Materials

Rapid development of computer-based instructional methods, combined with the rapid evolution of the Internet and the World Wide Web, have made it technologically possible to develop fully interactive self-study materials. While programmed instruction methods were developed in the 1960s and early 1970s, they were not widely used and, although lessons learned from early research may be applied, new technology has generated new questions. One of the most perplexing of these questions centers on the locus of control. How much control should the learner have, and how much should be retained by the learning program? Maintaining appropriate controls when instructional materials are put on the Web is an example of one problem. Presence of "hot links " invite the learner to jump through cyberspace because they imply related, although not necessarily hierarchical, information. Once a learner jumps to a related Website