Having written this column for six months, it is impossible for me to ignore ‘The Web’ any longer. If you have not heard about the growth in World Wide Web pages, learned how to write you own home page, or noticed URL's advertised on TV it may be that you have been vacationing on Mars for the last three years. The web has been a revelation for the dissemination of information on anything and everything, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So what does the next year hold for developments that educators expect to take advantage of?
 
For formal education, the web could completely change the way universities, colleges, even high schools teach and learn about our world. Already there are a large number web sites making available class notes on courses, tutorials on aspects of science, medicine, music, geography, or history.
Within the next year you will probably be able to brush up on any course you missed, or wished you had taken way back when. However, the majority of available “web courses” are still only provided as support for classes taken at the school they are located. In the next few years more and more courses will be available for credit for everyone. This brings up an interesting future scenario where institutions only offer courses in a particular area of expertise. Students could then take all their courses remotely with each course being the best available education. Hopefully we will not lose the personal contact with all this global education
 
The web has grown to be so popular for information transfer because of one reason. Once a page is written (and it is easy to do) you can leave it on the web server and it will be available to everyone, all the time. This makes it easy to maintain and incrementally add to a web resource. Also, with the current explosion in web tools, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) editors, and HTML converters for existing applications it is getting easier to create more sophisticated pages.
The combination of text, graphics, movies and sound that can be incorporated into web documents provides a rich environment for displaying information. With the incorporation of imagemaps, clickable graphics that link to a variety of documents dependent on where you click, organization and relevancy of information can be easily integrated. Having said all this, the current state of web documents is still rather static, not allowing for much interaction, and not accommodating the display of certain types of information, i.e. math equations.
 
The original HTML language specifications were developed to make it easy to write pages. This meant the a basic set of HTML commands was a minimal implementation. The current movements in HTML development will make future Web pages much richer and allow the web to develop into its own identity, rather than just mimicking book pages.
The HTML 3.0 specification, although not anywhere near complete yet, will take the web to a new level. Many of the deficiencies that have been apparent in HTML have been addressed. TABLEs will no longer have to be put together using the preformatted text command (PRE), and they can be used very effectively for page layout of text and graphics. For those in the area of science and math the new MATH command will greatly reduced the time to produce accurate equations, and the addition of SUBSCRIPTS and SUPERSCRIPTS will complement the addition of footnotes. FIGURES can be included within documents allowing text to flow around the graphic. Other additions such as BANNERS, HORIZONTAL TABS, new LISTS and QUOTES will make web documents much richer.
 
Aside from the language, the way in which Web documents are displayed is largely determined by the browser that is used. With Netscape Communication's Microsoft-like domination of the browser market many people look at the Netscape 2.0 beta release as a more important indicator of the future of Web page design.
And Netscape is not just nudging things on by supporting the more certain components of HTML 3.0. Rather, it seems to be dragging everyone along by the reins. FRAMEs are likely to revolutionize the Web interface (see graphic). Rather than presenting a single open window, frames allow you to create multiple regions that are independent from each other, but still act like regular documents. Each frame can be scrolled unless it is defined as a LEDGE, in which case it can contain a static graphic as a header or as navigation palette. For any multi-section document frames will make the organization easy with the addition of an outline or table of contents.
 
As if that is not enough, programmability will make everyone wake up and smell the coffee. Java—Sun Microsystems C++ based cross-platform language will really give the Web a new dimension. It will allow the creation of Applets - small applications that can be designed to do just about anything. Much of the initial brouhaha (groan) will revolve around the implementation of animated graphics, two-way communication and live updates of video. Along with this, Netscape 2.0 will also incorporate plug-in modules for the display of other types of documents, e.g. QuickTime video or Adobe Acrobat files, and a scripting language to allow interaction of documents with system events, key strokes etc.
 
With all these new additions it is easy to see that Web documents will truly become multimedia based, interactive teaching tools. It really looks at this moment that we will be able to implement any type of interaction to provide students with convenient, comprehensive and fun learning environments.
 
Stuart Chalk is a research associate in the Chemistry Department at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He would be delighted to hear from anyone who is having fun with Macintoshes in education. He can be contacted at chalk@nexus.chemistry. duq.edu.
