In South Africa the superhighway is still only a dirt road compared with the smooth, multilane luxury avenues of North America's connectedness: physical connections between South Africa and Europe and North America are still slow and restricted in terms of information capacity; however, the huge, recent increase in the number of commercial subscribers to the various Internet on-ramps will undoubtedly lead to improved links with the rest of the world. It is frustrating, however-especially for those of us accustomed to never downloading graphics because of the huge time delays-to see users in North America moaning when a 1-megabyte file takes longer than 10 seconds to load via a Web browser! Communications within South Africa are relatively fast, and it is no problem to access even quite large graphics files from local servers: for example, a six-megabyte, five-day animated satellite image of southem Africa from the Environmental and Geographic (EnGeo) Sciences Department at the University of Cape Town (UCT) can be downloaded in as little as six minutes.
Of course, most of what is available to the casual Net user is still mostly trivia: the main use of this amazingly anarchic-but- sophisticated information storage and exchange medium still consists of the millions of personal and newsgroup email exchanges on a range of topics that currently spans several thousand recognized newsgroups. These range from the seriou (bionet.virology, comp.os.unix) to the silly (alt.fan. dan.quale,rec.humor.funny) and from the disturbing (alt.sex.bestiality) to the bizarre (talk.bizarre). Of course, most of what is available to the casual Net user is still mostly trivia: the main use of this amazingly anarchic-but-sophisticated information storage and exchange medium still consists of the millions of personal and newsgroup e-mail exchanges on a range of topics that currently spans several thousand recognized newsgroups. These range from the serious (bionet.virology, comp.os.unix) to the silly (alt. fan.dan.quayle, rec.humor.funny) and from the disturbing (alt.sex. bestiality) to the bizarre (talk.bizarre).
Via the Web it is possible to access the Digital Man-a mammoth archive comprising digitally scanned, 2-mm sections of a human male, together with wholebody CAT and MR scans as well as software for 3-D image reconstruction. It is also possible to get surf reports from San Diego beaches, to learn the status of various U.S. campus Coca-Cola vending machines, and to download a constantly updated video image of a coffeepot in a Cambridge laboratory. This trivial side to the Net may be off-putting to the inexperienced or doubtful would-be user; however, it is possible to dig beneath the surface silliness and unearth resources that make one begin to wonder how one ever did without it. A good starting point is one of the "What's New" pointers regularly updated by the browser software author(s).
Academic and some government institutions in South Africa have been connected to the Internet for years via Uninet, which is administered by the Foundation for Research Development, and many teachers and researchers have made a great deal of use of Net-accessible resources. For example, in my field of molecular biology, the Internet (and, increasingly, the World Wide Web) has for some time now been an absolutely vital part of our communication and an absolutely indispensable information source.
I can use either e-mail or the Web to submit a query DNA sequence for a search of the entire up-to-the-minute DNA data bank of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) super-computer in Maryland. This process takes seconds, as opposed to the hours it takes on our local mainframe. In addition, our databases are months or even years out of date because we can't afford to maintain them. I can search (via gopher or the Web) the updates to the DNA sequence databases at either the NCBI or the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, and in seconds retrieve DNA or protein sequences that would take hours or days to type in, always assuming one could find someone willing to do such mindlessly boring and finicky work and with no guarantee of accuracy. By way of Internet/Nentrez searching of the Medline database maintained at the NCBI, I can retrieve not only titles of journal articles from Boolean searches of remote archives but also abstracts of the same articles, plus any DNA/protein sequences contained therein. In the past five years this sort of information access has led to a radical shift in the kind of work I do-from result gathering on a local scale to data analysis on a global scale and in parallel with and in consultation with researchers all over the world.
University Education and the Wed
However valuable the aforementioned aspects of the Net are, until recently there was a major gap in the Net's utility: its use as an educational tool. The advent of the Web has changed this dramatically: it is now possible for an instructor to use a Web browser to demonstrate interactively with 3D graphics to a classful of students how virus particles are assembled or how weather patterns evolve; users can visit the National Aeronautics and Space Administration home page and browse a photoatlas of the planet Mars; and a class can stroll through the Louvre or the Vatican library.
