Going Online in Economic Geography: Challenges and Opportunities

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

Directory: Introduction Act First, Think Later Diversity and Integration 1. Quality and Diversity 2. Organization and Integration Learning Without Boundaries 3.Continuity and Cumulative Experience 4. Boundary-Spanning Communications Active Learning, Collaboration and Individualization of Teaching in Group Environments 5. Active Learning and Involvement 6. Improved Communication Between Instructor and Students 7. Educational Collaboration for Effectiveness and Efficiency Individual Skills and Logistics 8. Hypertextual Presentation of Collaborative Student Projects 9. Computer Communication Skills 10. Toward "Flexible Education Spaces" Resources Appendix

The association of my two classes in Economic Geography (Geog.207 and 350) with the UWired Program since January 1996 has measurably assisted and accelerated the introduction and use of the Internet and Web Page technologies in all my classes. As elsewhere on Campus where Internet use is still sporadic, where instructors who are incorporating Internet components into their courses are isolated from like-minded peers, and where departmental support and interest may be meager, the UWired program filled a gap by encouraging and nurturing time-intensive, low-budget instructional grassroots efforts. Once the basic commitment was made, and while WWW technology unfolded over these past two years, this apostle of the Internet discovered by trial and error what Internet-based electronic communication could do for his efforts to provide appropriate learning environments. Paralleling the experience of others, I began my course plans with the straightforward use of E-mail and mailing lists, followed by the presentation of class syllabi, reading lists and selected Internet resource sites on relatively simple Web pages. Quickly, however, it became clear that the technology had much wider applications and implications favoring a more comprehensive and integrated approach and thereby requiring more fundamental rethinking of educational objectives and student-instructor relationships. The time available was too short to complete or even get on top of this dynamic process with all its accompanying issues. Thus, this intermediate report from the battlefront is designed to encourage others, help save time and avoid pitfalls and frustrations. The speed of Internet and particularly WWW introduction into education is overwhelming most instructors and students. The challenges include: The grassroots nature of this process creates an unevenness of exposure across classes even within the same department. Students arrive on campus with vastly diverging computer backgrounds, both in terms of prior skills and attitudes. Without access to the kind of resources which UWired provided for my classes during this past year, these differences in prior exposure to computers and electronic communications as well as the actual or perceived long lines in "conventional" University computer labs, would have been hard to overcome during a ten-week quarter which is supposed to focus on a package of subject areas designed in the pre-Internet era. Among the obstacles which UWired cannot address were the cost of new personal computers, the technological hurdles to connect to the University network by modem from home and factors associated with the speed of technological change, inertias of educational bureaucracies, and economic or "need-to-work" - related difficulties of students. While many of my commuting students with lives and work beyond campus were well connected from home or work, others recognized that they should be but could not find the time to buy even a simple, inexpensive, second-hand computer for text-only access or to find out how to install the needed modem. Lack of time to get "over the hump" (get set up and learn the basic skills) tended to be more of a problem than financial limitations given that many students who have to work to make ends meet are used to spend extra dollars on books and class notes etc., i.e. anything which makes the life of a working & commuting student easier. Let me insert here a brief summary of the way I used the UWIRED facilities for my two classes. In Winter of 1996, my introductory Economic Geography class (Geography 207) with approximately 65 students met for (one of) two lab sessions on Mondays in the Collaboratory (in addition to two weekly lectures of 1 1/2 hours each). Geography 207 was offered again in Winter 1997 with a more manageable 50 students, but under otherwise similar conditions. In-person attendance was optional i.e. students were able to declare themselves "remote" lab students, accomplish their Lab tasks at home and check in via E-mail. I was present at all meetings, as was the UWired funded undergraduate technology assistant. Other help was provided by Anne Zald, the Geography/UWired librarian, Collab staff and by former students of my Undergraduate Internet seminars (Geography 498) who volunteered to help with getting students connected. In Spring 1996, a much smaller evening class (Geog.350, "Market Areas and Local Economies") with 15 students met entirely in the Collaboratory on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2 1/2 hours each. Lectures were held in the back room assisted by an LCD unit with access to class related web pages. A one-half hour "Intermission" was used for group work, individual computer work and electronic as well as face-to-face "office hours" all largely in the Pentium room. Internet use started with an extensive presence of digitized materials on class-specific web pages (syllabi, readings , exercises, discussion forms, examinations, etc.), then was extended to work on student projects largely restricted to the search for resources in libraries and on the Internet and culminated in the creation of optional own home pages by a sizable minority of the students. In the smaller class, I provided an initial