Web pages devoted to problems which are clones of hard copy pages, are just as likely to be successful in enhancing learning as their predecessors, i.e., not very effective. Learning from the written word is not part of current dogma, hence teachers, tutors, etc..
Videos of chalk boards should be as effective as lectures in affecting learning i.e., not very effective. Passive web instruments are little better than last century text books in enhancing self learning. Passive web instruments are little better than lectures.
Pedagogically, one should be searching for problems on web pages which require reader input to achieve solutions, with instantaneous grading of student inputs, and possible help in overcoming error inputs. Interactive web pages make the motivated learner learn, while leaving the unmotivated learner in stupid city.
Those interactive web pages that exist are primarily multiple-choice queries, a scheme invented to ease the burden of hand grading examinations, and not subject to part credit variances in grading schemes. But multiple-choice responses warp the thinking of students, i.e., enhance gamesmanship, and rarely guarantee that students know what they claim to know. In a world which never presents multiple-choice problems to anything in reality, training children to pass such examinations is tantamount to malpractice.
Clearly, constructed responses are preferable to multiple choice ones, as they offer no subliminal hints concerning the “right” answer. Constructed response questions are the closest thing to perfect assessment tools as exist.
Using cgi-bin programming (in my case using Perl, and chemistry examples), I have created pages and pages of constructed response questions in physical chemistry and freshman chemistry including some new chemical equilibrium problems which illustrate the constructed response question approach. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg, as better handling of potential student incorrect responses offers unlimited possibilities for improvement. See:
https://chemphys.uconn.edu/~chem12x/cgi-bin/sophiakp1a.pl
and
https://chemphys.uconn.edu/~chem12x/cgi-bin/sophiakp2.pl
At this time of the covid remote learning environment we have exactly the right time to create tools for self learning which will enhance future self learning especially when our students have left school. No graduates/adults can expect teachers to answer their questions and grade their learning. Adulthood demands a modus operandi of self learning and self validation of learning which far exceeds what is available today.
These ideas are offered in the hope of encouraging Computer Assisted Learning as a primary way of using remote on-line STEM instruction for interactive problem solving everywhere in the quantitative domain.
For web authors of teaching materials who have public_html access but not cgi-bin access, php alternatives to Perl should be easy to develop. My attempt is currently underway.