As a local example, our departmental Web site in Cape Town has a wealth of data on our department and its personnel, a collection of essays on various topics, and a tutorial on molecular virology. The tutorial contains information and graphics culled from all over the Net, and it and the departmental page contain pointers to information databases maintained in Wisconsin, in the U.K., and in Australia. Any one of the se sites in turn contains its own informational database-such as a library of electron micrographs of plant viruses maintained at Rothamst ed Experiment Station in Harpenden, England-and pointers to other sites , with yet more information.
I have included the information in the tutorial as the major part of the curriculum of my second-year Microbiology 20OW BSc module on Introductory Molecular and General Virology; students can access the tutorial (and links from it to other sites) via the Web, from a networked set of 10 PCs available at all times to undergraduates. Linked to a graphics projection tablet and overhead projector, I can lecture from the tutorial-and anything else I can access electronically -using either a stand-alone or networked PC in a lecture theater.
The beauty of the system is that students can work in their own time and at their own pace and make as much (or as little) use of the in- depth deviations from the basic text as they choose. In addition, the material can be updated easily in modules without the necessity of reformatting and reprinting a whole text. This means, effectively, that I can update students' textbooks overnight and at no cost. The WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) nature of Microsoft Windows- (or other window-) based browsers means anything seen onscreen can be printed for instant course notes.
The fact that the tutorial and related material are on the Web means, of course, that they can be accessed from all over the country and in fact the World-and therein lies the value of what at first sight looks like a distinctly elitist mode of instruction: It means that any tertiary institution in the country that has Uninet access could use this material as part of its teaching/tutorial curriculum. Thus, institutions with no specialized lecturing staff in a given subject area could make use of sophisticated and flexible packages developed elsewhere in the country, as well as be able to tailor their own courses by recourse directly to Web and Net sources overseas. For example, although there are at least four university departments of plant pathology in South Africa, there are only four plant virologists currently employed at South African universities: two of them in Cape Town, one at the University of Natal-Pietermaritzburg, and one at Wits, only one of whom teaches plant pathology. This means that three institutions are teaching virology without a qualified specialist and might well benefit from such a teaching supplement.
The opportunities for similar exploitation of local expertise are obviously enormous: if every university department that was a recognized leader in its field constructed Net- or Web-accessible teaching/informational modules, we would very soon have a large body of educational material that would be freely available to anyone in the country (and outside) and that could be supplemented at will from resources outside-via the Net.
Teaching from the Web:
A Proposal for South African Schools
The educational possibilities I have outlined here apply largely to the system (and similar applications) I have developed for a sophisticated university-level student base whose members have access to Internet- accessing dedicated 386-level or higher PCs and some experience with computers. How can this relate to the secondary or primary levels of education or to schools in rural areas? Most schools in southern Africa and most historically underprivileged schools-will not have any computers at all, let alone Net access, so how can they access the sorts of material I have described?
There are a number of possible solutions that could be explored. The first is a low-tech, interim solution, which does not require any more facilities in the schools than already exist, but it does require some sort of central facility (with Web access) for the preparation of teach ing materials and as a source of funds for the purchase of traveling equipment. It is possible to use Web browsers, such as Netscape, in the absence of the Net: such programs are primarily hypertext markup language (HTML) translators, meaning that anything written in HTML can be formatted and browsed using a browser on a stand-alone PC. This means that course notes or textbooks could be reformatted very simply by using an HTML editor, several sophisticated exemplars of which are available as shareware. With the addition of scanned-in color graphic s, the notes or textbooks could be converted from black-and-white-with- line-diagrams texts into multimedia displays. An average 386+ notebook computer with a large hard-disk drive could store many such displays a nd, when coupled with a graphics projection tablet and overhead projector, could constitute the engine of a powerful and extremely portable means of teaching. In this scenario, the use of the Web would be by the centrally based package developers, who would access information or exchange material or do both by means of the Web in their preparation of material for use by stand-alone traveling PCs.
