The eMail-Learning: a New Way for the Distance Learning

In this paper, we suggest a new way of designing and delivering distance learning courseware that we call eMail-Learning. In the our proposal we want to suggest the use of e-mail architecture as the basic component for creating a Learning Management System. We analyze the possibilities offered by the current e-mail architectures compared with the web-based environments in the distance learning context. In particular we highlight some collaborative features offered by various client/server e-mail platforms. These platforms usually called groupware systems and generally they permit integration of scheduling, task and contact management, and also sharing calendar and mail folder between users. The e-mail also uses and combines offline and online activities and these features have remarkable methodological consequences and are also useful for students with dialup connections. Many of these groupware features are possible now only using proprietary mail protocols and moreover it is not possible to create a real hyper textual organization of the didactic contents in the current e-mail environments. To overcome these and other difficulties we propose the development of a new protocol to support distance learning via e-mail. This protocol could be an open standard and could enlarge the e-mail feature independently of the particular system used. Finally, we show how it would be a simple task to comply with the principal international e-learning standards in an eMail-Learning environment. In this respect, we analyze various groups of standard and we suggest some best practices for integrating them in to a distance learning programme based on an e-mail system.