While
many World Wide Web pages concerning distance education and
learning already exist, this paper on distance education focuses
on the technologies used to make distance education possible.
This presentation will assist educators as they face the challenge
of integrating information technology tools into teaching
and into managing of Web sites of educational organizations.
Many faculty members may find the thought of adapting their
courses for an online learning environment intimidating at
first. After all, we have become content experts in our chosen
fields of study, not technology wizards. Variation between
different kinds of software may be significant, making the
selection of appropriate software important and very dificult.
I will present my project of building Web.mef site. This is
an experimental collaborative and informational system for
students and teachers of Medical Faculty of Zagreb. OpenSource
technologies ( Linux, PHP, Apache, Perl, C, Java, J2EE, MySQL,
PostgreSQL, Ant, Smarty) are used for all system development.
We have content management systems, forums, chats, news, announcements,
student administrations, tracking students, exams, etc. The
biggest advantage of such software it that you have a copy
of the source code and a license that allows you to modify
it!
The biggest problem and challenge facing most Web learning
sites, and of course our Web.mef site, is simply getting people
to use them and to visit them regular. The World Wide Web
is ready for serious distance education delivery, but it's
not technology, it's what we do with it!?
