A Survey of Internet Tools and Applications for Enhancing University Courses

Table of Contents

The Internet offers an opportunity to change the way education is delivered. Proximity is no longer an essential attribute. New technologies will allow us to extend the classroom to wherever the student is located. ² Advances in information technology offer opportunities for creating customized electronic learning environments. It has been predicted that teachers will see more change in the next ten years than in the last century. ³

Issues for Higher Education

As universities begin to incorporate new technology into courses and campus life, many issues must be addressed.

• How do educational institutions, where place, campus and socialization are very important, become reconciled with an Internet world where place isn't important?
• How will educational materials change?
• How can we distribute knowledge in new & creative ways to students?
• How will our physical facilities change as new technologies are adopted?

The Internet and WWW are having an enormous influence on all aspects of college life. At Ole Miss, students can look up courses in the on-line course schedule, add events to the Web-based campus calendar, set up Web pages for student organizations, e-mail their parents and friends from the convenience of their dorm rooms, and on and on. In this presentation we will focus on how the Internet and WWW are being used to enhance courses.

Tools for Facilitating Communication

E-mail

As of last fall, all students at the University of Mississippi are automatically given e-mail accounts. Two popular e-mail programs used on The University of Mississippi (UM) campus are pine4 and Eudora ⁵.

Listservs

One benefit of using e-mail is the ability to join electronic discussion lists. Electronic discussion lists serve as mail reflectors. Participants subscribe to a list and then all messages sent to that list are forwarded to those subscribed. Listserv (list server) is a special kind of electronic discussion list that provides a uniform interface to many lists. Listserv is one of the oldest types of electronic discussion lists and remains very popular today. Local listserv's can be used effectively in (1) courses to facilitate communication between instructors and class members and (2) small research groups.

There are literally thousands of Listserv's. Finding those related to your interests can be a challenge. This task is made much easier by making use of The Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences located at the URL, http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS/. ⁶

Usenet Newsgroups

Usenet news, an electronic bulletin board service, can be a powerful professional resource as well as an avenue for recreation, enabling you to reach people from all over the world. It offers yet another way to communicate with colleagues and includes information on many topics. Usenet postings are referred to as articles, and articles are categorized by newsgroup. Three popular ways to read participate in Usenet News at UM are (1) using the Netscape browser, (2) use the UNIX "tin" command, and (3) using WinVN. ⁷ DejaNews ⁸ offers a convenient means for searching all newsgroups.

Local newsgroups can be set up to support a class or research group. Illinois State University Fine Arts students participate in Usenet newsgroups to obtain input and assistance from people all over the world for information, problem solving, and even critique of their work. The newsgroups provide informal experts. ⁹

NetForum

NetForum ¹⁰ is a Web based discussion forum system written in the Perl programming language and developed for UNIX systems. Two examples of how NetForum might be used in the context of a course are: The Distance Learning Pharm.D. Forum and The Hypertension Certificate Program Forum. These are used by UM School of Pharmacy professor, Dr. Gary Theilman.

Chat sessions

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) ¹¹ is a (real-time) teleconferencing system which allows users to chat among themselves. It offers yet another forum for facilitating communication among people with common interests.

Music 121: History of Opera at Rhodes College

Students in the course created a Web page on the history of opera. The Web page includes an on-line documentary chronicling the local production of an opera and a dictionary of opera terms.

The MIT Biology Hypertextbook

The Biology Hypertextbook supplements the Introductory Biology course at MIT and includes a chapters on various tooics, a searchable index, self-quizzes, and practice problems.

On-line Writing Labs (OWLs)

On-line Writing Labs typically offer on-line tutorials, grammar and style guides, tools such as dictionaries and thesaurauses, and guides for students for whom English is a second language. Popular services among students are opportunities for interaction with writers and critiques of student writing samples. Two highly successful OWLs can be found at:
• The Purdue University On-line Writing Lab (OWL)
• The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina

The Art Studio Chalkboard at the Southern Arkansas University

The Art Studio Chalkboard is a Web-based resource for art students focusing on the fundamentals of perspective, shading, color and painting.

