Web based learning

The computer is the best form in order to transport to the 21st.
century our obsolete, restrictive and lack of vision educative system,
which is used in the schools, institutions of middle education and
universities in Colombia. With the teaching by computer, any subject can
be learned in less time and with much less effort than the required one
with other learning methodologies. In Colombia before the sixties of the
last century, the chalk and the blackboard were among the main tools
that a teacher used during the development of his masterly classes.

Thanks to the electronics development, the sixties years were
characterised by the sprouting of new educational methods. At university
level was very popular the sonoviso, which was a presentation done using
like physical resources, a type recorder, a projector and slides. In
addition, by this time were used the epidiascope, popularly called the
opaque projector, with the aid of which, the images published in books
or magazines were projected in a screen. Were used the slide projector and
the retroprojector like educative aids too. With this last one were
projected the images contained in an acetate’s transparent plate, which
were drawn with dry ink markers, or they were printed by xerography.

During the Seventies became popular the use of films printed in tapes of
betamax and VHS. The videotapes, the camcorders and the videorecorders are
the essential elements of a great revolution in the images production
technique, which has produced significant changes in the dynamics of all
the world societies. These recording systems and image’s production by
electronic means changed of significant way the educative process’
dynamics. The subjects presentation was more dynamic, the teacher’s role
changed, his function got to be more tutorial, he was more an adviser than
a lecturer.

The computers arrival during the eighties revolutionised even
more the processes of intellectual and moral people formation and its
social impact at the labour level was deeply significant. The computers
began to replace many workers in several institutions, mainly of financial
type. At that time the only people who could manipulate a computer were
the engineers and the technologists in systems. The existing system to
operate a computer was the D.O.S. Its handling demanded of a previous
preparation because there was necessary to become familiar with codes of
operation and handling sentences. The operator had to know how to use the
function keys (F1, F2...), the control C, the Alt 142 and other things.
All these difficulties to handle a computer were definitively surpassed
with the coming of the Windows operative system. With it, in the
computer’s screen, the user can visualize icons or images. He only must
indicate an image of these, with the help of an arrow’s form pointer,
controlled with the device’s mouse to obtain the data that he needs.

Of
all technological innovations the most impressive for the Colombian
society, was the introduction of software to make applications at the
beginning of the nineties. Before these years the only people who could
make applications or educative software were the systems engineers. At the
moment any person can make, of a very pleasant and simple way, customized
programs with the help of packages specially distributed with this aim.

The revolution introduced by the arrival of software, such as Visual
Basic, or more recently, the JavaScript is similar to that introduced by
Windows when it made easy the access to the information contained in a
computer. There are many classes of programs to make educative
applications, almost all they use the same groundwork. They crumble a
subject in a series of questions in order to display them to the students
in form of a beautiful carefully drafted and interactive document. The
packages are constructed by complexity levels. Finalising each level the
student is put under an evaluation test with the help of which he can
verify if he has learned or not that part of the package. The succession
of steps or stages always is ordered ingeniously in this type of software.

Any subject can be learned in half of the required time and with much less
effort than the necessary one with other educational systems. With these
packages the students can be learning to their own rate. Some students
spend more time than others. Nobody can pass to a higher level without to
have surpassed the previous one. Neither can let develop a determined
subject because he has found ill or distracted during the development of
the class or because he could not catch the teacher information who
explained quickly. Only the computer and his academic yield allow the
student to advance in his knowledge.

Competing interests:  
None declared