The Internet is changing that. Training and education has always been a primary strategy for career advancement, and the Internet is becoming not just a supplement to traditional academic programs, but an alternative to them as well. It brings learning to people’s fingertips, without regard for how far someone may be from a school or how many other people are interested in the same class. Distance education, while not completely replacing the traditional college experience, is an excellent way to take college courses because of the time constraints facing many people today.

One example is Farzad Naeim, an earthquake engineer from California. He decided to go to law school, but didn t have time for campus meetings and classroom lectures. When he found out he could get his education through the Internet, he enrolled. Explaining the convenience he said, “I figure if I go to a standard school four nights a week, that eliminates the chance for me to see my kids grow up. I get my assignments off the computer, and I can study after the kids go to bed” McQueen . Naeim is not the only one taking advantage of this opportunity. Many are taking advantage of this option over traditional classroom learning. Most adult learners, who every year make up a larger proportion of the college population, have busy schedules to juggle with family responsibilities and demanding careers. Speaking about this group of adult learners, Kathy McGuire, the director of Distance Learning at the U.C.L.A. Extension, a continuing education program affiliated with the University of California in Los Angeles, explained, “They re not going to stop learning, but they re not going to want to drive all over the place to do it” Newman . The appeal of using the Internet to pursue an education is its flexibility and convenience. Right now, about 26,000 courses online teach approximately 750,000 students McQueen . But is a seat in front of a computer as good as a seat in a college classroom

According to a report by the Institute for Higher Education Policy, colleges still lack enough knowledge about Internet-based education to justify its rapid growth McQueen . Ed Neal, the director of Faculty Development in the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, noted a difference between adult learners, who form the traditional market for distance education, and adolescent learners. These two groups differ in motivation, purpose, learning styles and preferences, and intellectual skills Neal . A web site at Western Governor s University http: www.wgu.edu includes a “self-assessment quiz” that is very instructive in this matter. After taking the quiz of multiple choice questions, an explanation of the implications of different responses are displayed. Some comments warn that “if face-to-face interaction is very important to you, think carefully before enrolling in a distance-delivered class,” and “because you won’t be sitting in a classroom on a regular basis and won’t have your instructor or classmates nearby to remind you of assignments, you must be fairly self-directed and conscientious about completing assignments to succeed in a distance-delivered class” Neal . Not many students coming out of high school may be “self-directed and conscientious about completing assignments” and many traditional aged college students still require ample and frequent feedback on assignments. It is clear that this type of learning environment may not be for everyone.

Another matter to consider, especially for those students and parents of students graduating high school and thinking of distance education is the experience that the traditional college experience brings. Dylan Tweney, a content development manager for Infoworld and writer about the Internet since 1993, explained, “The efficient acquisition of knowledge is only a tiny fraction of what going to college means. Face-to-face interaction with professors, living away from one’s parents, and socializing with a diverse group of people count for a lot in college education — and these experiences can’t be replicated online” Tweney .

In my own personal experience with distance education classes through

the Internet, I have found them to be challenging. I have taken many classes in an actual college classroom and on the Internet. For different courses I have even had the same instructor both in a classroom and online. I have found that much relies on the instructor s organization and planning as well as the readability of the textbook. It is certainly not a read this chapter and take a quiz type of environment. Weekly lectures are typed and postings to discussion groups are required. Some courses even have synchronous “chat” meetings to simulate classroom discussion and interaction. It certainly not a watered-down education by any means. The flexibility of taking classes online helps me to juggle my work, family and other responsibilities without tying up scheduled blocks of time in a classroom.

Using the Internet to take college courses is an option that now allows people to have access to get additional training and learn the skills needed in today s job market. The convenience and flexibility of working on assignments at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning or 11 p.m. on a Wednesday night opens up an opportunity that was, for some people, previously impossible before. In most cases, online courses cannot completely replace the interaction and the experience of traditional classroom learning. But, if the option is either going to college online or not going at all, the benefits of receiving a quality education through the Internet pale in comparison to alternative of doing nothing at all.

