Photo: Rick Ells

This is a quick directory (used in numerous presentations) for the sites which make up the major ways in which I have used the available E-mail and Web page capabilities for my classes at the UW.

• Preamble: None of my undergraduate classes in which Internet tools have been used are outright "Internet classes". It is made clear to students that no prior electronic background and, subsequently, only minimal electronic skills (related to the use of E-mail, UWIN, UNIX and browsers) are required. However, there is frequent reference to Internet activities in all of my classes either due to geography's inherent concern with telecommunications as a mode of spatial transaction or due to economic geography's increasing interest in the diversity of information-related services, occupations, jobs and careers.

• Purposes and Objectives of the Use of Web Sites in my Classes (A Summary):
  1. Provide the larger context: Any 10-week course which claims any degree of depth represents necessarily only a slice of a larger context and discipline. A system of Web sites facilitates such a broader perspective.
  2. Add diversity to the presentation of class content (in addition to the use of lectures, in-class discussions and hard-copy readings).
  3. Facilitate and improve outside-class communication between instructor and students thereby, for example, reducing the need for intervening, intermediating teaching assistants.
  4. Reduce necessity for lengthy Q & A periods dealing with logistic matters thereby saving valuable class time and limiting dependence on instructor to core instructional functions.
  5. Provide a seminar or small group atmosphere for discussion even in larger classes and encourage participation of students who might otherwise not participate.
  6. Accommodate special needs of a student population with highly diverse backgrounds and skill levels (i.e. create multi-level learning environments).
  7. Integrate the teaching of a broader range of library- and internet related resource skills into the presentation of subject areas.
  8. Provide opportunity to students to experiment with hypertextual presentation of projects.
  9. Encourage students to accept partial responsibility for their own education and ownership of their learning processes through active, electronically enhanced learning experiences and creation of a learning infrastructure in their own system of Web sites.
  10. Provide more continuity between quarters by permitting preparations before and follow-ups after any particular 10-week course
  11. Promote collaboration and acquisition of teamwork skills.
  12. Instill in students the idea that they -- through their work on class projects -- are making contributions not just to themselves, their grades or my office paper collection but to their peers and, possibly, larger segments of society.
  13. Enable students to organize their daily (home-job-campus) logistics more efficiently in time & space
  14. Enable students to gain valuable computer communication skills
  15. Facilitate boundary-spanning communication and activities between disciplines and, as importantly, between class and community. In Economic Geography, such activities include student research, internships and Service Learning / Community Outreach arrangements.

• It all started with E-mail use in class some years ago: There is a page on appropriate E-mail use in my introductory lecture class (Geog.207).

• Class-related Web Sites and their Uses:
  • My classes are part of a learning program in Economic & Business Geography which has a great deal of internal cohesion. This page permits students to recognize this larger context of the discipline beyond a particular class.
  • This is an "electronic survival" page designed to help students at different electronic levels to get to the next level through self-study.

  • Syllabi:
    • Geography 207 [Economic Geography] Winter '96
    • Geography 350 [Local Economies and Market Areas] Spring '96
    • Geography 450 [Location Theories] Fall '96
    • Geography 498 Undergraduate Seminar in "Economic Geography and the Internet" Fall 1996

  • Weekly Agendas: The summary entries for weekly lectures, readings and resources are broken up into more detailed weekly "agendas" (examples):
    • Geography 207
    • Geography 350
    • Geography 450

    While students are promised that the Syllabus will not change during the quarter, no such promises are made for the weekly "Agenda" which remains a dynamic document right up to class-time. These agendas are usually printed out and distributed at the beginning of the week.

  • Thematic Resource Pages providing seed sources for students' specializations and participation in projects. Students are urged to take part in the further development and maintenance of these pages.

  • Pages for Class Messages and Announcements: These pages serves as an archive for e-mail messages to the class making it easier for students to go back to earlier messages without having to save such messages in their own disorganized Email file systems:
    • Geography 207
    • Geography 207 (1997)
    • Geography 350
    • Geography 450
    • Geography 498

  • Student Home and Project Pages
    • Geography 498 (Fall 1995)
    • Geography 207(Winter 1996), || (Winter 1997)
    • Geography 350 (Spring 1996) Given our short quarter and the lack of Internet background of students in early 1996, particularly Evening Degree Program students, it was unrealistic to assume that students would be able to have their own project pages up and running in time. Thus, I started a Web site ("Home-Away-From-Home Page") for each student in my own directory which students could then copy into their account (if they wanted to) once they were ready to do so.
    • Geography 450 (Fall 1996)
    • Contribution & Collaboration Matrix: Geography 498 (Fall 1996)

