Workshop Resources Assignments Home   Credits		Workshop 3: Teaching And Technology: Getting the most from your  Technology-enhanced Course Pre-workshop assignment: You have now created a basic course site with links to a syllabus and a resource page.  In this workshop we will consider different ways to expand the use of our course site. To learn more about new elements used in course sites (1) complete our web activity and contemplate the pedagogical advantages and disadvantages to instructor-created web activities as well as commercially produced web exercises. After completeing the web exercise. (2)  Consider some of the challenges and solutions for managing a course site, and contribute to the newsgroup one potential challenge - and its respective solution(s) - in incorporating web technology into your course. What you should bring to Workshop 3:  The urls of those web activities that you evaluated (positively or negatively) for the previous night's homework.  Workshop Goals: Participants will evaluate and link to their course site a web exercise/activity with the goal of developing active web learners. In addition, participants will assess the advantages and disadvantages of integrating the web into the classroom. The workshop will conclude with a discussion of some of the copyright and security issues associated with making use of the web in the classroom.  Workshop Outline: I.  Introduction II.  Evaluating Web Activities      A.  Discussing the Homework:  Reviewing and Evaluating Web Exercises and Activities III.  Learning the Skills (beyond Netscape) to Enhance your Course Site      A.  Communication Technologies and Terminology      B.  Workshops on Software Programs      C.  Software Online Tutorials IV.  Managing Your Site      A.  Achieving Course Goals: Considering Challenges in Using the Web in Your Course       B.  Management Strategies: Adapting Your Teaching Style to an Online Environment      C.  Creating "Information Literate" Students V.  Prometheus VI.  Copyright Issues VII. Homework

I. Introduction

Today's workshop will focus on how to add various elements to your basic course page developed in Workshop 2.  Not just a tool to provide students with access to information throughout the world wide web, the course page can also provide students with activities and exercises that enhance their knowledge of course content or excite their interest in a specific topic related to the course. We will begin with a discussion on the different types of web activities available that you might want to use to acheive these goals.  In this first half of the workshop, we will talk about ways in which course sites can be developed beyond the basic site we have already created.  You will then evaluate some web activities in pedagogical terms, and find an activity that you might link to your course.

In the second half of the workshop, we will consider the implications of using all of these new technological elements in our classroom. We will begin with a review of the way we currently teach and how our traditional methods might be enhanced through technology. Yet while the web is a powerful tool that can broaden our students' potential for learning, it also holds many new challenges as we attempt to integrate it into a course. With this in mind, the latter half of the class will focus on management issues in teaching and learning with the web.
 

II.  Evaluating Web Activities

A. Reviewing and Evaluating Web Exercises and Activities

For the homework, you were able to look at a number of examples of how various courses integrate the web into their coursework by adding activities on the web. You each evaluated at least one web exercise or activity from our list of sites, and have found one site that particularly succeeds or fails in using technology to achieve your course goals.  Perhaps the following questions came to mind

• What advantages are there to using web exercises or activities?
• What disadvantages are there to using web exercises or activities?

• Would the use of commercial (but still academic) resources pose any other questions about using a web activity?
• Would the availability of supplemental material online help you as a teacher in deciding which textbook to require for a course?
• Does using the resources offered by a publisher restrict your ability to bring other resources into the classroom--or in other words, would you find yourself limited to using supplemental materials only from that publisher?

Now that you've learned how to create links on your course homepage, you may want to use a search engine to find an appropriate web activity that you might link to your site.  After asking yourself the above questions, decide whether or not you feel the activity would enhance your course.  If it does, link the activity to your resources page with a short description of how your students should be using it.

III.  Learning the Skills (beyond Netscape) to Enhance your Course Site

You have now expanded your course site to include a resources page and even links to interactive web exercises. There are a number of further technologies and software programs that will enable you to expand your course site further. Communications technologies provide new forums for students and instructors to discuss classroom issues and/or prepare course material for discussion. An alternative to adding a web activity or web exercise developed by an outside source is to learn how to create your own material. While simple web activities based on web searches and text can be created in Netscape Composer (online tutorial on how to create a basic web activity from Summer 2001), other web activities and exercises you looked at and evalutated were created using software such as Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft PowerPoint, Half-Baked's HotPotatoes, Quicktime, or RealPlayer. Wash U offers various online tutorials and workshops on how to learn these softwares. N.B.: Many of these workshops teach software that can be used for presentations in and beyond the classroom (e.g. PowerPoint).

