Penn State faculty and teaching assistants should mark their calendars now for the Seventh Annual Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium. The symposium, sponsored by the Center for Academic Computing (CAC), will be held on Saturday, April 10, 1999, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. at the Joab L. Thomas Building, University Park. The symposium is held for Penn State faculty for sharing ideas and techniques to improve teaching and learning through the use of technology. The overall theme for this year's symposium is "Lessons Learned . . . Exploring Validity."
Come see how your peers are building strong course
foundations! The format of this year's Teaching and Learning
with Technology Symposium has adapted to the changing needs
of Penn State faculty. From conception to implementation,
presentations will demonstrate new technology techniques tried in
the classroom and how the techniques worked. We will focus on
what worked and what did not work as well. A variety of topics will
be covered, such as course communications, student assessment
and feedback, and new tools that focus on and support general
education requirements. We have some return presenters to update us on
their progression and how they have used technology over the past
few years to improve student learning in their departments.
Our keynote speaker this year is Dr. Carl Berger, the Director of Academic Information Processes at the University of Michigan. Dr. Berger is best known for working to understand how people learn using technology. Dr. Berger is also one of the designers of the Event Recorder, a HyperCard microcomputer program designed to gather, display and analyze events observed and gathered by the researcher or automatically gathered in the course of using an instructional technology program or a concept map or from observational data (Berger, Walton, Wurman, & Jones, 1995). The Event Recorder can be thought of as a "Swiss army knife" for exploring sequence data. We look forward to Dr. Berger's insight on technology's influence on how we teach and learn.
Afternoon sessions and presentations will range in subject matter, addressing innovative uses of new technology tools, creative uses of mailing lists and e-mail, and specific software to enhance student activities. An in-house lunch will be provided at no cost for all attendees. "Theme" lunch rooms will be set up so that attendees may continue discussions related to morning presentations and other related topics. We hope you join us to share in what we think will be a great collaborative experience as Penn State remains at the forefront of teaching and learning with technology.
Visit our Web page at the following URL:
http://cac.psu.edu/training/TLT/
For further information,contact Karen Peters at kmp138@psu.edu or call (814) 863-7763.
You're Invited . . .
Do you run a Web server, publish information, write programs, create graphics, design pagesor perhaps do it all, for a Penn State official Website? At this conference you can participate in a variety of events designed to bring Penn State Web developers together to share and learn about innovative uses of the Web, works in progress, case studies, the best and worst of the Web, security issues that affect you, and more.
This conference will offer participants the opportunity to interact with other developers, researchers, and administrators who have gathered to share experiences and explore the present and future state of the Web at Penn State.
The cost is $35.00 (lunch and refreshments included.) Registration is required, as seating is limited. See http://cac.psu.edu/web99/ for more information.
At Penn State, many of our faculty have questioned traditional approaches to learning and have actively sought new ways to enhance teaching and learning. The World Wide Web has enabled us to create a learner-centered environment in which faculty can help students think more critically and cooperate with others in the learning process. Technology can play a transforming role in making learning more personalized, especially for teachers of large classes.
For the past five years Penn State's Center for Academic Computing (CAC) has been looking for ways to help improve the learning in large classes by engaging the learners and making instruction more interactive. Faculty can choose from a menu of instructional tools. For example, through e-mail, chats and newsgroups, faculty can establish virtual office hours for more student-teacher interaction. But how many user-interface clients are students and faculty expected to learn before technology becomes the center of a course?
Two years ago CAC was happy to become an early user of WebCT (http://www.webct.com/webct/) an integrative instructional management toolkit. WebCT facilitates the creation of sophisticated World Wide Web-based educational environments. It allows teachers to design the appearance of course pages; it provides a set of educational tools that can easily be incorporated into any course; and it provides a set of administrative tools that assist the educator in the task of course administration. These include:
Penn State decided to test a large-enrollment course utilizing WebCT running on Windows NT 4.0 and the Windows NT Internet Information Services (IIS).
The course, Reception of the Arts, was designed to be a large-enrollment general education course with both delivery and student interaction taking place over the Internet. Web materials had been developed over a four-year period using another class as a laboratory, but once Reception of the Arts went public as one of Penn State's first Web-based courses, an effective quiz-taking tool and bulletin board had to be added. WebCT seemed to be an obvious product for our application, and it was decided to use a hybrid formation. Most of the informational materials were provided by the Website, managed by instructor Donald Kunze (dek4@psu.edu) and maintained by the Department of Integrative Arts, with quiz-taking and bulletin board utilities supplied by the WebCT site.
This strategy helped to ease the load on both servers. Students were able to spend time getting information and covering materials with the class Website. When they were ready to take quizzes or check out writing submissions, they could link directly into the WebCT site. Any problems in the new environment would not hamper the use of the main class Website and the strategy of splitting materials between two sites and two servers seemed, in retrospect, to work very well.
