Using the Internet for Effective Teaching and Learning

Members

Faculty Chair:: David Weaver, CGCC

District Support:: Deborah Krumtinger

Charge

The Internet group is charged with surveying the ever-changing landscape of the Internet and staking out learning communities along the way. The group will explore the applications and implications of the Internet to effective teaching and learning and record their explorations to help others do the same.

Discussion Highlights

What we did

We met numerous times in various formats: from the grand Ocotillo Kick-Off to a salsa and chip fest at Macayo's Depot Cantina (our last meeting); from a hands-on meeting at the District Training Center to a meeting via the Virtual (Video) Conference Network.

Some also worked on projects:

developing/expanding World Wide Web (WWW) documents for classroom use;
developing/expanding WWW documents for entire campuses and for our libraries; sand,
training others in groups large and small on the basic uses for the Internet.

What we think

We think that our original charge was mis-focused. A whole pot of coffee at Borders Books would be insufficient to last through a browsing of the Internet-related titles they have on display. The numbers of Internet magazines, special reports, books, courses, listservs, and on-line training opportunities is burgeoning at a phenomenal rate. Merely documenting our personal activities would be but a drop in a huge bucket.

We think that our committee suffered from a lack of Internet experience homogeneity. We had folks join us originally who were complete novices while we also had some seasoned surfers. The former group was looking for ideas on how to get started using the Internet in the classroom, while the latter was concerned with how to use NetScape forms and getting SLIP accounts and the like. Our meeting discussions often evolved into fairly technical discussions which were beyond the interest of novices.

We think that the range of our discussions fell into four major categories:

How to get started?: This is a training issue directly related to the on-going information literacy debates. What do our students need to know? How do we integrate this information literacy into the curriculum? How can we help novice surfers get started without having to spend the several hundred hours required to create neat and useful hyper-textual documents for the WWW?
How to do the fancy stuff?: While this has training implications as well, it seems more of a user's group/support group issue. Maybe the Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (MCLI) should serve as the support organization for these activities, rather than an Ocotillo committee.
How do we deal with issues of rights, responsibilities, etiquette, etc.?: Should all students have the right to internet access? At what level (e-mail? gopher? Internet Relay Chat [IRC]? WWW?)? Do we, as educators, assume that students know their responsibilities while using the net? What about issues of implications and ramification of their use of the net (vis a vis, threats, harassment, anonymity, etc.)? What about ethics, netiquette, and the like?
How do we deal with the various issues of hardware/software, external networks, access, etc.?: There used to be an External Networks Users Group that dealt with many of these issues, and we believe that we need a similar group today. We need knowledgeable folks from ITS and from the campuses to talk about how we can provide common access for students and faculty from their classrooms and from their homes. We need to talk about whether it makes sense to contract out our external networks to organizations like America On Line.; We also discussed the delivery of instruction via the internet. There is an Ocotillo committee concerned with Independent Learning Access that could help with these discussions. If we offer courses through the net, how do we deal with tuition? In-state and out-of-state classifications take on new meaning in cyber space. How would we handle other organizations teaching our students ENG 101 via the internet?

What next?

As you can see, we had discussions covering a wide range of issues. We think that any single Ocotillo committee will find its plate too full if the members attempt to address all of these issues. So, we do not recommend that the Using Internet for Effective Teaching and Learning continue into next year in its present form. We will use the Ocotillo Retreat to refine and focus our thoughts and decide how to best use our talents and energies.

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