A work in progress.
This is a rough description of my own experiences using the web in my classes. Most of my efforts center on making online course materials available to my students and, more recently, in putting student work online and giving online quizzes and surveys.
I have been creating web sites for my courses since the Summer of 1994, first at Dartmouth College and now at Grinnell. In general, I envision these sites as course supplements rather than course replacements (for many, "course web" means "online course"). I put all the things I would traditionally hand out online (course syllabus, assignments, answer keys and notes on assignments, notes I've written on various topics, etc.)
When I first started to create these sites, I theorized that students would benefit from access to course-related materials that I typically would not hand out, but that might serve as additional resources. Primary among these were my notes for each class session. I'm fortunate enough to be able to type fairly quickly, so I started writing my notes online, rather than on paper. In the first few courses, it seemed necessary to print these notes out and hand them to the students (since they printed them anyway, and I was able to conserve paper). These days, students seem to have enough web access that most don't need them to be printed. Although I worried that students would use the notes as an excuse to miss class, most don't. Most are also comfortable if what we discuss in class does not correspond precisely (or even barely) to my notes.
At Grinnell, I'm fortunate enough to teach in our computer-equipped classroom. I note that most students in the class keep my notes up on the screen during class. They've told me that the notes serve a wide variety of purposes, from giving them a structure for their own notes to providing a way for them to jump back to a topic they realize that they didn't understand.
Dartmouth College (where I was at the time) provided some funds for experimenting with "recordings" of the class. I taught in a room that had a huge computer projection system, and typed, rather than wrote. We then put these "electronic blackboards" online. This is a relatively low-overhead supplement that seems particularly appropriate for some disciplines (such as mathematics and computer science) in which students derive little benefit from mindlessly copying formulae. I did warn students that it was still important that they take their own notes. Not all take this advice, and some have reported that they quickly learn that the blackboards don't include everything that they think they do.
[The Math/CS department will be getting some new electronic whiteboards this year which allow one to save snapshots of the blackboard, including what's been written in "pen". We'll see how that goes.]
We also videotaped each class, and spent some time trying to digitize, edit, and segment the audio. We also used single frames fromt he video when appropriate. In general, this was not worth the effort. It took many hours of student time for one hour of audio.
As an alternative to the audio, we also transcribed each class (for one course, again with funds from Dartmouth). I had hoped that students would use the transcriptions, along with a search engine, to remind themselves of topics they'd forgotten. Unfortunately, students felt overwhelmed by the availability of this material and a few felt that it was necessary to read each of the transcriptions (even though they'd attended class).
As your course web grows, it may become harder for students to find appropriate materials. A search engine can help them. I use a custom search engine for my classes, but you should probably use a more standard one. We will be discussing search engines some time during the workshop.
When I've had students give presentations in recent courses, I've also had them prepare accompanying web pages. Most members of the class bring up the web pages during the presentation (sometimes to negative effect). Student skill in web page construction and design varies widely. In my discipline, even students who don't know HTML pick it up quite quickly. I hope to use these presentations as a resource for future classes.
In our nonmajors course in problem solving and computing, I had the students create a web site pertaining to the topic of the course. I had hoped that some students would take a leadership role, but that didn't happen until the last week. A number of students commented that they found it challenging to do work that they knew would be so public. Others found it intimidating, and repeatedly asked whether their material would really be globally available. Some requested anonymity.
We will discuss more on student work later this week.
I give my students a variety of surveys and quizzes during the semester. I've found that web forms provide an elegant and simple way to gather student input and to ensure that I keep a copy of their answers. I use custom software to gather and analyze the information, but I expect that computing services can also make something available. [I can also provide some support for my software, if someone wants it.]
In the future, I'm hoping to make my course webs more interactive by providing online annotations and discussion groups as parts of the course webs.
I'm also looking at ways to better analyze student web use. My summer research students are working on an improved tracking tool.
These are rough notes prepared quickly for this workshop. They are not guaranteed to be accurate, useful, or even proofread.
Source text last modified Tue Jul 14 08:35:51 1998.
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