Faculty members without experience in teaching over the Web frequently comment on the impersonal nature of working with computers. Just the reverse seems to the be the case for those who involve students in collaborative projects, answer e-mail using personal comments and questions in their notes, respond immediately to problems, and supply detailed information about student performance. Writing is necessary for all course interactions, and it stimulates students to develop a professional persona able to present their interests well using e-mail. When instructors address problems immediately, students sense the instructor's concern and his or her competent management of the course. They respond in kind by being thoughtful, reflective, and (after a few complaints are addressed with kindness) self-correcting and resourceful.
With this first offering (enrollment around 340), it has been possible to read and comment on three writing exercises required of all students. The writing is not corrected or graded on quality per se. The project involves writing a fictional story about an object with supernatural powers, and the best stories are selected and used for the next session. There are six opportunities to contribute, but students need only contribute to three. Surprisingly, students have commented that they would like more time to work on this writing project!
The development team at CAC was thoughtful and effective in their setup of the course. They eased the professor into learning the "ins" and "outs" of WebCT management. The producers of WebCT worked hard to repair glitches that came to light during the intensive use of the software by over 300 students. The CAC had chosen this course as one to test the utility of WebCT and other parts of their Web course delivery system. Because student satisfaction has been so high (enrollment in the spring semester offering is already double the fall number), this course will remain one that Don Kunze, the author, his department, and the CAC will be proud to maintain and improve. It offers students tangible benefits while delivering advanced ideas about art criticism. It is both an intellectual challenge and a convenient and flexible way of study.
From a professor's point of view, Web-based course delivery offers distinct advantages. First, it encourages the production of course materials specifically designed for particular learning goals. HTML is a convenient format for developing text integrated with images. Best of all, perhaps, is the chance to link to other sites and to encourage students to use the Web as a research and study tool.
Second, the asynchronous nature of a Web course's work-load can be more time-consuming but the work is more pleasurable. One thinks good things about one's students; one wants to be helpful rather than punitive or corrective. It's easier to identify with students' problems and still keep educational goals uppermost. With a laptop and an 800-number account, an instructor can take trips and still maintain a high degree of service for the course. The instructor is both liberated and engaged.
Third, Web delivery encourages faculty to treat students as, perhaps, smarter and more ambitious than they sometimes seem in the classroom. Respect is a natural by-product of the formality of correspondence. This encourages faculty to be more candid about their own intellectual interests, to convince students of the value of reflection, intellectuality, and scholarly research. The student is able to appreciate intellectuality without having to prove themselves as intellectuals. The students don't feel as if they have to compete with other students to get the instructor's attention. By elevating the tone of even a general education course, it makes teaching attractive for all the good reasons. With aids such as WebCT, the prospect of teaching 400-600 students, one of the classic horrors of the past, is now an exciting challenge. And, the idea of reaching this number in a productive, effective, and stimulating way is even more exciting.
Often, the use of the Web for course delivery is put in terms of what is presumed to be lost: personal contact, interaction, and discussion. Don Kunze found these presumptions to be false. "I see the Web in terms of what is added: intimacy, engagement, curiosity, interactivity, personal fit." To these qualities one must add the utility and efficient service that comes with a well-run Web course. In the ten weeks that the course has run, the professor has responded to many requests to fix things but has not encountered a single complaint about the course. Most students take the time, in their day-to-day correspondence to say nice things about the course. Many students like this kind of delivery and perform well when it's offered. Quality course materials coupled with effective and convenient use produce good educational experiences. "And, when my students are happy, I'm happy."
Why is Windows NT the platform of choice for serving WebCT? For several years we have chosen Windows NT because of:
We are already comfortable running NT for such features as
its native distributed network file system, and we find it
advantageous to manage products such as WebCT from the
Windows environment in which we normally do our day-to-day work. In
this case we were able to dedicate a reasonably modest 400 MHz
IBM MPro workstation running Windows NT Server and IIS
to supporting our WebCT pilot on NT.
In this environment the performance has been good, and that leads us to favor this simplistic approach of dedicating hardware and server systems to specific tasks. The bottom line is that we are getting good performance with a modest investment of hardware, software, and people time.
This Web-based course fits into a long-term strategy to increase both the quality and quantity of general arts education materials to a larger and more diverse student clientele. We want to make these materials available across the Commonwealth and, later, to other universities in the US, Canada, and other English-speaking countries. We look forward to partnerships with other institutions and businesses that can promote introductory education in the arts. Barriers to this include decisions about property rights and protocols for compensating all who contribute to the course production process. Something like the ASCAP system needs to be developed, where free access to course materials can be promoted with a system that fairly distributes income from enrollment to contributing parties. These issues are just beginning to be addressed seriously. We look forward to a rich future where education can expand its horizons and the horizons of its students through electronic media.