personalized page template for each students in my own system which students could transfer into their own account. While students' own Web pages remained initially optional, for the past year, all students have presented their class assignments on their own pages and without exception rejected alternatives options (posters, paper versions to be distributed to all fellow students, etc.). In all classes, student's progress (substantive learning outcomes as well as resource skills) were monitored closely through lab sheets, exercises, surveys and written (closed and open-book) examinations. These diverse print documents were available to the instructor at all times for purposes of monitoring and advising students, answering students' questions about their performance and for considering changes in speed and direction of class activities. Particularly useful feedback resulted from form-based "cyber-discussions" in Geog.207 and Geog.350 which took place partly in the Collaboratory and partly remotely and addressed the use of communications technologies in every-day life. [The experiences in these two classes have resulted in this (early draft) "Learning Matrix" which will become the foundation for future adaptations in my course program and, more specifically, for the "sequentialization" of class objectives along the 10-week quarter and between classes, including the integration of class, lab and project achievements during and between quarters] For the remainder of this report, I am pursuing a few perspectives of the use of information technologies in my classes without fully accounting for the negatives, "the other side" of the argument or the forces which hold back a more rapid introduction. While I used a diversity of evaluative tools for feedback from students, my experiments were not oriented towards short-term student approval, but were designed to develop the first outline for a long-term strategy which would guide my educational uses of Internet technologies. I approached this process with wide open eyes not just realizing the potential for frictions and frustrations, but (with moderation) tempting them. I argued that only some anxieties among students would create the necessary awareness and a climate in which the educational, social and economic repercussions of the new technologies could be fruitfully explored. Throughout, this push was encouraged not just by the prospect that electronic communication is here to stay, but also by the recognition that its manifestations and economic implications are part and parcel of Economic Geography as an academic discipline. More recently, the embrace of the Internet by businesses and government agencies has overtaken the educational Internet arena clearly signaling that economic geography students are well served by Internet exposure before they venture into the job market. In general, it takes relatively little (and less and less) prodding and arm-twisting for the majority of undergraduate students in my classes eventually to accept the electronic approach and to appreciate its various benefits. However, it was the (now vanished) minority of unhappy students which made it initially a time-consuming and, at times, unnerving challenge. Act First, Think Later. My present (1997) approach to the use of communications technologies was, as I now realize, shaped mostly by my early E-mail use, then later by the perceived (future) capabilities of the WWW and, more recently, by my UWired experiences and feedback during Winter and Spring 1996. While the Internet offers solutions for questions and problems which I am still finding or searching for, I would also, however, strongly suggest that the Internet would need to be invented, if it did not exist already, to satisfy all kinds of needs and educational deficiencies which exist and are recognized already. I first used E-mail and the Internet to supplant and supplement past communication channels: I communicated with students individually or as groups via listproc, placed the old and proven syllabus and reading list into our class page and scanned some ageless handouts into the Web. Here I talked about the "continuous office hour" and spent Sunday afternoons answering E-mail questions from students. This approach was then expanded to incorporate new and more distant resources; I learned from instructors elsewhere, diversified my examples and readings, and was able to shift much of the resource content of former E-mail communication to new Web pages, reserving E-mail for clarifications, discussions and more personal concerns and Questions & Answers. Even most of these Q&A's were, after being sanitized and "anonymized", moved to a Web page for general inspection. It was at this stage that I began to wonder more seriously about the implications of the new technology for educational boundaries and institutional constraints which I never thought I would question during my life time: How appropriate are "classes" (particularly of the 50 minute-kind), glossy, excessively expensive "texts", rigid academic "programs", "departments", "10-week quarters"; FTE counts, "teaching assistants", etc.. during a time when educational budgets are cut and the economic situation of students seem to worsen? More recently, the new technology is opening up new opportunities to create more active and participatory learning environments. Presently, this means, e.g., the use of "forms" or students' own contribution to the Internet through project pages thereby expanding educational interaction between instructor and students, between students themselves, between students and -- for the lack of a more appropriate term -- "resource persons" on and off campus and finally, the "spillover" contributions of faculty and students to learning environments at other education places and to the public at-large. This largely self-inflicted turbulence required flexibility and the courage to try new ideas and ways to interact with students even if that meant to give up cherished habits