A.    Communication Technologies and Terminology

Take a look at the following technologies that are available to communicate online. Once you have looked at a number of the possible forms for course discussion, consider the following:

     Which technology would you use in your class? How and why?
     Which technology would you not use in your class? Why?

1.  Using Technology for Course Discussion at Washington University

a.  Newsgroups (also bulletin boards and discussion groups)

Newsgroups allow students to compose e-mail messages in Pine, Outlook Explorer or Netscape Mail and post them to an account that is accessible on a voluntary basis. These messages are on a separate server and are NOT a part of  the personal inbox of e-mail accounts (like a listserv). Messages posted to newsgroups are only available when you open the newsgroup and download messages. We use a newsgroup in this workshop to communicate outside of class.

Washington University offers newsgroups on their server for your class at no cost. To set up a newsgroup see the information in part 2 below.

a.  Listservs

Listservs are a little different from newsgroups. Instead of allowing participants to access the messages whenever they wish, listservs send the e-mail directly to your personal e-mail inbox. Each message addressed to the listserv account login will be duplicated and sent to the e-mail accounts of each member of the listserv. Only members of the listserv can send and receive messages addressed to this account (this makes communication much more private). Listservs may also be moderated. Washington University offers listserv accounts through Arts and Sciences Computing. To set up a listserv account see the information in part 2 below.

2.  Whom to Contact at Wash U to Set Up Communication Technologies

a.  Newsgroups

Newsgroups are available on the Wash U campus and are organized by the Office of the Network Coordinator (ONC).  New newsgroups can be requested by sending mail to requests@news.wustl.edu. You should request your own name for the newsgroup. ONC offers this tip in naming your newsgroup: To name your newsgroup the hierarchy is wu.school.dept.name (for example wu.artsci.bio.misc). If needed the school field can be dropped (for example wu.cs.423 instead of wu.seas.cs.423).

b.  Listservs

Listservs are a little different from newsgroups. Instead of allowing participants to access the messages whenever necessary, listservs send the e-mail directly to your private e-mail inbox. Each message addressed to the listserv account login will be duplicated and sent to the e-mail accounts of each member of the listserv. Only members of the listserv can send and receive messages addressed to this account (this makes communication much more private). Arts and Sciences Computing handles new listservs. You can use the following form to request a listserv: http://www.artsci/cgi-bin/majreq.mail?ascchelp .

3.  Other Communication Technologies Online

Newsgroups and listservs are the most reliable forms of communication because they are available on Washington University servers and thus only rely on the functionality of one server and not of another educational or commercial server. However, there are a number of ways to enhance communication within the classroom that are available online. Click here to learn more about these various forms.

B.    Workshops

1.    The Teaching Center

Every semester and summer the Teaching Center offers a variety of workshops on software useful for the development of web activities. In the past they have offered courses on Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe Photoshop, and Dreamweaver. For most recent announcements on workshop offerings click on "Workshops (for Faculty and Teaching Assistants)" on the Teaching Center's homepage.

2.    GradLab

The GradLab presents workshops on varyious software programs during the school year. For most recent workshop offerings, check the GradLab sites "Upcoming Events" during the school year or register to use the GradLab and recieve email notification of the newest workshops.

C.    Online Tutorials

1.    Language Lab

The Language Lab has developed online tutorials that teach various aspects of streaming video and audio on equipment available in the lower level of Eads (see the Teaching Lab, GradLab , and Language Lab). Their online multimedia tutorials page links to self-directed study of Quicktime, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro, Sound Recorder, and Media Cleaner Pro.

