eMOTE: electronic Mutual Online Teaching Environment

Abstract

Given the current trajectory of hardware and systems infrastructure that make up the Internet, the Web is truly becoming a ubiquitous presence in our daily lives. Bottlenecks will continue to be broken, and broadband will be easily taken for granted in even the most remote corners of the planet. The only remaining barrier is our ability to create software that can truly be soft. That is, malleable in the hands of the users, to create personalized virtual environments that seamlessly mesh with their real world. Our belief is that the future Web will be a key source of education—not the ivory tower kind, but the grass roots kind. The kind of education that can be intuitively customized to the end-user in a way that is sensitive and consistent with learning styles and cultural significance. This paper overviews the current trajectory of Web evolution in terms of human-centric factors, in particular, those that are conducive to diverse educational environments. Based on this trajectory, we foresee a merger of two key elements in the future Web: (1) trust relationships as they are emerging in social networking and, (2) immersive online teaching environments. We call this merger eMOTE (electronic Mutual Online Teaching Environment), which we believe will be able to capture and communicate the one thing the Web has yet to accurately express—subtle emotional feedback.