and to disagree with students and, at times, with colleagues or administrators. In a nutshell, the new technology presents a unique opportunity, and responsibility to rethink my fairly orthodox educational objectives and approaches to teaching and learning at a scale which I have not experienced in my 40 years at European and U.S. universities. Let me summarize my experimental approach by focusing on ten perspectives which I use to explain my Internet and collaborative learning strategies to my students. DIVERSITY AND INTEGRATION 1. Quality and Diversity (of class content and its presentation). I have always been aware of the wide range of student competencies, motivations, and interests in Geography 207 which traditionally includes a range from uncommitted freshmen to accomplished seniors in Economics or Geography. In addition to vast differences in substantive and disciplinary backgrounds, as well as study skills, motivation and native abilities, I am now facing the additional differentiation by computer and Internet backgrounds, skills and interests. The short quarter aggravates the problem of divergent backgrounds and prior skills by making it hard to do much about deficiencies, especially in areas which are not part of the core of the course content. Thus, the prospect of more students entering Geography classes in the future with better Internet, library resource and computer skills and attitudes encourages this instructor. Once mastered, access to the Internet undoubtedly equalizes the playing field and makes differences in students' learning styles and prior exposure to substantive class materials less significant by (a) potentially motivating students who do not have the stamina or discipline to endure a conventional lecture class or lengthy readings, and (b) allowing me to provide more differentiated class materials and assignment options to students with different needs. During these past two years, the Internet has opened a variety of avenues to individualize and fine-tune learning materials and address individual needs and interests. The access to UWired resources, both the "Collaboratory" facilities in the Undergraduate Library and its personnel, has allowed me to get some very valuable assistance in filling many of the students' computer and library skills gaps thereby enabling me to concentrate on other gaps, individual needs and substantive class content instead. Beyond that, the more explicit integration of information resource acquisition skills into the course plan led to improved learning outcomes in this area and to a much improved integration of different course components, notably passive lectures and active student projects. 2. Organization & Integration. The ability to organize diverse class material on the Internet in an effective, cumulative way which is less ephemeral than the quarter-by-quarter hassle with syllabi, readings, handouts, xerox packages, too often repeated Q&A from students etc., provides at least the prospect of freeing up time for non-logistic, substantive endeavors. Granted, Web-page design and programming is still enormously time consuming, at least for this rapporteur. However with "learning curve" effects, further advances in HTML technology, and more support and understanding in departments, Internet use may not only be effective but may also become efficient. At the same time, I anticipate that students learn to appreciate this semi-permanent, highly accessible mode of documentation and will volunteer to participate in the update of knowledge and learning pages. With an increased emphasis on quality rather than quantity of student contributions, the boundary between instructor's and students' presence on the Internet will be further blurred. On the other hand, instructors' attention will increasingly need to shift to the design functions given that the explosively increasing Internet resources permit and require new Web presentation structures and teaching/learning approaches capable of integrating such resource abundance. LEARNING WITHOUT BOUNDARIES 3. Continuity and cumulative experience Helped by easy electronic communications and the continuous and continuously updated presence of my course materials on the Internet, a small but increasing number of students seem to be persuaded that more and earlier information about classes makes it easier to plan ahead and develop a program of study; and the importance of economic geography does not begin and end with the 5-credit quarter course but that the class ideally starts before the official first day and continues after "final" examinations. I have always advised students to see their instructors and get hold of the syllabus before the start of the quarter not only to reduce the risk of having to drop the class later, but also to benefit from a "running start". The Internet has made this emphasis on a student's program infinitely easier to implement. More importantly, students now can act as "stakeholders" and continue to have access (and contribute) to updated class materials post mortem. In general then, the new technology helps me to devise a structure for my learning materials which can be accessed "just-in- (individualized) time", inside and outside the chronological order which I still have to impose on the presentation of materials (but less so!). See also Massy & Zemsky. This "asynchronization" of the teaching-learning process happens at all levels: (a) the individual discussion in class continues after class via E-mail or forms on the students own time, allowing more reflection especially for the student who was left behind in the class discussion due to the size of the class (not everybody can participate and get rid of good ideas at the right moment in the discussion) or due to reticence or shyness. (b) different students fall behind at different times during the quarter; and (c) students can now think of their undergraduate program much more as an individualized, open-ended program over which they have some control