Is it possible to achieve high levels of interaction and collaboration via the World Wide Web without the benefit of face-to-face communication? Many colleagues who have not spent a lot of time online would answer a resounding, "NO."

Human Interaction occurs in its best, most robust, and most natural way when people meet together in the same room at the same time. True teaching, building a community of learners who engage and respect one another and learn together, cannot happen over the web, they say.

Imagine if you will the amount of commerce conducted via the telephone in a given day, the amount of collaboration that occurs in a conference call. Or think about the exchange of information and the transactions that, in the past, occurred only through regular postal mail. Still further, think about the sense of community people share with ancestors and cultures they feel a part of, but have never directly interacted with. How much do we cling to our traditions of the past in this America, a land of nearly universal immigrants?

Human endeavors have for a long time occurred despite, sometimes because of, obstacles of time and distance. Learning is no exception. Even today, worldwide, the majority of distance learning still occurs through the correspondence courses. Successfully too, I might add.

In 1999, Thomas Russell published the “No Significant Difference Phenomenon” this study review over 350 research studies on media and education over a 40 year period. None of these studies show any significant difference between mediated learning and traditional learning approaches. What this study suggests is that the means of delivery may be neutral and that to influence learning outcomes we should focus on what we have always focused on – teaching and learning strategies.

In another study, the National Training Labs found that students RETAIN information much better in direct proportion to their active involvement in the process. In other words, the higher the interaction and collaboration in the learning process, the more they retain. The lecture had an average retention factor of only 5% while reading had only 10%.

The point? Look to devise LEARNING STRATEGIES that depend on high-touch – interaction and collaboration – no matter what form of delivery you use. Especially in your web course, exploit those applications of communication tools that produce higher levels of interaction and collaboration among students, rather than focusing on the limits of the medium for communication.

Face-to-face communication has its limits too. All you have to do is engage an argument with the teenagers in your house to find out how little give and take there can sometimes be in face-to-face communication.