Defined as any entity, digital, or nondigital, which can be used, reused, or referenced during technology supported learning (http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/).
Published in Chapter:
An Alternative Learning Platform to Facilitate Usability and Synchronization of Learning Resources
Eugenia M.W. Ng (The Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong)
Copyright: © 2009
|Pages: 11
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-845-1.ch004
Abstract
The Internet was initially set up in the 1960s and 1970s for supporting research in the military. It was then developed in 1981 in the academic community to connect university computers to enhance communications between academic researchers so that they could efficiently exchange ideas about the ongoing research (Coyle, 1997). Files transfer protocol was frequently used for transferring of files and computer-mediated communication (CMC) was also popular in the education context. Formats of CMC include e-mail, bulletin board, and list servers. With the decreasing hardware and data communication costs and increasing bandwidth, the Internet has altered our options for living, studying, working, and entertainment. It appears to be the most powerful information technology tool for education in the 21st century. There are many reasons for its popularity, and the main reasons can be attributed to accessing information easily, freely, and speedily. It provides powerful search functions, enables synchronized communication such as video, audio conference, and chat, and enables multiple presentation formats such as animation and video streaming without any add-on software or hardware. In fact, the Internet is more than technology, it is a Web of social relations imaginatively constructed by symbolic processes initiated and sustained by individuals and groups.