The CeramicsWeb at the San Diego State University

An experimental web site for ceramics, The CeramicsWeb includes a database of glazes and materials, links to other ceramics web sites, health and safety information, and a variety of educational materials related to ceramics.

Chemical Information at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

This site offers a thorough and well-planned WWW-based syllabus.

English 205 Masterworks of English Literature at The University of Mississippi

This nicely organized site includes an on-line syllabus, policy, quizzes, handouts, and links to other resources.

The Princeton University IdeaLab

IdeaLab is a student initiated seminar focusing on a number of issues in new media design.

Marketing & the Internet at Providence College

This course Web page includes course description, calendar, policies, assignments, and useful links. Student Web projects are featured.

ENGR 106 - Introduction to Computer Tools for Engineers at Purdue University

The Internet and WWW are being used to improve large freshmen engineering classes at Purdue University. ¹² Lecture notes, sample programs, old exams, and answers to submitted questions are placed on-line for student use. During the day, students can send e-mail to a specified e-mail account with an "immediate" response. A class newsgroup helps students answer their own questions.

The University of Texas World Lecture Hall

The World Lecture Hall contains links to pages created by faculty worldwide who are using the Web to deliver class materials.

International E-Mail Tandem Network

International E-Mail-Tandem-Network consists of a growing number of bilingual subnets (implemented with listservs) to help students learn languages.

EDIS 589, Contemporary Issues: Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning

Students collaboratively compare their solutions via the Internet with students at other universities. For example, a New Mexico teacher must find the best way of teaching children of migrant workers who don't speak English. This forum exposes students to settings & contexts not available to them.

Participating universities include:

• The University of Southern Arkansas
• The University of Calgary
• Dakota State University
• The University of Dayton
• Fairmont College
• Hampton University
• The University of Minnesota at Duluth
• North Georgia College
• The University of Northern Iowa
• The University of Nebraska at Kearney
• The University of Nebraska at Omaha
• The University of Virginia
• The University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire

Design Web Chats, Cal Poly State University School of Architecture

Virtual visitors to Design Web Chats provide comments in several venues: e-mail comments directly to the student, evaluation comments to the instructor, and by engaging in synchronous and asynchronous chats with the student designers and other virtual visitors. Quarterly student projects ended in final desk-top video conference presentation with participants dialing in to provide feedback to students' projects face-to- face.

Distributed Tutored Video Instruction

The DTVI provides the vehicle for lectures, demonstrations, critiques and collaborations, and will provide the method for capturing the robustness of communication that allows for collaborative work. DTVI is a learning process that involves taking a small group of students who watch an instructional video in the presence of a tutor. Students work at a computer equipped with a video camera and microphone where they can interact with six to twelve other students, a tutor, and the video instruction from different locations on campus. Students delevop on-line characters.

The Internet University

The Internet University contains links to over 700 on-line courses many links to articles on on-line learning.

History of Ideas Online

A course taught entirely over the Internet by faculty members at Mississippi State University and Centenary College.

EDUCATION 173 Learning Theory and Classroom Practices at The University of California, Irvine

This on-line course allows "any time, any place" learning for teachers or future teachers and uses Web-based instruction to examine principles of learning and their application in K-12 instruction. On-line discussion groups and chats facilitate participant communication.

Principles of Marketing at the University of Maine

This class is conducted entirely over the Internet. The course Web page is nicely designed with course syllabus, course planner, links to student Web pages, a class conference room, and other pertinent links. The Internet format is offered as a means of helping students, as marketers, adapt to changing customer needs.

The Virtual Classroom of English 341: Survey of American Literature 1865 to 1914 at Cal Poly

A class completely on the WWW. All class communication occurs through chatrooms, by means of e-mail and through the Website. Instructors have virtual office hours. Students participate in group WWW explorations/conversations, complete on-line assignements and quizzes, and write individual reports on the material for the week.

The University of Phoenix Online Degree Program

A program that relies on computer communications to link faculty and students from around the world into interactive learning groups. The program is designed specifically for working adult professionals who need to continue their education or complete a college degree.

