The Web in Education

Colin Allison, Alan Henry David Miller, Iain Angus Oliver, Rosa Michaelson, Thanassis Tiropanis

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The Web has spurred our imagination as to how education could be radically transformed and enhanced through the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). While there have been many significant innovations and successes over the last decade there have also been many unrealised aims. Beliefs in technology-driven change for education have been countered by shortcomings in technological understanding by educationalists and in turn by shortcomings in the understanding of educational theories and learning concepts by technologists. The use of the Web in education has revealed issues such as the distinction between formal and informal learning; the packaging and formatting of learning materials for online distribution and use; the management of learning materials and processes in virtual and managed learning environments; solutions offered by the semantic Web; and how the quality of experience in interactive learning environments relates to the quality of the Internet infrastructure. A comparison between the performance of early and current Web technologies from a user perspective is given for an interactive learning environment which has been in use for over a decade. Client, server, network and protocol components which contribute to the quality of experience for the end user are presented and analysed. In summary, this paper examines the use of the Web in education to date and looks forward to new challenges and aspirations such as MOOCs (massively online open coursewares) and the immersive 3D Web as the basis for the next generation of learning environments.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3811–3824
Number of pages14
JournalComputer Networks
Volume56
Issue number18
Early online date4 Oct 2012
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 Dec 2012

Keywords

  • Learning Environments
  • Education
  • Quality of Service (QoS)
  • Quality of Experience
  • Open virtual worlds
  • 3D Web

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The Web in Education'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this