  • Collaboration on projects and other work in groups outside class has been negatively affected by students' increasingly demanding work schedules off-campus. At the same time, pedagogic insights and economic necessity point into the direction of collaboration and peer education. Well-developed personal home pages and project-oriented academic Web sites of students permit ready access to the kind of peer information which is breaking down barriers and facilitate student interaction. This is the Collaborative Group Membership Page for my ongoing class (Geography 207, Winter 1997)

  • Cyber Discussions: Early evidence suggests that Web sites are excellent platforms for electronic class discussions supplementing or continuing live discussions in class. My trials involved students sharing their enthusiasm and frustrations with electronic communication in class. I have begun to use forms [developed by Charles Hendricksen, Rick Ells and Gabriel Chrisman] with which the students can send their discussion contributions (e.g. initial statements, rebuttals and final statements) directly to designated Web sites. In an earlier trial in a larger class, these contributions arrived via E-mail and had to be aggregated and transferred (via ftp) to the discussion page. I foresee and plan to modify these forms for use in a variety of different contexts.

    * * IT IS IN THIS INTERACTIVE (INTRANET) REALM WHERE I SEE THE GREATEST POTENTIAL PEDAGOGIC BENEFITS OF FUTURE WEB SITE USE.

    • Geography 207 1996 || 1997
    • Geography 350 (Spring 1996)
    • Geography 450 (Fall '96)
    • Geography 498 (Fall 1996)

  • Other Class Logistics:
    • For Geography 207, I had secured prior collaboration commitments and promises from a variety of "Resource Persons" to help with electronic and other logistics. The most crucial person among these has been Anne Zald who happens to be both a UWIRED-Program specialist and the designated Geography Librarian.

    • Efficient scheduling of time spent on Campus appears to be a particular concern of Economic Geography students. Thus, I have experimented with an on-line appointment form for face-to-face midterm reviews and discussion of student projects, as well as with an optional "remote component" in Geography 207 and, less formally, in my other classes.

      The asynchronous nature of E-mail and Web page communication is well known. Why not combine these temporal conveniences with "flexible education spaces" (or partially remote learning environments) into more adaptable educational time-space continua? With increased availability of home modems and computer access at public libraries in the outer fringes of the University's commuter hinterlands, a reduction in commuting needs for students coming from greater distances or subjected to tighter work/study schedules should improve learning climates.

    • Notebooks
    • Glossaries
    • Recycled Examination Questions
    • Books on Reserve
    • Service Learning Component (organized in collaboration with the Carlson Public Service Office).

  • Evaluation & Grades:
    • Detailed and continuous monitoring of the success, weaknesses and failures of the experiences with these new modes of communication is vital, particularly since there is relatively little documentation of prior experiences available. University supplied evaluation forms are designed to serve different purposes [measuring instructor popularity and student happiness] and cannot be used to follow a student's academic and electronic attitudes, preferences, needs and, particularly, learning outcomes during the quarter.
    • In Geography 207, in addition to conventional testing of course content, students were asked to fill out and submit hard copy or electronic questionnaires related to their prior computer and Internet background and anxieties and their end-of-quarter progress and feelings toward electronic communication.
    • Collaboratory "Labs" associated with my classes are conducted with the help of validation lab-sheets:
      • Week 2 (Geog.207) and
      • Week 4 (Geog.207).
      • Week 6 (Geog.207).
      • Demonstration of E-Mail, UWIN, WWW and Library Skills (Geog.450)
      These and other sources of information were used to track students during the quarter as well as to assess the successes and failures of various class components. However, this massive collection of data not only exhausted students' willingness to fill out questionnaires and was time consuming, but also has otherwise only rather limited value. First, there were no resources available to evaluate the data fast enough and systematically; even if the funds were available, the technology and students preparations, attitudes and expectations are presently changing too rapidly to make large-scale data analyses very meaningful. Thus, the instructor's trials and errors, the immediate feedback and personal experiences were far more useful for making quick adjustments and advancing the trial-and-error cycles in quick succession.
    • Students often seem obsessed with wanting to know the details of my grading policy. A sufficiently detailed page on grading policy (for all of my classes, still "under construction") will ensure a consistent message and save class time for more important subjects.

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• Further References:
  • John M. Barrie and David E. Presti, "The World Wide Web as an Instructional Tool" http://www.sciencemag.org/science/scripts/display/full/274/5286/371.html
  • Other Innovative Education Sites

Please forward your comments, suggestions and questions (use this form, click here) related to this document and the issue of using electronic communication technologies in class contexts. Thanks!

Go to Krumme (Home) || Economic & Business Geography || UWIRED Program
March 1997 [krumme@u.washington.edu]