Teaching via 
the Internet

A Workshop Sponsored by
Institute for Teaching and Learning
The California State University
Teacher-Scholar 
Summer Conference 98
California State University, 
Long Beach
New Media Center
July 6-7, 1998

 
Course Elements:
TEXT
 

You need to decide whether you will use 

  1. a print textbook for your course, supplemented by on-line elements, 
  2. on-line readings in place of a print text, or 
  3. some combination of print and on-line readings. 

A few publishers are now experimenting with Web sites they produce and maintain to supplement widely used textbooks for popular courses. Some publishers have also experimented with CD-ROMs sold with their textbooks. See what's available in your field to determine whether you could use these existing technologies, rather than developing your own from scratch. Unfortunately, these experiments seem to be limited to a few courses with huge enrollments nationwide to support the development costs (e.g., introductory texts in political science and history). 


Print textbook

Advantages: 

  • The copyright issues have been solved by the author/editor of your print textbook, just as they are in a traditional course. 
  • Finding and organizing material for the course will be much easier if you continue to use a print text. 
Disadvantages: 
  • Students unfamiliar with the Internet might try to get through the course without learning the on-line skills necessary to use your Internet elements; the print textbook tempts some into thinking it's all they need to learn. 
  • Print texts rapidly grow out-of-date in some fields and you will forfeit the opportunities of up-to-the-minute course materials possible on the Internet. 
On-line reading

Advantages: 

  • You can take advantage of the most up-to-the-minute material available in your field and can add/revise your readings during the semester as new materials become available. 
  • Your students will be forced to master the necessary technical skills to participate in the course. 
  • You can experiment with the use of hyperlinks between your assigned readings and other materials to take advantage of the WWW, and making reading more interesting and interactive. 
Disadvantages: 
  • Copyright restrictions might make it difficult for you to put appropriate reading on your own site. 
  • Page numbers for print-outs of on-line readings will vary, depending on the options set by each user for font size, type style, margins, etc. In order to make reference to certain passages in the reading in your class discussions and assignments, you will need to devise an alternative citation system - sections, chapters, and/or paragraphs should be numbered, e.g. 
  • Although you can set up hyperlinks to assigned reading on other people's sites to include copyrighted material, it might be difficult to construct an entire course syllabus this way. There are still huge gaps in the resources available on the WWW. 

Examples:


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This page prepared and maintained by Julie Van Camp, Associate Professor of Philosophy, California State University, Long Beach. Your comments and questions are welcome.
E-MailE-mail: jvancamp@csulb.edu
Copyright Julie C. Van Camp 1998. This Web page may be freely reproduced in any medium, so long as this complete copyright and permission notice is included with any such reproductions.

Last updated: July 5, 1998