This revolution in the way people learn will be based on the technology of the digital computer. Learning media from other aspects of modern technology will also figure significantly.

A brief review of the history of learning will help explain the situation. The earliest humans learned primarily through experience and interaction with other humans. Until recently in human history, and even now in early childhood, this has been the principal learning mode.

In classical Greece, several new learning modes became prominent. One of these was based on the technology of writing, which was already well developed in Greece. The Greeks realized that written documents could serve as the basis for learning.

The lecture, or group discussion, also seems to have originated in ancient Greece. Perhaps the mode for which Greece is best known is the dialog, exemplified in the works of Plato. Teacher and student worked on a one-to-one basis. The teacher avoided directly lecturing the student, but by a careful set of questions led the student to discoveries.

The lecture was a solution to a problem that continues to be of great concern in education which is how to accommodate very large numbers of people who need to learn. The development of print provided another such mass mode which the advent the textbook. Almost 200 years elapsed from the invention of the printing press until the widespread use of textbooks in school environments.

Why will the computer lead to another major change in education There are a variety of reasons, some concerning the advantages of the computer as a learning and teaching device, and some concerning today s very rapidly decreasing cost of computer technology, a decrease that will continue for many years.

A major advance of computer is that they make learning an active process, where students play a constant thinking role. This contrasts with large lecture classes where many students struggle to take notes. In a lecture, few students participate actively in the learning process. Most psychologists agree that active learning is far superior to passive learning.

A closely related issue is individualization. Each student at a computer display has a unique interactive experience based on the student s past performance or other information. Students can control the pace of learning, which is impossible in the lecture situation. They can review material at their discretion and can be given remedial or more advanced material as appropriate. Students can choose both content and learning sequences.

The fact that the cost of computers is diminishing rapidly is well known. Yet the speed of this decline is startling. The figure often seen in the computer industry is that for equivalent power, computers decrease in cost by about 30 each year.

Not all parts of the computer are equally affected by this decrease, however. In recent years, the most dramatic decreases occurred in computer memory and hard drive capacity, the section of the computer that stores information and instructions. The reasons for this decrease are twofold. First, we are just beginning to explore a new and exciting technology. We are rapidly becoming more skillful in using the technology. New techniques are appearing frequently and many of these are successful. The second factor that reduces costs is mass production of components.

We can already begin to see the results of lower costs in the appearance of computers for the home market, computers that cost about the same as color television sets. While these machines lack some capabilities desirable for educational purposes, they are close to providing what we need. Given the rapid pace of development, we can expect their descendants tin a few tears to offer good environments for learning.

Computers help people learn in other ways, too. For example, there are a few methods of teaching that are just now emerging because of computers. One of these methods is distance learning. The students can view the lectures at their own pace, during a time that is good for them, at home on their computer systems. This has been proven to be highly effective for learning disabled, blind deaf, and mobility impaired students. In addition to viewing lectures on the computer, the students can discuss what they learned with other students in the same course, and even the teacher, through live video conferencing using a program called CU-SeeMe.

Not only are the computers becoming less costly, but the telecommunications media used in distance learning are falling in price and rising in quality every day. Ten years ago, the only way to make a video conference call was to make a long distance phone call from one person s costly black-and-white video phone to another s. Now, all one need is a connection to the Internet approximately 20 per month for unlimited use and he or she can talk to and see multiple users at the same time on a large color monitor .

One place you can see this new technology in action is England s Open University. When it was established in 1969, it was radical innovation in many ways. Specifically, the teaching system was based on a combination of broadcasting computer, television, and radio and specially written printed texts. This concept of a “University of the Air” was a major factor in bringing the Open University to the forefront of public attention, ensuring widespread publicity and the heavy enrollment essential for political survival in the early years.

Thus, the combinations of increasing educational effectiveness plus decreasing cost of computers will be the primary generator of the educational revolution based on computer and other technologies. It appears likely that computers will soon be more important in our educational process than books, and may entirely replace the book medium for many purposes. These changes will have profound effects on our institutions, our teachers, and even our way of life.