independent of the vagaries of official schedules and quarters in which classes are offered. Such individualization would result in chaos or at least lack of accountability without improved and continuous assessment capabilities. The assessment and monitoring assistance offered by the University's Educational Assessment Center leaves crucial needs unmet. At least within classes, the computerized documentation of contributions and interactions establishes a record which can be accessed at anytime, increasingly not just by the instructor but by the student as well. This ability to assess and monitor during the quarter does, unfortunately, not yet extend beyond quarters due to lack of advising personnel, need for confidentiality, the size of the university and my inability to track and advise students before and after they attend my classes. Students who take additional classes from me benefit from my much improved computerized memory. Helped by UWired and increasingly my department's own Collaboratory facilities and resources, all of my students are now making their project available on their own home- and project pages and thereby contribute a great deal to the desirable continuity in assessment, monitoring and advising beyond individual quarters. Since 1996, the availability of these resources for my classes has made a much more flexible and individualized approach possible, both to teaching and learning. One part of this improvement has simply to do with the personal attention which a Laboratory environment provides and the need to master an unfamiliar technology. Personal interaction between instructor and student in front of the screen is less awkward than an equivalent individualized interaction tends to be in a normal classroom. The Collaboratory schedule is designed to keep free time before and after specific classes allowing students, groups of students and instructor to come to class early or stay late. Students are also able to return to the familiar environment of the facilities during other free hours. The UWIRED program is constrained by the quarter system and the limitations of the facilities. Thus, students are "UWired" for individual quarters only and not able to access the Collab before or after the ten weeks of the quarter or to bring students from other classes with whom they are collaborating on some project. The Fall 1997 expansion of the lab facilities ("UWired Commons") is already helping to overcome such restrictions in conjunction with faculty and staff's flexibility and willingness to overcome and bend a host of inevitable bureaucratic restrictions. The other part of this more flexible educational environment promoted by the UWired and Geography Collaboratory program has to do with the ease and attractive nature of use of electronic communications technology. These advantages are, of course, not dependent on the computer labs per se, but are immensely helped by the facility and its staff particularly during the early stages of students' familiarization with the technology and access to academic resources. Student feedback from my End-Of-Quarter Info-Tech Questionnaire supports these observations. Assessing the benefits and drawbacks of using the UWired facilities students were extremely appreciative of the many hours of access to the lab or -- as soon as these hours did not fit students' needs, critical of the restrictions. 4. Boundary-spanning communications The blurring of boundaries promoted by electronic communications goes much beyond the examples cited so far. The UWired program itself represents an alliance between various campus institutions, notably the Library, Computing and Undergraduate Education. Economic Geography is inherently not only an interdisciplinary academic amalgam, but a natural intermediary between the campus and the "Real World", i.e. the off-campus economic community at different geographic scales. After loosing its own departmental library to budget cuts and Library reorganization, the Geography Department spearheaded attempts to find alternative, technologically more appropriate ways to satisfy its information intensive instructional programs. As part of this (still ongoing) process, the Department was fortunate that Anne Zald, a reference librarian, already on the staff of the UWired program, was appointed to wear the additional hat of "Geography Librarian". In addition, Anne was specifically assigned to my UWired classes. In this role, she introduced my students (and me!) to a much richer variety of Library and Internet related search skills and Boolean logic, helped students individually or in groups with their projects and participated in various other class and lab activities. The superb location of the UWired Collaboratory in the Undergraduate Library right next to the reference and check-out desks was well suited for such resource tasks. Students' comments were highly positive and appreciative of this convenient access and the opportunity to help create and participate in scholarly peer communities and learning environments much less constrained by organizational bounds and geographic distance. Maybe more importantly, this collaborative experience has been helping us as a Department and me as an instructor to identify and conceptualize the range of information retrieval skills our students need in the future and to "package" and teach/learn such skills in present and future computer labs, including Geography's own "Collaboratory" having been funded and now awaiting completion on the old Geography Library premises. (Jarosz et al., 1996). The diversity of source materials available on the Internet helps me immeasurably in getting the point across to my students that resources for economic geography classes originate in a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional and international environment. While the Internet often provides direct access to such sources, the increased range, depth and variation in quality of Internet sources require more and more