Wednesday, April 5, 2000

Web Site Provides Advice on Teaching With Technology By JEFFREY R. YOUNG A new World Wide Web site offers a guided tour of virtual classrooms throughout cyberspace, highlighting a range of interactive components that professors can use in their own online courses. The site, the Virtual Resource Site for Teaching with Technology, is one of the newest "how-to" guides for building virtual classrooms. It was developed by University of Maryland University College, and it is designed to be used by instructors anywhere. The focus of the site is a set of 40 examples of assignments or exercises used in online courses at various institutions. The examples are organized by the type of technology used, as well as by the type of learning the professors were trying to encourage. A quick glance at the site demonstrates that not all online courses are created equal. Methods used to teach virtual courses range from text-based methods, such as posting lecture transcripts, to explaining concepts through interactive games and other advanced techniques. A professor looking for ideas for virtual field trips, for instance, can find examples from physics, geology, biotechnology, and statistics courses. The biotechnology example relies mainly on text and images, while the statistics example uses interactive Java "applets," small software programs that run inside of a user's Web browser. Creators of the site say they want to encourage instructors to design their online courses with teaching objectives in mind, rather than technical wizardry. "What we were hoping sets our site apart is we really start with the pedagogy and the course objectives," says Barbara Kaplan, executive director of the university's Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, who helped develop the site. "A lot of people become very enamored with the idea that, 'Oh gee, I can put a picture of myself lecturing online,'" she adds. "But just because you have the capacity to do it doesn't mean it's the most educational or entertaining way to do it." The site is short on detailed information about actually creating the kinds of teaching tools it describes, but in some cases it provides links to other sites that offer step-by-step instructions. The goal of the site, says Ms. Kaplan, is "mainly to get ideas of how you can integrate multimedia effectively." Bell Atlantic is supporting the site with a two-year, $30,000 grant. A second section of the site, which will further explore issues of online pedagogy, is expected to be added by the end of the year. The site is the latest in a growing number of efforts to help professors make the transition from physical to virtual classrooms. Other examples include Pennsylvania State University's Faculty Development 101 course, which is taught online, as well as similar courses offered by commercial providers like OnlineLearning.net and University Access. A number of books on the subject have also been published in the past year, including The Online Teaching Guide (Allyn & Bacon, 1999), Designing and Teaching an On-Line Course (Allyn & Bacon, 1999), and The Wired Professor: A Guide to Incorporating the World Wide Web in College Instruction (New York University Press, 1999). Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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