STRATEGIES FOR WEB BASED INSTRUCTION IN DISTANCE EDUCATION
IntroductionDistance Education has come a long way from its humble beginnings in correspondence courses to an era when we speak of learner centred virtual universities. Over a period of one century, print has been supplemented first by radio; later by television, and more recently by the Internet and the World Wide Web.
Such growth was made possible by an exponential growth in electronics. Technological inputs into distance education started with the simple radio and the transistor which formed the basis for very successful distance programmes in agriculture ( Radio rural forums in Canada and India; School on the air in Latin America). A later development of television enriched distance education by opening the possibilities of incorporating the audio and visual medium and television’s use in education, at least in India received a boost with the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment in 1975. Distance education institutions did not lag behind in their use of the latest media technology available in their efforts to reach out to students irrespective of time and distance, whether in the U.K. Open University or in similar institutions in Germany ( Feruniversitat) ; NHK in Japan; or the Chinese Television University. Broadcast of educational television became more flexible with the use of audio and video cassette recorders enabling anytime study for the learner.
The computer and the satellite converging together paved the way for the Internet and the World Wide Web. Coupled with findings from research into the cognitive and learning sciences, we have now come to an age where web based instruction is an immediate precursor to the virtual university, with Internet as its platform.
The technological possibilities have made collaboration and cooperation a must. It is the purpose of this paper to explore strategies in crucial areas and various mechanisms for collaboration.
Strategies for Pedagogical inputs
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