specialized information retrieval and assessment skills, not all of which can be covered in regular classes. Traditional boundaries are vulnerable to new or more intensive interaction not just within the class or on campus, but also with larger communities. Off-campus internships, for example, can now often be better integrated with instructional objectives through E-mail or generally accessible information on the Internet. Roughly 20% of the students in Geography 207 were involved in volunteer "Service Learning" arrangements organized by the Carlson Center. About half of these arrangements in 1996 (all in 1997) involved the researching and creation of Web sites for non-profit community organizations such as Seattle's MOST ["Making the Most Out-of-School Time"]. All these students had no Internet or HTML experience before starting this class and could not have acquired it on such short notice without access to the UWIRED Collab where, helped by staff, they taught each other the basics. Their success is a truly remarkable accomplishment given the brevity of our 10-week quarter. I plan to continue and expand this boundary-spanning component particularly of Geography 207 since linking an understanding of local economic transactions and locational phenomena with Internet skills and volunteer / internship activities appears to be particularly motivating, even for students without prior computer experience or who still need to find out what they want to do with their lives. Lastly, there is the largely anonymous function which anyone's WWW sites potentially perform for the community at large to be browsed by students world-wide or incorporated in some other instructor's resource page. Already, some of our Geography syllabi have been incorporated in the "Virtual Geography Department" (organized by individuals at the University of Texas). I would also anticipate that local and regional high schools and junior college instructors will make use of our Internet resources and refer their students to our pages in preparation of their university careers. As such, Internet publications by faculty and students contribute to the blurring of the boundaries between students and instructors and between faculty's traditional responsibilities of teaching, research & public service. ACTIVE LEARNING, COLLABORATION AND INDIVIDUALIZATION OF TEACHING IN GROUP ENVIRONMENTS 5. Active learning and involvement. Active learning has been defined as a process involving (a) playing an active role in making decisions that affect one's education; (b) accepting responsibility for learning in one's classes, even under difficult conditions, and (c) using learning strategies that involve an active engagement in the learning process. (Donnelly 1990, p.v) The Internet has made it possible for me to provide students with improved access to more information about the class itself and its resources well before the beginning of the class thereby facilitating timely educational decisions and greater independence of students while they are taking my class. This greater independence also promotes the use of more of the students' own past experiences as examples or case studies whenever appropriate, most explicitly in the context of understanding the role of new communications technologies in (a) students' own daily time-space logistics, and (b) their present jobs and future careers in the increasingly computer-oriented service industries. As the instructor, I have been conscious of different needs and learning styles and am trying to respond to such differences by providing choices and by using my Web pages to present and explain various options without disintegrating the class. Such flexibility also creates complexity for students and assumes that students are willing and able to make decisions about their learning processes in class. Well designed Web pages are crucial in keeping this "flexible complexity" under control. Ideally then, the Web pages assist students in getting more quickly, directly and independently to appropriate class content. Their availability can also motivate students to adopt classes as their own (instead of the instructor's). Such individualization of the learning process may reduce the negative effects of the large introductory class and be used to encourage ties between peers and collaboration within small groups; making information available on the Web about students interests and research plans and prodding students to use Email for making and maintaining group contact helps have now become the sine qua non for such collaboration in my classes. Finally, this individualization can also provide the tools to students to integrate, by themselves, individual class experiences into a meaningful whole as well as into their larger educational programs or their daily lives; such connections may otherwise not be obvious and cannot be made for every student by the instructor in a large class. 6. Improved communication between instructor and students Students in Economic Geography classes typically do not follow a uniform course of study. The resulting diversity of backgrounds, skill and interest level can be both detrimental and beneficial to the conduct of the class. My ability to refer students efficiently to routine and non-routine Internet based class information frees time for personal attention giving me the opportunity to lift the playing field, responding to special needs and interests and recognizing unusual skills and competencies (and encouraging their application). Such efforts, however, usually require both face-to-face and E-mail communications in preparation and support of students' consultation of Internet pages. Trying to make such individually supportive communication more efficient and effective, I initially experimented in a relatively small class (13 students) with establishing a template-based, personalized Web-page ("Home-Away-From-Home Page") for each student early during the quarter for supplying students with seed references and other