The use of instructional technology as a classroom tool for improving upon course curriculum and instruction is an unproven tool. At present there is lots of potential, talk, workshops and ideas but few actual implementations. There is also an unfortunate tendency for potential practicioneers to shy away from implementation because they are unclear if there will be an effective increase in either the quality of the instruction and/or student learning. Such apprehensions are natural and can only be assuaged by objective inspection of a few test cases. A current discipline-specific listing of Web based courses offered by various universities can be found at the The World Lecture Hall . This is an important resource for anyone considering developing Web pages as the principle lecture format. One of the main lessons to be learned is that you don't have to reinvent the wheel but instead can use and build upon what others have developed. In this case, a truly collaborative curriculum can be developed by assorted experts in the field.

I consider my experience on this campus over the last two years as a good test case. In the process I am able to isolate both positive and negative aspects of the adoption of this new classroom/learning model. My own opinion, contrary to repeated perception by others, is entirely neutral - I do not yet know if this form of instructional technology is effective. I do know, however, that it is not worse that the traditional way of classroom presentation of course material (i.e. chalk or acetate). I also strongly believe in the paradigm shift that this technology potentially offers. We certainly have a means for involving students more directly in the course material.

There are two distinct components of instructional technology which are not being adequately seperated in recent discussions that I have heard. In my report below I will keep them separate. These two issues are:

• Computer Projection as a means of delivering the lecture material inside the lecture room.
• Student interactivity with the course material, the professor and other students outside the lecture room.

Historical Perspective

My main teaching committment at the University of Oregon involves large introductory astronomy classes. As my other job as a professional astronomer, I have acquired two decades of professional quality data. I think its quite important, and helps to make the class more real, if one can integrate their own professional research into the course curriculum. Prior to the use of network in the classroom, the only way I could do this was to bring in a 35-mm camera to my office, display my data/images on the screen of my Sun Workstation, take a picture and hope that a decent slide could be made. I would then show the slide in class. So my desire to get network and computer projection into the classroom stemmed from the need to have a more direct interface to my own data. To accomplish this. three components are required:

• Network to the Classroom
• Presentation Software running on some platform
• Projection Equipment

Getting network to the classroom is relatively easy these days (call Dale at 6-1745). Good presentation software now exists (but didn't when I started this - see below) and for most purposes the Web browser itself is an excellent means of presenting material ( example lecture here ). The third requirement was rather difficult to obtain (and the lack of such devices on campus currently is further testimony to this) but through perserverance money from various sources was secured to purchase a high quality LCD panel .

So in the Fall of 1993 I taught my first course using a computer in the classroom. This course was Physics 161 and there were about 80 students. There was no World Wide Web, http, or netscape in those days. I did all my lectures in Tex (an arcane scientific word-processing language) and the output was color postscript files which were projected to class via the tool Ghostview ( example here ). The postscript files were also placed on my anonymous ftp server . In principle the students could fetch those files and print them out on a PostScript printer. Needless to say, this didn't work very well. As an IN class presentation tool, there was not much flexibility. Images/data were shown using the tool XV and hence two programs had to be run simultaneously. Furthermore, the lack of student access/understanding of PostScript printers meant that most were not able to fetch the lecture notes and besides, there was nothing they could do about fetching any images which were shown.

In the Winter I moved to a different combination: the use of XV and XFIG (XFIG is to UNIX what Paintbrush is to Windows or MacPaint to Mac). As a lecture tool this provided much more flexibility as one could integrate text and simple diagrams together. However, there was no way for the students to access this formatted material outside of class, and the conversion of XFIG documents to PostScript is painful and wouldn't have resulted in significant student access for the reasons cited above. By spring term, I was just starting to use the Web as means for organizing and delivering lecture material but the bulk of spring term was spent in XFIG and XV.

By the start of the 1994 academic year I was confident in the Web browser's ability to be an excellent means of organizing a lecture. The use of hypertext significantly improves functionality and allows incorporation of a diverse range of source material into one interface. With the student galdstone accounts becoming available at the same time, it became clear that this was a method that one could use to build a lecture and have it archived for later student access. I was able to convince a couple of other colleagues in the Physics Department to adopt a similar strategy and by now there are several Physics Web courses . There are now faculty in other disciplines that are apparently interested in this approach, with some actual implementation . As we look forward to the coming of another Academic year, it seems important at this point to evaluate this overall approach.

Positive Points

IN Class

• Lecture Material is much better organized. Gone are the days of lost or illegible overheads. Slides can now be effectively shown as linked images inside the Web page. Multimedia presentations are certainly possible and indeed I use Greenhouse Effect and another one on Hydropower . I used both of these documents extensively in my Alternative Energy and Class .

• Students appeared a lot more relaxed in class. Rather than incessantly taking notes, unable to filter between what was important and what was dogmeat, students concentrated on listening to how things fit together, knowing that they could access the actual lecture notes and other material outside of class. This increase in student comprehension of the material was reflected in improved exam performance.

• Given the flexibility of hypertext, once the basic infrastructure is built for the course then future offerings will require only moderate tweaking. You will also find that, since your course is out there for inspection by all, others in your discipline will steal your ideas but occassionaly contribute a good one of their own. Team curriculum development then becomes a real possibility.

• Particularly motivated students are easier to identify as they will interact with the professor, electronically, in a way that shows genuine interest. In several cases, I was able to direct these students to other material that we would not cover in lecture and together we were able to probe the subject at a deeper level. This was probably the most rewarding aspect to this approach. I seriously doubt that I would have recognized those students in the traditional classroom setting (at least I never have in the past).

  OUT of Class

• Students can interact with the Web based material and in some cases actually think about the material. In turn, based on that thinking, they can formulate relevant questions and ask them (anonymously) electronically. I received several e-mails a week from students asking questions. In a lecture class of 100, there are hardly ever any IN class questions other than the inevitable "Will this be on the test?"

