Virtual learning environments create places where diverse communities can come together. When designing these environments, you should collaborate with people from disciplines other than your own. You should offer learners access to a variety of electronic forums:
• online lectures and interactive multimedia textbooks (WWW) • one-to-one and one-to-many communications through email
• asynchronous group communications through USEnet news/discussion groups, limited listservs, or WebChat boxes
• synchronous group discussions through virtual meeting places such as MOOs or desktop videoconferencing connections
• forms on a Web page to create and grade responses online
• encryption programs to allow learners to send and receive files with greater knowledge that their work remains private and arrives intact
These virtual spaces allow learners to converse across the limits of time, distance, and space. According to a recent cognitive framework on proximate and distance communication, these electronic forums allow us to reach those in the world with whom we share relative similarity or with partners who are more cognitively similar to ourselves [Kaufer & Carley 1994]. These electronic forums enhance concepts such as asynchronicity, durability, and
multiplicity. That is, these forums free learners from having to work at the same time, they secure the length of time that the content of a communication is available for interaction, and the number of communication partners that can be communicated with at the same time may grow exponentially.
You should use the WWW if your subject matter benefits from the inclusion of multimedia. Your development effort likely will take at least twice the amount of time as creating traditional or text-based materials [Barbieri & Doerr 1995]. To learn hypertext markup language, estimates range from 1 to 6 hours to learn the basics. If you wish to track the use of your WWW pages or have learners submit comments, responses, and questions from your WWW pages, you will need to collaborate with others to write scripts. Thus, in essence, you will most likely need to collaborate to develop and implement your WWW pages.
To meet learner needs, information should follow sound instructional design [see McManus 1995, and sound document design principles. A great resource for document design principles is the Web Style Manual at the Yale Center for Advanced Instructional Media (http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/StyleManual_Top.HTML). To meet and exceed your learners' needs, please also do the following:
• identify the purpose of your module (i.e., provide instructional objectives), the primary audience for the training, and expectations by way of experiences or learner outcomes;
• describe how learners will assemble (e.g., by listservs, MOOs, desktop videoconferencing) and what type of communication and collaboration is expected or is not allowed;
• describe the origin of the material, past uses of the information, copyright free uses of the information, and uses that would infringe upon copyright;
• introduce the instructor / trainer / facilitator / guide / tutor and provide access for human contact with this person;
• provide alternate routes (links) through the material based on different abilities (novice, intermediate, or advanced learners), different learning styles (linear, nonlinear), and learners' prior knowledge and experiences (e.g., consider whether metaphors or examples will be understood across cultures); and • allow learners to customize the information to meet their needs.
You also need to provide a secure and reliable distance learning environment.
When learners engage in conversations with others in their learning community, they need to know that their conversations are secure, private, and authentic. If the instructor asks for discussion, either by WWW forms or a listserv, then participants must feel secure that outsiders will not be able to access their ideas and private conversations. Furthermore, for assessment purposes, some form of encryption is needed to both guarantee the integrity of a student's work and to authenticate its authorship.
Additional issues include:
• Hardware / servers / connectivity needed to secure a site on the Information Superhighway. • Technical support personnel for system administration and maintenance.
• Human resources for technical and design support of the modules as well as contact with those who visit the virtual learning sites.
• Access to high end computers by faculty, staff, and learners. Although the WWW can be accessed via Lynx, the modules we have described depend heavily on an understanding of information via a visual / multimedia presentation.
• Unit support as high as possible. To design virtual learning environments that move well beyond the provision of information alone, you need support from upper levels of your administration. These people need to understand the needs of non-resident learners.
• Maintenance support for on-line materials. Links to materials resident on other servers may die; material changes over time; and references / images / concepts need to be updated.
As we deal with these issues and design virtual learning environments, a new landscape will emerge. Learning modules, available to diverse learners and customized on demand, will result in global education. Education will be dispersed, collaborative, in need of teams of learners in support of one another, and armed with a deep commitment to learning, a deep sensitivity to cultural values, and an overriding sense of learning as encountering a new sense of our land grant mission.
References
[Barbieri & Doerr 1995]. Barbieri, K. A., & Doerr, H. M. (1995). Creating a virtual workshop - Early experiences.
Paper presented to the Higher Education and the NII - From Vision to Reality Conference, Monterey, CA, September 26-29, 1995.
[Duin & Mason in press]. Duin, A. H., & Mason, L. (in press). Exploring new forms of collaboration: Case studies of computer-mediated mentor activity. In Rebecca E. Burnett and Ann Hill Duin (Eds.), Collaboration in technical communication: Research perspectives. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[Duin, Simmons & Lammers 1994]. Duin, A. H., Simmons, S., & Lammers, E. (1994). Decision cases for writing across the curriculum: A monograph for the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of Writing. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.
[Kaufer & Carley 1994]. Kaufer, D., & Carley, K. (1994). Some concepts and axioms about communication: Proximate and at a distance. Written Communication, 11, 8-42.
[McManus 1995]. McManus, T. F. (1995). Special considerations for designing Internet based instruction.