As a university that offers some of its subjects online, in whole or in part, for students either on- or off-campus, the University of Wollongong recognises that students need opportunities to explore first what it might be like to learn online, before they commit to paying fees for an online university subject. We have designed one free subject, First Fleet Online, to provide that experience, not only for the students but also for their teachers who are often somewhat more tentative than the students.

The database of 778 convicts who arrived on the First Fleet to Australia in 1788, has been an electronic educational resource since 1980, first created on the Tasmanian Education Department network, then converted to Apple floppy (5inch) in 1982 for free distribution to all Australian schools as the first educational software containing all-Australian content. It has subsequently been re-versioned every few years for each new brand of computer marketed to Australian schools, and now is available on the internet, via a site at the University of Wollongong, looking very different from its first appearance as heavily coded and abbreviated text with limited and unwieldy search capabilities (Wills et al, 1985). This rich and interesting set of data has now been expanded and updated, linking to related internet sites on history, aborigines, immigration, as well as encouraging the general public and researchers to send more data to be added via the forums and editorial panel - history is not static. The site aims to be a model of online teaching, emphasising not only the potential of the internet to rapidly publish content but also to facilitate meaningful communication and debate between users/learners.

REFERENCES

Wills, S., Bunnett. A. & Downes, T. (1985) "Convicts and Bushrangers : educational databases brought alive" in Rasmussen, B. (ed.) The Information Edge : the future for educational computing, Proceedings Australian Computers in Education Conference, Brisbane, pp.117-126