Teaching and Learning via the World Wide Web?

All learning on the Internet or anywhere else for that matter, whether other-directed (by a teacher or discussion leader) or self-directed, requires sequencing.

The pedagogue (both traditional and cybernetic) must understand what materials are appropriate to what level of learner and must develop a means of ascertaining the learner's level. When the two are put together, the result is good pedagogy.

If "authentic" materials are helpful to learning, the Internet is a goldmine, but only if the teacher and the learner can filter materials according to a realistic sequence of acquisition and order of difficulty, in accord with the learner's present competency.

All forms of information and information exchange that can be mediated can be mediated by the Internet. Books, articles, letters, cinema, telephone, radio, television.

The technology can even help with motivation, encouraging the shy, and holding out the promise of keeping the user modern, up-to-date. What the technology cannot do by itself, yet, is initiate the adaptable ordering function of human intelligence. This is still the job of the teacher, or the teacher inside the learner.