Editor’s note: In the opinion page’s “Faculty Fridays” series, a different faculty or staff member writes a column each week about issues facing ISU faculty and staff, ISU students or the world at large.

Faculty and staff members interested in writing a guest column for the Daily can contact the opinion desk at 294-6768 or by e-mail at [email protected].

Imagine walking into a jewelry store, seeing just the right ring to buy and being told, “That ring is not for sale yet. You have to wait until June 3, and we will probably be all sold out when you want it because it’s very popular.”

That’s how university classes are distributed. You can’t register for them until registration period, you have to wait to take it during an exact start and finish time (the semester), and you usually can’t get into the best ones because they fill up.

Imagine that you search for a specific class you need or “window shop” on the Web and find just the course you need or want. Imagine that you can then click on “buy,” enter some information and start the course right then and there.

And imagine that, if you have the time and motivation, you can take the course in, say, four weeks, instead of the usual full semester it now takes. Also imagine that you can “attend” the ISU class at 2:30 a.m. each morning on your Titanium PowerBook G4 laptop, from your beach hotel room in Tortola, British West Indies, where you are doing a one-year paid internship on marine environmental issues.

The advent of information and digital technologies now makes it possible for us to do many things we could only dream of before. The scenario above now becomes very realistic and, I believe, will become a very big part of university education in the near future.

Asynchronous courses (i.e. classes available on the Web 24 hours a day, seven days a week with students from anywhere in the world attending “class” whenever they can or want to do so) are becoming a growing component of higher education. Universities that don’t take this very seriously will definitely lose student market share.

Moreover, we will be creating incredibly exciting classes delivered on the Web. In my recent workshop, I demonstrated elegant, dynamic and engaging digital video (DV) and how it can be integrated into teaching and learning. It can be streamed on the Web, put on VHF tape or burned on a CD. It can also be produced and used in geocentric classes – traditional, synchronous classes where the students and professor are physically present at the same time.

Is Web-based learning as good as the traditional classroom? It can be.

DV and a really powerful, hot Web site can give professors a very controlled and targeted tool for creating a learning experience for their students. It allows students to customize their education to fit their busy lives. In some cases a really great Web course taught by a caring and talented professor can actually be much better than many of the poorly taught, boring courses to which students are now subjected.

But can Web courses have active learning and interactivity like a regular class? Of course! There are a host of techniques that make it possible for students to engage in virtual discussions and group projects.

In a year or two, this will involve real-time or archived digital video imaging whereby students and professors will interact visually and conversationally as well as through text (e-mail, chat rooms, listserves and discussion forums) as they can now.

I have already experimented with “conversational” software (Conversay.com) that allows you to use Web sites by talking to them – no mouse and no keyboard!

By the way, how interactive was that class of 600 students you took? Could you even see the professor from the last row in the auditorium, or did you actually think she is about 2 inches tall? How much active learning was there when your butt was planted in a hard seat at 8 a.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the two guys next to you were talking about the bar scene from last night, the woman in front of you was on her cell phone, and the guy to your right was doing the crosswords in the Daily?!

Final question – will Web-based learning (“click”) replace the university (“brick”)? No!

Most smart students of information technology and higher education agree that students want to come to college for part of their life.

They love the experience; it shapes their lives. College students grow and mature as human beings – they develop emotional intelligence. They become leaders, have fun, make love, play sports, cheer for their team, learn how to network and meet lifelong friends, colleagues and partners.

Oh yes, and they also get to use some of the coolest equipment and facilities in the world that we still cannot use on the Web, and they meet mentors and professors with whom they will keep in touch for many years.

But I am metaphysically certain that technology, including excellent Web classes, will become a very big part of this education experience. Make It So!

Steffen Schmidt is a university professor and Jerry Shakeshaft Master Teacher of political science.