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Harris et al have acquired some expertise in skin cancer that could
be of benefit to others and they have transferred it 'successfully' to
doctors speaking the same language across the Atlantic Ocean. So far so
good. But to talk of 'internet education' is farfetched. No doubt Internet
has features unavailable in the early days of 'correspondence courses'.
Especially in heavily laboratory/ practice oriented subjects like
medicine, molecular biology, physics and chemistry, education can and must
be delivered by and large through face-to-face conventional method. The
Internet-based programmes - or for that matter video films, TV programmes,
interactive CD-ROM programmes - can be used as a supplement.
All too often, people tend to put the technology horse ahead of the
context-and-content cart. This has happened in the movement to bridge the
digital divide through telecentres. Only those centres succeded which gave
priority to learning about the people, their current staus of living,
their information needs and familiarity with technological tools, and to
the creation of the content - the knowledge that can empower the people -
and then chose the technologies that would enable the knowledge to reach
the people.
Harris et al emphasise that there was no language barrier. Language
is only one of several factors that make up the context and culture of
'learners'.
Subbiah Arunachalam
Competing interests:
No competing interests
14 November 2001
Subbiah Arunachalam
Distinguished Fellow in Information Science
M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, CHENNAI 600 113, India
Internet as an aid in distance learning
Harris et al have acquired some expertise in skin cancer that could
be of benefit to others and they have transferred it 'successfully' to
doctors speaking the same language across the Atlantic Ocean. So far so
good. But to talk of 'internet education' is farfetched. No doubt Internet
has features unavailable in the early days of 'correspondence courses'.
Especially in heavily laboratory/ practice oriented subjects like
medicine, molecular biology, physics and chemistry, education can and must
be delivered by and large through face-to-face conventional method. The
Internet-based programmes - or for that matter video films, TV programmes,
interactive CD-ROM programmes - can be used as a supplement.
All too often, people tend to put the technology horse ahead of the
context-and-content cart. This has happened in the movement to bridge the
digital divide through telecentres. Only those centres succeded which gave
priority to learning about the people, their current staus of living,
their information needs and familiarity with technological tools, and to
the creation of the content - the knowledge that can empower the people -
and then chose the technologies that would enable the knowledge to reach
the people.
Harris et al emphasise that there was no language barrier. Language
is only one of several factors that make up the context and culture of
'learners'.
Subbiah Arunachalam
Competing interests: No competing interests