SITE MAP EDUCATION PAGE ECON & BUS GEOG RESOURCES A-Z INDEX


Sabbatical Plans for 1998

(http://faculty.washington.edu/krumme/projects/sabbat.html)


My plans for my 1998 sabbatical leave include:

(a) updating myself in and learning new educational Internet technologies, developing further educational applications for this technology in my undergraduate classes (207, 350, 450, 498), and participating in the Department's (and -- if desired -- other university programs') efforts to develop resource oriented, interactive and collaborative Internet projects for use in class contexts. I expect to work closely with the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology.
(b) return to a set of research ideas which moved into the background two years ago due to my then emerging, time-intensive electronic communications interests.
(c) pursue general academic interest, i.e. catching up with recent literature in my areas of teaching and research: industrial and organizational geography and regional economic development (theory, applications in Europe, etc.)


Summary of My Past Internet Related Teaching Activities:

During the last four years, I have been involved in the following undergraduate teaching efforts and initiatives:

During this time and in conjunction with my regular classes and most of these above opportunities, I was able to develop an increasingly comprehensive approach to the use of electronic communication technologies in undergraduate education. It began with the course use of E-mail (described in a paper jointly authored with Professor Edward Delaney which can be accessed under faculty.washington.edu/krumme/projects/jghevers.html). Since Spring quarter 1995, I have built an extensive, highly integrated Internet-based approach into my teaching program in Economic & Business Geography. The Internet dimension of my classes includes:
(a) a "student-friendly" system of access to supplementary sources and readings, as well as seed references (Library & Internet) for student projects [/~krumme/resources/resources.html] for a wide variety of themes which play a role in my teaching program and my students' research.
(b) a rapidly increasing pool of simple but effective interactive tools (forms) for feedback, discussions, self-evaluation and examinations
(c) a process of introducing students to writing in the Internet environment at a pace which suits individual students, starting with digital submissions (E-mail) of weekly writing assignments (to be attached to the students "home-away-from-home page" in the instructor's directory) to the establishment of student-controlled project pages (without HTML) to the learning of HTML and the creation of hyperlinked documents. I believe that I now have found a way to "pull this off" within our terribly short quarters without compromising substantive class content.

My specific objectives of Internet use in courses relate to:
a) collaborative learning (team and communication skills)
b) strengthening the resource component of my economic geography classes
c) increasing motivation and fostering an active learning environment
d) promoting the students' incentive and ability to "contribute" to a system of knowledge beyond writing traditional papers which disappear in instructors' desks
e) strengthening the "programmatic" components (integration and continuity) of my different classes without sacrificing the individual identity of these classes.
f) facilitating students' frequently very difficult daily and weekly logistics through remote access to learning materials
g) using our own class-related electronic communications experiences as a frequent reference ("case") when dealing with the impacts of telecommunications on urban spatial structures, the organization of transactions in the space economy and the growth of communications based services and potential job and career opportunities for students. I presented some of my educational Web experiences at the opening of the Technology & Teaching Lab in OUGL. This hyper-linked document can be accessed via /~krumme/projects/demo.html.

The time I have invested in these efforts has been much beyond what one would have to consider reasonable. The hump which anybody moving into this educational-technology environment has to overcome, is still significant. This hurdle is less associated with learning new technologies as it is with learning how to reduce their complexity in a teaching context to a level at which unprepared students can embrace a downsized version during a 10-week quarter thereby laying the basis for new life-long personal and professional learning processes. At the same time, I want to use this as well as my own personal initiation experience to develop guidelines and suggestions for "beginning" faculty.

In addition to educational research associated with my Internet interests, I am planning to return to my earlier research on information behaviors in local economic and corporate contexts. The information disclosure behavior of major private sector players in relative small economic localities constitutes a vital "interface" between global and local economies and between multi-locational corporate and territorial forms of societal organizations. While I have kept up in these areas, there is a need for the development of fresh connections to more recent thought in economic geography and regional economics. One of my papers in this area is accessible through the Internet (faculty.washington.edu/krumme/projects/segmentation.html).

I plan to use the Winter & Spring of 1998 to:
(a) return to my earlier "disclosure" research ("Capitalist Information Spaces and the Geography of Corporate Disclosure: Disconnection, Consolidation and Segmentation" [/~krumme/projects/segmentation.html])
(b) evaluate and write up my extensive documentation, feedback and other materials associated with my educational E-mail and Internet use between 1993 and 1996 under the tentative working title "Student Project Oriented Innovations in the Use of Educational Technologies".
(c) develop a more formalized and detailed "model" for (intra- and intergroup-) collaborative and inter- active Web-page use in a medium-sized introductory class (for general use and for Geog. 207, Wi' 99). I expect to work with my Collaboratory colleagues and staff in the Center for Teaching & Technology.
(d) involve myself and participate in whatever workshops will be available at that time to develop my own technical Internet skills (also in part through the Center for Technology, Learning and Technology).
(e) offer my (educational Internet) assistance to the Department, the UWIRED program, and whoever else might be interested in an informal (e.g. via interest groups) or more formal (e.g. workshop-based) sharing of my experiences on Campus at that time.
(f) develop ties to like-minded individuals and programs at other universities here or in Europe to exchange pedagogic ideas and approaches.
(g) continued search for supplementary research funds (if necessary)
(h) "general scholarly readings and updating".

Plans for Summer & Fall 1998:
I do not pretend that I know at this point exactly what I will do in the last quarter of my sabbatical leave and what will be in the letter to you at the end of Fall Quarter 1997 reporting on past and planned sabbatical activities. I will be looking for funds to supplement my sabbatical salary starting right now including possible NSF funds announced recently. The availability of such funds will undoubtedly influence the precise direction of my sabbatical activities. Otherwise, I anticipate that the need and opportunities for developing educational applications of educational technologies will increase rather than decrease and, together with my other research, will result in the desired revitalization and an otherwise productive and pedagogically useful sabbatical leave.

Günter Krumme, Professor

Return to: Krumme (Home) || Projects
1998 [krumme@u.washington.edu]