Evaluation of web-based flexible learning: Findings and implications

With both teachers and students having increased access to the web from home and from the workplace, there is a trend to extend technology-based learning. Furthermore, the web is seen as a means of efficiently delivering education and training when and where it is needed, and communicating with large numbers of students who may be separated from each other and from the learning centre by time or distance. It also enables learners to access information at times and places of their choice. This suggests that the new web-based technologies offer good prospects for implementing flexible delivery options. Not only do web-based learning solutions offer effective responses to requirements for efficient information transfer, they also offer powerful alternatives for obtaining effective learning outcomes. Coinciding with the implementation of flexible delivery methodologies has been the onset of the information technology revolution and the development of digital communications technologies, such as email and the world wide web (www). In the context of educational services, web-based communications technology is not only seen as offering a supplement for traditional delivery methodologies, but also as being capable of revolutionising distance teaching and bringing on- and off-campus teaching modes closer into alignment. Anecdotal evidence appears to suggest that web-based approaches to flexible learning have been taken up enthusiastically within the Australian vocational education and training (VET) system. Nevertheless, little of a factual nature is known about the variety or effectiveness of these new practices, particularly from a student and learning point of view. In this report the focus is on the nature of the uptake of web-based technologies and the quality of teaching and learning emerging, since, while digital technologies can offer access to an enormous volume of information, this does not in itself translate into learning; nor does it ensure the development of expertise required for workplaces in a state of change.