• One can design exercises which require the student to find the relevant information on the Internet. This has lead to student construction of their own Web pages in response to the assigment ( example ). This in turn lead other students to find the information from those student web pages. In this way, the students can help build curriculum content and become a resource for their fellow students. Collaborative learning results as well as learning to use the network effectively.

• Students have access to their records and hence can know their class standing. An example forms based access can be found here .

Negative Points

IN Class
• Computer Projection is not easy. With a passive matrix panel, for instance, you can easily loose track of the pointing device on the projected wall/screen. Good lightning control is a must. If your display is not crisp, with good contrast for the entire class to see, then no one will think this is a good idea. Moreover, it takes practice to effectively understand how to organize and deliver material while talking and clicking at the same time.

• It takes time to turn paper notes, overheads, etc into an html document. If you want to include original graphics that takes even more time. A fairly substantial time committment is required should faculty choose to develop Web based instructional materials. Since there is no guarantee of success this becomes quite a bit of a gamble for the individual faculty member.

• The students will initially become very frustrated and see absolutely no point in any of this. They will not willingly embrace technology/network as a classroom resource. The reality is, that you have to force it on them.

  OUT of Class

• Students initially will have enormous difficulty using the tools of the network. Even getting them to type netscape when they login to galdstone seems to be a major undertaking. As a result, they will be mad at the instructor for not providing them enough guidance on how to do these basic tasks. It takes about 1/2 the term for more than 50% of the class to become proficient at just the very basics. In the interim, expect a lot of bitching.

• Students will eventually become frustrated due to the lack of network access points on campus. To date, this is not a large problem as, during any one term, only about 200 students were involved in courses where the material could be accessed outside of class via the Web. Issues of bandwidth and functionality of web browsers seem not to be understood by the students. As a result, they believe that access from home will be just like they see the material being accessed in the actual lecture. This will create another whole round of bitching.

• Students insistence on effortless learning is in abrupt and direct conflict with Web-based instruction which places the burden of accessing the material directly on the Student (possibly this should be a positive point?). As a result, a subset of the students will insist that they can't "absorb" material when it is delivered like this.

• Lack of adequate resources and support for faculty development of Web pages inevitably lead to inferior curriculum development. If the major component of your "Web" based course is duplication of material that could be handed out on paper then your not using the medium to its potential and the students will not understand its inherent value. There is a larger potential for the students to be turned off by the approach due to low content value of the course web pages. This would then be a self-fulfilling prophecy that web based instruction does little to enhance learning and interest. Its important not to get caught in this trap.

• The technology is changing faster than I can keep up with. I just started learning HTML when it is now in the process of being made obsolete by VRML . Overheads and chalk never change ...

• At this point it is not clear how Web-based instruction and the design of Web-based courses is counted when it comes to Promotion and Tenure consideration. This is a potentially serious problem for Junior faculty members as Web-based instructional activities can be a large time sink.

Reality Check

• Based on evaluations of my courses, I would say that 80--85% of the students enjoyed the presentation of course material via networked technology. The remaining 15--20% couldn't stand it.

• There has been no decrease in class attendance. If any thing, it has increased as students realize that they need to come to class to understand the context of the lecture pages. This reinforces the very important notion that web pages are NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR TRADITIONAL LECTURES. The development of Web based course material has very little to do with distance-learning, despite the rhetoric to the contrary.

• Students have to be forced to use the network. If left on their own they won't. The most discouraging aspect of this entire approach for me has been the failure of the students to self-organize themselves into peer-support groups on how to use the technology and to use this medium to form electronic consensus and have more direct input to the way the class is going and which material is being covered. As a result, I think the principle success of Instructional Technology to date, lies in improvement in the way lecture material is presented. The opportunity for students to use the technology to interact in a more fundamental way with the course and its material has only been seized by the most motivated students. The rest of the students, remain the silent (inertial) mass.

Recommendations

• A program for faculty incentives to develop Web-based course material must be developed. If not, other Universities will do those courses for us. The administration needs to understand that if a faculty member develops web-based curriculum material that eventually reaches an audience of millions then this is an effective form of outreach, much like writing a book. Teaching release time for this development effort seems prudent.

• A 1/2 day Internet training course for incoming students should be setup during orientation week. Students have to realize that network is now part of the campus learning infrastructure but that infrastructure requires ON campus access to be most effectively used.

• Individual academic departments should be provided the resources to have one commonly used classroom equipped with a good computer projection system.

• A common interface to the student's internet account should be provided in all student computer labs. This interface is known as X-windows and good X-window emulation now exists for both Macs and PCs. The idea of having 100 pentium PCs in the library, without any X-window emulation, is not providing much of service to our students. Functional ON campus network access for the 15,000 student user community simply has to be increased.

• One HTML/VRML authoring-tool computer lab should be set up. There are good authoring tools for all platforms so the actual platform is irrelevant. Students need a place to go to complete a potential course assignment which requires them to construct an HTML document. Faculty need a place to go for occassional help as well. A resource person that understands Web authoring should be employed full time for that lab. In principle, the New Media Center could provide this service.

Summary Remark

This last year was an experiment in network access for students and network delivery of course material. What happened? Approximately 10,000 students got accounts on Gladstone (thus necessitating the purchase of Gladstone's 2 and 3). There are approximately 500 individual student pages on Gladstone/Darkwing. While many of these are junk, it does show the growth. The next year is critical - will we see a commensurate growth in Web-based course curriculum and instruction? In my own case, I plan to continue to move as hard and fast as I can on the technology front and hope to be employing video server technology in the classroom next fall. For me, Instructional Technology has made teaching and course development fun again.