Altering Time and Space through Network Technologies to Enhance Learning

Abstract

This paper maintains that networking technologies offers a better learning environment for students while providing opportunities for reducing the cost of the learning process. A key outcome of advances in networking, the Internet, telecommunications, and client/server computing, is that they are serving to alter the limitations of time and place. The authors discuss their experiences from the perspective of teaching in economics and the arts. They have created learning strategies that make use of these technologies for communication and access according to a matrix showing the interaction of time and place. These include private news groups for each class; e-mail collaboration between students and between students and instructors; electronic submission and critique of work; electronic posting of grades, handouts, notices, schedules, etc.; electronic exhibit areas for multimedia and World Wide Web class projects; Internet-wide critique of work; Internet-based research projects; and the use of localized Internet servers dedicated to instruction.