FACULTY WORKSHOP: USING INTERNET RESOURCES IN CLASSES

Using E-Mail Lists

Using Archived Messaging

Using Synchronous Chat

Using Static Web Pages

• Internet-Based Tools for Education
• Online Learning Environments Compared

These two articles complement the xeroxed articles included in your mailing:

• The first article in your mailing will help you to set the goals and methods of the VRoma Project within a larger educational context: Jan Hawkins, "Dilemmas," Education and Technology: Reflections on Computing in Classrooms, ed. Charles Fisher, David C. Dwyer, and Keith Yocam (Jossey-Bass, 1996), 35-50. This is an overview article reflecting on the disappointments, challenges, and promise of digital technology in relation to educational reform in the United States. Hawkins summarizes the dilemmas and tensions in an educational system that is still based primarily upon a "transmittal of information" concept, discusses new challenges for education stemming from changes in society and technology, and proposes some reasons why the information revolution has thus far failed to transform the educational system. It is interesting to note that Hawkins' suggestions regarding the kinds of positive contributions to educational change she thinks technology might make (including promoting critical conversation and community among educators, creating complex and meaningful tasks for learners, facilitating distributed teaching and collaborative learning, and enabling new forms of assessment) dovetail closely with the goals of this workshop and the VRoma Project as a whole.
• The second article explains the concept of "self-regulated learning": David W. Brooks, "Promotion of Self-Regulated Learning," Web-Teaching: A Guide to Designing Interactive Teaching for the World Wide Web (Plenum Press, 1997), 135-44. Brooks is a chemist who now teaches in graduate programs in education at the University of Nebraska--Lincoln. Self-regulated learners actively control their behavior, motivation, and cognitive methods in order to accomplish learning tasks; the best self-regulators can teach themselves. Most faculty have become self-regulated learners; most contemporary students are not. Brooks maintains that web-based technology is full of pitfalls for those who are not self-regulated learners and briefly discusses ways in which teachers can structure internet assignments to help students develop into self-regulated learners.
• The third article shows how individual teachers have actually used many of the internet tools discussed above: Ferdi Serim and Melissa Koch, "Students in the Internet Classroom," NetLearning: Why Teachers Use the Internet (Songline Studios, 1996), 99-147. Although most of the examples are drawn from lower grades and the book is written in a straightforward, how-to style, this chapter includes some valuable educational principles and interesting methods related to teaching with internet technology (e.g., inquiry- and project-based learning, collaboration, real-world research, communication with experts, acquiring information literacy, student publication on the web, and methods of assessment). We hope that reading these examples will help you generate ideas about how to adapt these principles and methods for older students.

For those with the time and interest to explore them, the following on-line resources provide useful insights into various topics:

• Evaluation. Peg Syverson of the University of Texas posted this information about the methods of evaluation in her writing courses, providing an excellent example of how internet technology can enable new forms of assessment of students. For a more detailed discussion, see her pages describing the Online Learning Record, which include a number of short, evaluative articles.
• Student's Guide to Research with the WWW. Craig Branham of Saint Louis University posted this resource for his writing students, but it would be useful for students doing any type of research on the web.
• The Internet Class Page. Paula Davidson of the University of North Carolina-Asheville has prepared this excellent compilation of resources for her class on the internet; it includes explanations, examples, and links relating to all types of internet technology.
• "Lingua Unlimited: Enhancing Pedagogical Reality with MOOs", by Cynthia Haynes and Jan Rune Holmevik. Kairos (A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments) 1.2 (Summer 1996). This article uses Lingua MOO to explain many of the pedagogical possibilities of MOOs.
• "Synchroni/CITY: On-line Collaboration, Research and Teaching in MOOSpace", a 1995 MLA paper by Cynthia Haynes and Jan Rune Holmevik. Presented in the form of a MOO conversation, this article describes how the authors' collaboration led to the creation of Lingua MOO and the development of various types of pedgogical and collaborative tools.
• Collaborative Spaces and Education, by Daniel Anderson and Joi Lynne Chevalier. These pages include both theoretical and practical discussions of the educational uses of MOOs and Web pages. You must have a frames-capable browser to access the pages and the necessity of continually jumping between frames can be annoying, but the the detailed examples of how the authors used the technology in specific courses are intriguing, particularly Chevalier's creation and use of a MOO called "Foreign Realms."
• New Chalk: A Bi-Weekly Featuring Instructors' Use of Networked Technologies. Includes brief discussions of many different topics related to teaching with technology.
• VRoma Links for Participants. Lists further articles and related resources.