WWW in Education

Abstract

Less than ten years since its release, the World Wide Web has become a prominent new space for people to communicate, work, trade, or spend leisure time. And increasingly, too, a place to learn. Aware of the potential of the WWW for education, an increasing number of educational agents (e.g., schools, community centers, special interest groups, organizations, homes), enter on a daily basis the community of producers and users of Web-based learning materials or Web-based learning environments (WBLE). In this chapter we present an overview of the development, actual state, and emerging trends in the implementation of the WWW in education. First a succinct historical account is presented, then a series of main educational functions and implementation models are reviewed, followed by a survey of current research on Web-based learning, and finally a series of novel trends emerging from the actual practice in the field are outlined.