Applications for Developing On-Line Courses

CyberProf

Developed at the University of Illinois. CyberProf is an intelligent student-computer interface and consists of serveral modules: CyberProf Grading System, CyberProf Problem Set Editor, CyberProf Conference, CyberProf Gradebook, CyberProf Lecture Note Editor, and CyberProf Network TA. CyberProf is not available for distribution yet. For more information, see CyberProf: an Intelligent Human-Computer Interface for Asynchronous Widearea Training and Teaching or CyberProf: A New Way of Teaching and Learning.

Web Course Tool

WebCT is a tool that facilitates the creation of sophisticated World Wide Web-based educational environments. WebCT is in the last stages of beta-testing. Users outside the British Columbia system can have free access to WebCT until August 1997 as part of the beta testing program.

Web Course in a Box

Web Course in a Box (WCB) is an integrated approach to enabling instructors with minimal technical expertise to set up Web pages for a course, including the ability to:
• Create course and faculty/student home pages without knowing HTML
• Create threaded discussion forums with file attachments and archiving
• Upload content from instructor's PC/Mac and manage links to all pages
• Manage student access to pages; batch upload of student registration data
• Create on-line syllabus, class schedule, announcements
Beta versions are available for downloading.

• Technology-based instruction facilitates the direct manipulation of real data using real analysis programs as part of classroom presentations. It addition, it allows the instructor to customize presentations to his/her expertise.
• Web environments allow for a convenient way to organize and present lecture notes.
• Web-based courseware seems to better engage the more motivated students. A 10% improvement in exam score was measured in courses using technology-based instruction.
• Use of technology in teaching facilitates the development of a dynamic core-course curriculum, which can react almost instantaneously to feedback from students and other professors.

The same study identifies several disadvantages of instructional technology:

• Some students are alienated.
• The campus network infrastructure may not be able to support technology-based instruction.
• A huge (and possibly unrewarded) burden is placed on the instructor in terms of preparation time.

Cal Poly Professor Thomas Fowler suggests:

• "There needs to be a vision of how the Web medium can allow you to do things in the classroom that can not be done otherwise. It should be understood that the relationship of the instructor to students will be transformed since information is no longer an artifact, but a constantly changing stream that contributes to knowledge."
• "Additionally, the Web allows the ability to more efficiently share the process of education or information with greater numbers of persons."

Resources

New Chalk

A Bi-Weekly Featuring Instructors' Use of Networked Technologies.

New Tools for Teaching

This page leads to others that introduce, describe, and exemplify new Internet-based resources for teaching that are already available and in the main astonishingly easy to use.

References

2. Raymond K. Neff, "The Classroom of the Future," CAUSE Information Resources Library, < http://cause-www.colorado.edu/information-resources/ir-library/abstracts/cnc9548.html >, 1995.

3. Alistair B. Fraser, "The Web - A Classroom Sans Walls," Syllabus, November-December 1996.

4. University of Washington, "Pine Information Center," < http://www.cac.washington.edu/pine/ >, January 1997.

5. "Eudora," < http://www.eudora.com >, January 1997.

6. Dianne Kovacs, "The Directory of Scholarly and Professional E-Conferences," < http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS/ >, January 1997.

7. Michael Downs, "WinVN Newsreader Home Page," < http://www.ksc.nasa.gov/software/winvn/winvn.html >, January 1997.

8. "DejaNews - The Source for Internet Newsgroups," < http://www.dejanews.com/ >, January 1997.

9. John F. Chizmar and David B. Williams, "Altering Time and Space through Network Technologies to Enhance Learning," < http://www.cause.org/information-resources/ir-library/html/cem9634.html >, January 1997.

10. University of Wisconsin, "NetForum," < http://www.biostat.wisc.edu/netforum/ >, January 1997.

11. Joseph Lo, "EFnet #IRChelp help archive," < http://www.irchelp.org/ >, January 1997.

12. Goronka Bjedov, "Utilizing the World Wide Web and the Internet to Facilitate Learning in Large Classes," 1995 Frontiers in Education Conference, 1995.

13. G. D. Bothun, "Teaching Via Electrons: Networked Courseware At The University Of Oregon," < http://www.cause.org/information-resources/ir-library/html/cem9648.html >, January 1997.