing and conferencing. http://www.tribal.com
AlphaWorld: Virtual Reality
World where users can interact and build. http://www.worlds.net
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