2.    HotPotatoes

Half-Baked Software at the University of Victoria has developed software (HotPotatoes) that enables instructors to produce interactive exercises, such as short answer, multiple choice, and gap fill exercises. The Language Lab has a short online tutorial on how to create simple exercises at http://artsci.wustl.edu/limc/teaching/workshops/#B.
 

IV. Managing Your Site

We often overlook one of the key advantages to working with technology:  it encourages us to reflect on the way we teach. If we are dedicated to enhancing learning through technology it is important that we use technology as a means to achieve our pedagogical goals rather than viewing it as an end in itself. Our goal as instructors is not to technologically enhance our courses, it is to pedagogically enhance them with the help of technology.

A. Achieving Course Goals: Considering Challenges in Using the Web in Your Course

The first step in developing strategies for enhancing learning through technology is to reflect on our current teaching methods. When you created a draft of your course site you considered how to translate your course goals into web elements. Now you will review that information, but also formulate the difficulties that may arise in using these web elements in your course. Using your ideas from the Planning Template handout of Workshop 1, synthesize your ideas onto the management handout provided.

You have now identified a list of potential challenges that are involved in using the web to enhance your class and many of the following issues probably came to mind:

• How do I effectively integrate the web into class so students actually refer to it?
• What happens if the server goes down?
• How do I make sure that my students use communication forums effectively, i.e., don't just chat about issues unrelated to the course subject matter?

You have now identified a number of management challenges that arise when integrating web technologies into your course.  Let's consider some of the ways to solve these issues. Although we may not be able to think of solutions to all of these management challenges, it is important to keep them in mind when using the web in your course. Some ideas on how to deal with the above issues might be:

• To get students to use your course site and the resources available online, incorporate information or discussion from the web into your class discussion. This will not only reassure the students that the web is a valued resource, but it will also raise the level of online discussion.
• Servers are not perfect and it is very difficult to keep these machines running smoothly. To avoid being left with nothing to do in class when a server is unavailable, consider making back-up plan, just as you would if you were using other types of mechanical equipment in your classroom, i.e., overhead projectors, video machines, or televisions.
• Communication among students can be regulated in a few ways. If you are using a newsgroup as the forum for discussion, you can contribute answers to your students messages to raise the level of discussion. Another way to raise the level of discussion is to incorporate issues in your classroom discussions. Students will realize that keeping up with the online discussion is important to following classroom discussion.

C.  Creating "Information Literate" Students

Although we may now be enlightened about how technology is only as useful as the critical thinking we put behind it, our students may not be.  Now more than ever, we need to help our students become disciminating consumers of information.  It is our responsibility as instructors to teach them how to critically evaluate the information we provide them.  Determining the value or authenticity of information on the web is very similar to evaluating the value of books and journals. Olin Library offers a great checklist on evaluating the value of online information.

A further ramification of the addition of web resources to a course site is the need for students to learn how to cite such material effectively. As teachers we need to consider not just how students find useful information on the web, but also how students can be taught to use that material in their coursework. Consider adding information to your web page on how to cite web resources in written work. For sites that have such information, see the Resources page for Workshop 3.

V. Prometheus

Arts and Sciences Computing has recently purchased a number of licenses for a course-management application.  This new package, called Prometheus, can be found at: http://courses.artsci.wustl.edu.   For more information on attaining a license to use Prometheus in your own course, contact Kathy Atnip at ArtSci Computing (kathy@artsci.wustl.edu).
 

VI. Copyright Issues

To see a more in depth discussion of the issue and for links to other documents on the web, see our site on copyright issues.
 

VII. Homework

The first part of your assignment is to look at some professional pages of graduate students on the web.  Then, post to the newsgroup one aspect you find effective about a page and one aspect you find less effective (don't forget to include the URL so others can quickly find the page).  The next part of your assignment is to create a rough draft of your own professional page using Netscape Composer and name it ProfPage.html (in the workshop 4 tutorial ignore part E and F).  Feel free to follow along with the tutorial in Section II of workshop 4.  However, you should have the skills now to create your professional page without detailed directions, so you don't have to follow the tutorial.  We will spend some time in class looking over your pages and answering any questions you have.