Effective Internet education: strategies and tools

This paper reports on the project "Effective Internet Education for Everyone", funded by the National Science Foundation (DUE 0196118)for $300,000. The authors use an asynchronous model of Internet-based education where the student can work on materials at times, places and a pace of her own choosing. They are developing materials for two different courses: Precalculus Mathematics; and Overview of Computer Science. Their pedagogical model is based on three major components: a hyperlinked textbook, a virtual classroom and laboratory experiences that stress learning-by-doing. The choice of Java as the implementation language, the use of JavaServer Pages for rapid development of dynamic web pages, and the use of MySQL to handle the databases have all proven to be successful. They have encountered numerous problems in the production process and have developed a toolkit of software components designed to overcome these problems. This toolkit will allow others to develop multimedia-rich online courses in a cost-effective manner.