I’m sure you remember the ad campaign a few years back when Oldsmobile tried to reinvent itself for younger drivers. “It’s not your father’s Oldsmobile,” the slogan went implying that it was not the staid old cruiser of the past, but something newer, snazzier, different. I’m not at all sure if that was true or if the ad campaign was successful, but there is a parallel to teaching on the web.

One of the things that happens when a new technology emerges is that we tend to try and fit its potential and possibilities into older forms we know and understand better. When radio first appeared, some brilliant minds at AT&T saw it like the telephone system and wanted to sell people time in front of the mike not unlike a long distance phone call. Not surprising was that on early television networks the variety show, a spin-off of earlier vaudeville and later radio, was a main staple of programming. Even on the Internet, we think about it by simply adding an e in front of whatever it is we use the Internet for – E-mail, E-commerce, E-learning.

To be sure, the web does carry some of the characteristics of earlier forms of media like the book, the magazine, the newspaper. But it also has characteristics and properties that are new, unique, and give the web potential to do things in its own way. Hyperlinking for example – the ability to jump from one place to another intuitively- is something unlike other media. The ability to combine sounds, images, text, and video may be another.

The important thing to remember when developing teaching and learning strategies and preparing material for the web is that IT’S NOT YOUR FATHERS’ OLDSMOBILE. Don’t try to apply the expectations your have of the book, the printed document, or the library to the web as your create your course experience. Try to understand what it is the web does best and work that along with other forms of media – video, books, oral communication. Students come well equipped with a keen understanding of how media works and what to expect from it, even if their view is often uncritical.

As teachers, we’ll be challenged to keep up with their sense of the possibilities and potential and to explore that terrain rather that attempt to pour our old course into a new form. That’s a surefire formula for creating an Oldsmobile...