Learning Tools
The Internet is a network for learning, not merely a means for disseminating information. During its early days, most activity was oriented towards the dissemination of information. But as the Net developed, greater emphasis was placed on learning. Today we are seeing the sprouting of dynamic learning tools. In the future, broadband will allow real video for even better learning.
Information
At the beginning, almost every website offered information of some sort. The information was presented as:
> FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions were ubiquitous. Sometimes these FAQs listed user questions, But mostly, website owners concocted the questions and presented the answers. Fortunately, the use of FAQs has decreased considerably, except perhaps on product support pages
> CHECK LISTS - Soon the lists became more useful. They indicated things to be considered in planning, buying, designing, building, maintaining or doing specific tasks
> PICTURES - Pictures were originally included on some sites as decoration. But more and more they are now used to provide information: officers of a company, sightseeing locations, images of products
> DRAWINGS AND CHARTS - Drawings were used to explain products. Charts were used a great deal by the financial community to depict financial events
> ARTICLES - We soon realized that lists and illustrations are not enough. We began to write articles on every aspect of the Internet and on every aspect of the products and services we were selling. Today we are in the "age of articles". They are everywhere
Learning
After a few years on the Net, more people realized that a website should not present information but enable visitors to learn. They realized that visitor learning is the key.
Visitors learned directly from the website or through experts related to or visiting the website. In the latter category are:
> EXPERT SITES - A visitor asks a question or presents a problem and an expert replies
> DISCUSSION BOARDS - A continous discussion of issues or problems in a given field
> MAILING LISTS - Similar to Discussion Boards, but executed via email
Discussion boards and mailing lists have an additional virtue: They enable the building of a community (deserving of a separate article).
To learn directly from the website, we have used:
> QUIZES - The questions on a given quiz enabled the quiz taker to determine aptitude for art or business, to discover whether he needed a product or service, or to assess his status with regards to insurance or investment
> TEMPLATES -
These were used to define a format, a procedure, a way of doing things. For example, templates have be used to define a business plan. All a user need do is follow the template and fill in his own detail to preparae his own business plan
> CALCULATORS - On sites dealing with real estate, finance, engineering and other areas where numbers are important, you would find calculators that enable visitors to do their own figuring and thus learning.
> MODELS AND SIMULATORS - Sites selling sophisticated products and services may have presented a model or simulator which the visitor may use for learning. For example, some investment sites used a simulator to enable a visitor to invest fictitiously and see how his investment develops over time
> EBOOKS - Why not combine many of the above elements into a focused ebook? Ebooks are available on a parade of subjects
Dynamic Learning
Dynamic sites, sites with oscillating banners, turning spheres or flashing alphabet letters, have become very common in the last year or two. But none of thse things has contributed to the improvement of visitor learning.
The ViewletBuilder, by Qarbon.com, is the exception. Here you have a software package that enables you to build a learning sequence of slides showing how to accomplish a specific task or procedure. Although the viewlets can be impressive, this is not their primary purpose. They are vehicles for learning. Dynamic learning.
To obtain an idea of how valuable something like the ViewletBuilder may be, visit JimWorld's Free Site Templates, at http://www.freesitetemplates.com.
Here he has a large number of viewlets - some made by Jim, some made by others - to help you in designing and building a website. He calls them templates. Here are 5 of the many topics covered:
> HTML
> FLASH
> FrontPage
> Paint Shop Pro
> Dreamweaver
Among the companies using ViewletBuilder (according to their website) are Proctor and Gamble, Home Depot, Sony and Cnet.
Future Learning
The dynamic way to learn in the future will, of course, be from videos. But for videos to be used by Learning Fountans, the cost of broadband would need to decrease enough to make it available to the vast majority of Internet users. This may take some time.
In the meantime, the ViewletBuilder and competing products will do fine. Remember, a visitor may access a viewlet with a 56K modem and without having to download a plug-in.
Paul -the soarING- Siegel is a provocative Internet speaker and
|