The kinds of subject material that would benefit most from the aforedescribed treatment would be the show-and-tell subjects that cannot be taught effectively in the absence of proper (and expensive) facilities-like physics, chemistry, and many aspects of biology and geography. The value in the portability of the system would be that the same lesson(s) could be given to several classes in different schools in the same area on the same day with the added flexibility inherent in an HTML-based multimedia presentation, meaning that each presentation could be varied quite considerably, depending on local response. If a suitable graphics tablet were used, it would also be possible to project full motionand-sound video from either a PC or a VCR-to add yet another dimension to the possibilities. As an illustration of the possibilities, consider seeing deserts spreading or continents moving, watching the evolution of modem horses, graphical ly following mineral refinement, seeing how plants develop, watching bacteria divide and colonize, touring Parliament at the click of a mouse button, seeing the country of South Africa expand under your pointer to show you any town complete with a picture of the mayor! The rapid growth of geographic information systems (GIS) locally means that a wealth of information is available for geography classes: one example is the material available at the already-mentioned UCT EnGeo site. The liberal arts subjects could also benefit: classes could explore the works of Shakespeare or Athol Fugard, with hypertext deviations into Old Stratford or present-day Port Elizabeth and with movie clips from Romeo and Juliet or Boesman and Lena to illustrate the way a particular scene could be played.
Although it might be best to have such a facility as single-person traveling demonstrations, it would also be possible to outfit old buses as traveling PC labs-much as the University of the Western Cape has already done-to allow a greater number of senior students to get hands-on experience using the systems. This scenario doesn't involve Internet or Web access, but it makes use of the best of the electronic and software technologies used for Web access and in fact is still a means of conveying, albeit at secondhand, the benefits of the Internet to students.
The costs of providing central preparation facilities would not be exorbitant because of the possibility that university personnel could be enlisted to help prepare sophisticated packages; even though the unit costs of each traveling display unit would be quite high-about 40,000 rand ($10,880)-one should bear in mind that those costs would be shared among several (perhaps many) schools and institutions in a given area-meaning no duplication of expensive facilities between them. Centralized media preparation would also mean that material could be updated quickly and then disseminated electronically via the Web (for download via modem) or in the form of update diskettes.
A second, more long-term solution to getting the Net into classrooms would involve the use of spare mainframe, workstation, or large PC network computer capacity all over the country and would perhaps also involve the Foundation for Research Development (FRD) in its capacity as administrator of Uninet. In this scenario, educational modules would be truly Web based, archived on widely spread computers such as those at the FRD and the universities, and directly accessible via the Net.
An ideal solution would be to have many networked PC laboratories all over the country with full Internet access, whether by phone line or cable; however, realistically, it might prove possible to have only a few such facilities. In that case, the majority of facilities could consist of widely separated groups of PCs with dial-up access to centralized computers, which would enable regular downloading of modules, which could then run as stand-alone packages.
Museums and regional educational ministry facilities could be equipped with networked PC labs that have direct Net access for special visit sessions. Better-equipped schools could share facilities with neighboring disadvantaged institutions. And all of the universities could make similar facilities available on a time-share basis.
The Wonders of The Web Revealed
Much of the foregoing may seem like misplaced pie-in-the-sky, ivory- tower idealism, with no immediate practical relevance whatsoever to the very real educational problems facing South Africa. But consider which is more valuable: showing a child a line diagram of clouds in a dated textbook, or presenting an animated satellite image of cloud formations moving above the child's own house and dated that week? Relying on a local text for explanations of evolution, or touring the dinosaur exhibit at the Smithsonian in full color? Inexpertly dissecting a frog in front of an uncomprehending class, or electronical ly dissecting a human, with full-motion simulations of organ function, complete with annotations? Digging through stacks of old newspapers to find a story on their hometown that you think the children will learn from, or instantly accessing a newspaper archive (such as the Net -based archive maintained by the Weekly Mail and Guardian) for all stories mentioning their town by name?
We have the facilities right now to start such schemes: much of what is needed is currently in place-in universities and government institutes. It would be possible, given the will-and given some money-to start equipping even rural schools with some of the facilities I have described here. A few corporate donations could provide a nucleus of the traveling PCs also described-or evaluation of the low- cost scheme I outlined.
I still have enough of a child'seye view to know what I would have preferred in my education and what I would like for my children. Let us try to give it to them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to acknowledge my fellow Web crawler colleagues Vernon and Molapo, the University of Cape Town Information Technology Service, and friends from the Weekly- Mail and Guardian e-mail discussion forum.
This document is available at http://www.uct.ac.za/microbiology/educ www.html and in text only at gopher.uct.ac.za/microbiology/educwww.txt.
Edward Rybicki is associate professor - in the Department of Miciobiology ot the University of Cape Town.