assistance, including clickable resource pages for individual interests and projects. More recently, student have assumed responsibility for their own pages before the midpoint of the quarter and are now submitting assignments via a Web page. Freeing face-to-face office time for solving urgent individual problems and establishing personal contacts while at the same time encouraging students to solve more of their resource needs by themselves are prime objectives of this substitution of modes of communication. I am struck by the fact that I am seeing students less often for more important and "deeper" issues while overall time spent on communication with students has increased. Tis communication time is changing in composition. After a peak in E-mail use in 1995, more time is now spent on preparing and maintaining increasingly detailed and individualized Web pages. (Granted, frequently, I have to prod students to put their less urgent questions into E-mail and to exert at least minimal effort to find relevant class pages which often helps to improve the questions by additional reflection and sharper articulation). 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 and discussing the implications of these experiences for their lives in the "real world". I have used forms [initially developed by Charles Hendricksen, more recently by Rick Ells and Gabe Chrisman] with which the students can send their discussion contributions (initial statements, rebuttals and final statements) directly to designated, instantly accessible Web sites. [In an earlier trial in the larger class, these contributions arrived via E-mail and had to be aggregated and transferred (via ftp) to the discussion page. The results were the same, the process somewhat cumbersome] The "initial statements" were submitted remotely over a three-day period giving students logistic flexibility and the time to reflect. The second phase ("rebuttals") was moved into a much shorter time period (4 hours) overlapping the scheduled UWIRED Collab time. In my larger class (Geography 207) students had the choice to participate either in front of UWired screens or remotely. Several students sent multiple discussion contributions within a few minutes of each other responding to other students' comments: almost what one would call a "lively discussion", in any case a substantive and meaningful exchange. A few students in the UWIRED Lab put their two or three faces together in front of a screen and seemed to collaborate in their responses. In general, however, the computer configuration in the Lab did not encourage extensive face-to-face discussion in preparation of individual or group responses. [In order to stimulate a meshing of personal and on-line discussions, this instructor would like to see experiments with room configurations which would permit placing the computers next to or behind the students permitting more direct face-to-face contacts within groups.] 7. Educational collaboration for effectiveness and efficiency During my four UWIRED quarters and my subsequent two quarters in Geography's own new Collaboratory, I have seen remarkably more collaboration between students than ever before, and several students, in class surveys, pointed out the collaborative benefits of the UWired facilities. While the large and bulky computers in the UWired Lab make it impossible for students to communicate across tables, the ability to walk around the room or roll in one's rather comfortable chair to other computers facilitates communication and collaboration of all kinds. Students in my UWired classes faced yet another dilemma. While they recognized the need for and benefits of learning collaborative and team-work skills while in college, they are also acutely aware of actual or perceived downsides of collaboration: (a) the demands for extra time which communication with other students requires and (b) the uncertainties associated with having to rely on other students in a group. Those of us who watched the restructuring of the health care sector from the front row are wondering how much longer education will be spared a similar fate. This educational cost crisis however already creates many pressures including those associated with the always present FTE count. Thus, delegating tasks to members of the class, groups (peer-grading, mutual help in labs, group projects), staff or outside "resource persons" and increasing the role of educational technologies are obvious means to adjust to such pressures if one wants to avoid compromising educational quality and personal attention. Most important among the roles the Web pages are increasingly playing in my classes is the provision of self-help instructions. Such instructions (associated, e.g., with terminology and definitions, simple numerical/mathematical explanations, or student research) were formerly provided by my live teaching assistant or they took up considerable amount of time in class or my office. "While it is true that the advantages of electronic forms of instruction have sometimes been absurdly exaggerated, the point is not that they are superior to face-to-face teaching (though the latter is often romanticized), but that they can be provided at dramatically lower cost." (Noam, 1995) The obvious question as to what materials, content and discussions should not be handed over to the electronic teaching assistant (ETA), but remain part of the face-to-face lecture class or live office meetings is usually a difficult one, as it is not clear at all that higher thinking skills are always more amenable to non-electronic means of communication. INDIVIDUAL SKILLS AND LOGISTICS 8. Hypertextual presentation of collaborative student projects "Hypertext is a method for organizing information that allows meaningful, non-linear access to text-oriented resources." (Gall & Hannafin, 1994) The development of the WWW has given new life to hypertextual writing and organization of materials. Modular organization and writing of student projects are