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ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways in which a higher education classroom that used Web-based technology as a supplement to a regularly scheduled classroom-based course, addressed issues of learning and learning-centered education. The findings presented in this paper, although based only on a one-semester class, lend credence to the argument that distance learning cannot be merely delivered to students, and that as educators we must instead focus on how to create learning-centered environments supported by technology, not driven by it. This paper also maintains that the discourse about distance learning projects needs to be reconceptualized as technology-based, learning-centered education, so that we as educators can better focus on the creation of a more learning-centered environment for students and life-long learners.
INTRODUCTION
The rapid growth of the Internet has undoubtedly contributed to the wealth of literature written on the future of distance learning and distributed learning in higher education (Sherron, 1997; Rowntree, 1992). Subsequently, a dialogue about Web-based technologies for instruction has emerged across both K-12 and higher education communities as concerns about cost-effectiveness, access, and flexibility have been brought to the table and debated (Fetterman, 1998; Jones, 1996; Rumble, 1997; Bell, 1991). Among faculty and administrators, discussions of distance and distributed learning often focus on what it means as an instructor to teach in this type of environment. Interestingly enough, these conversations at colleges and universities center around how to best deliver instruction to students who are separated physically from their instructor and therefore tend to focus on the medium by which instruction is transmitted, as opposed to discussions of how students actually learn in this environment. However, as a faculty member who over the past several years has been experimenting with Web-based technologies in teaching and learning, I maintain that the discourse about distance learning projects needs to be reconceptualized as technologybased learning-centered education, so that we as educators can better focus on the creation of a more learning-centered environment for students and life-long learners. In other words, under what conditions can the creators of traditional instruction become facilitators of learning? And how can we create the conditions for learning so that students become inwardly centered to learn on their own? These seem to be the key...