For more information contact:
Karen M. Peters
Instructional Designer & Faculty Development Specialist
227C Computer Building
University Park, PA 16802
Voice: 814-863-7763
Fax: 814-863-7049
E-mail: kmp138@psu.edu
Personal Website:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/kmp138
This article was reproduced with permission from Microsoft Corporation.
The Center for Academic Computing is offering its series of "Mastering Microsoft Office" classes during the spring semester at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel. Faculty and staff are encouraged to attend these hands-on workshops which are specifically designed for the Penn State community.
These workshops are three hours in length, light refreshments will be served, and a quick reference guide will be distributed to all workshop participants. The cost of each workshop is $25. See http://cac.psu.edu/training/mso/ on the Web for workshop descriptions and registration information. Following is a list of workshop titles, dates, and times:
More Excel 97
Advanced Charts and Formatting
3/22 -- 1:30-4:30 p.m.
More PowerPoint 97
Enhancing Your Presentation
3/29 -- 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
More Microsoft Access 97
Advanced Forms and Reports
3/29 -- 1:30-4:30 p.m.
Pulling It All Together
Productivity Tips Using MS Office
3/15 -- 1:30-4:30 p.m.
4/5 -- 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Converting Microsoft Office Documents to the Web
4/5 -- 1:30-4:30 p.m.
The Provost recently provided funding for Penn State to purchase fifty Web-based courses which will soon be available for student, faculty and staff use. The Center for Academic Computing is managing the project and is currently prototyping the web-based training (WBT) courses. The fifty courses include sixteen end-user titles and thirty-four information technology professional titles. The WBT will supplement the many hands-on training opportunities that the CAC already offers.
LIAS Seminars
Students and faculty new to the University Libraries will want to attend one of the University Libraries LIAS Seminars, an orientation to the Penn State on-line catalog and gateway to electronic resources. These two-hour seminars are scheduled at convenient times throughout the spring semester.
All sessions last two hours and will be held in Pollock
Library Lab. Although there is no charge, registration is required.
| March 1 (Monday) | 1:00 p.m. |
| March 18 (Thursday) | 10:00 a.m. |
To register, send an e-mail to signup@psulias.psu.edu.
For more information, call Doris Herr at (814) 863-0325, or visit: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/pubinfo/libraryinstru.html .
Net-Newsletters is a service of the Internet Scout Project in the Computer Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The Net-Newsletter service has been provided to the Internet community by Gleason Sackman since May, 1994, and is an off-shoot of Internet Scout's very popular Net-happenings mailing list and Website, also produced by Mr. Sackman since May 1993. The goal of Net-Newsletters is to combine in one place the best of the Internet's regularly published e-zines, allowing users to read or browse all or none of them from the same mailing list or Website. Users who want to keep current on various aspects of Internet development and technology can choose to subscribe to the mailing list, which sends two or more newsletters together in digest format, or to browse the new Website for today's postings or archives of past postings. Each posting contains identifiers telling the user which newsletters are contained in that posting. A listing of each identifier with the name of the publication it refers to is included below. Browse the archive of past postings for newsletters which may fit your needs. A filter system is in place from 3pm CST/CDT Fridays until 8am CST/CDT Mondays to delete incoming postings and prevent a large backlog of messages. Please feel free to send comments, kudos, and suggestions to the editor of Net-Newsletters, Gleason Sackman, at gleason@rrnet.com, or to the director of the Internet Scout Project, Susan Calcari, at scal@cs.wisc.edu.
These are the current newsletters being posted:
ADVCOMP -- Advanced Computing
ALA -- American Library Association
BENTON -- Communications-related Headlines
COMPU -- CompuNotes
CYBER -- CyberTelecom News
DAILY -- Daily News Brief
DUMMY -- Dummies Daily The Internet
EDUPAGE -- Summary Of News About Information Technology
HUT -- Daily Internet Tips Newsletter
INFOBEAT -- News Morning and Afternoon Coffee Edition
INFOBITS -- Infobits
INSIDER -- Seidman's Online Insider
KLEINMAN -- The Kleinman Report
LEEBOW -- Leebow's Friday Letter
NETANN -- Net Announce Newsletter
PBS -- PBS Previews
PICKS -- Weekend Web Picks
QT -- Quick Training Tips
RPTCRD -- UpdateOn America's Education Reform Efforts
SCOUT -- Scout Report
SCOUTSCI -- Scout Report for Science & Engineering
TOUR -- The Internet TourBus A virtual tour of cyberspace
USA -- USA Ed.Net Briefs
WB -- The Weekly Bookmark
WEB -- Your WebScout Newsletter
WEBREF -- WebReference Update Newsletter
list updated Jan 27, 1999 Reproduced with permission.