particularly well suited for collaborative student research, and prepare students well for writing the ubiquitous reports and working in teams in "real world" business environments. In the class and class project context, a hypertextual work environment fosters shared (group) responsibility for research outcomes and involvement with a wider range of topics and issues, while giving individual students the freedom to develop initiative and originality in sufficiently limited tasks. Joint contributions can readily be negotiated and agreed upon electronically, while instructors' comments might arrive by Email or be attached to students' documents through DocReview or similar means. My own experience with group projects indicates that those students who coordinated their work through E-mail and presented their findings in their own, well interconnected home pages produced far better integrated "Joint Projects" than those with paper products. The latter tended to be unable to overcome the accustomed "termpaper- syndrome" associated with "linearity", excessive length, descriptive and redundant content and non-collaborative design, all characteristics which make group and laboratory objectives difficult to implement. The environment of the "collaboratories" provided agreeable face-to-face and face-to-screen settings for student interaction (e.g., in preparation for the non-Collab dependent, digital exchange of drafts), mutual encouragement and technical help on the way to these linked student projects. 9. Computer communication skills Considering that computers are already around high schools for many years, it is surprising that there are still a few students who arrive at the University with little or no computer and E-mail experience and a disturbing amount of computer phobia. After some initial hand-holding, all kinds of skills need to be acquired which either relate specifically to electronic communications or to the specifics of computerized Library services at this University. While students arrive with all levels of skills and ambitions, and while my classes per se do not, or not very explicitly, cover those skills, at least the needed skills are well defined. Students generally start with E-mail technology and its use (from opening an account to learning "nettiquette"), move then to passive UWIN and WWW access (resource retrieval, use of electronic libraries and bibliographic databases, browsers and search engines) before beginning to learn about UNIX and the creation of Web pages (file transfers, hyperlinks, HTML etc.). Acquiring such skills outside of regular classes requires time which many students are not yet budgeting for. Thus, the association with the UWIRED program and Collaboratory goes beyond just encouraging students to acquire additional computing and electronic communications skills and provides essential personal assistance and a convenient link to all kinds of readily accessible resources. Both the Library and Computing Services offer classes and make hard-copy and online self-help documents available. Additional materials are readily accessible on-line. Nevertheless, I try to live up to my instructor responsibilities and supply extensive on-line help ("default guides") in my own own Web-system, such as a comprehensive "Electronic Survival Guide" and a step-by-step, electronic hand-holding guide for the (very) beginners. 10. Toward "Flexible Education Spaces" As Economic Geographers we have a particular interest in the efficient or inefficient ways in which people (including students) organize their academic, employment and personal lives in time and space. The asynchronous nature and benefits of E-mail and Web page communication are well known. I have tried to combine these temporal conveniences with more "flexible education spaces" (or partially remote learning environments) into more adaptable, less institutionally and otherwise constrained educational time-space continua. Undergraduate students at this urban university come from many different socio-economic backgrounds and residential locations and integrate the time spent physically on campus into their daily routines in many different ways. For some students, the traditional 5 x 50 minute weekly lecture schedule is still acceptable, even preferred, while a seemingly increasing group of students prefers fewer but (if absolutely necessary) longer periods of required presence on campus. To accommodate this heterogeneity, I have experimented with making the computer lab sessions optional, asking students who wished to reduce their weekly class sessions from three to two to accomplish the lab work remotely. In general this was done by placing the "Lab-Sheets" into a Web page. Lab results could then be handed in during the next class session or submitted electronically. Students needed to decide whether the loss of personal attention and assistance in the lab would outweigh the benefits of remote communications. It turned out that most students made only occasional use of this remote option, largely due to their unfamiliarity with computers and the Internet, difficulties with remote computer access and the attractiveness of the UWired Lab. With increased Internet deftness and acumen, availability of computer access at home, on the job and at public places (libraries, home work centers) in the exurban fringes and unabated if not increased job pressures of students, flexible opportunities for technology-mediated remote learning and a reduction in commuting needs for students coming from greater distances or subjected to tighter work/study schedules should improve learning climates. Resources: Donnelly, Rory. Active Learning: A Study Skills Worktext. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990. Gall, James E. and Michael J.Hannafin, "A Framework for the Study of Hypertext," Instructional Science 22 (1994), pp.207-232. Jarosz, Lucy; Gunter Krumme; Jonathan D Mayer; Katharyne Mitchell; Anne E Zald: Electronic Information Skills for Collaborative Learning in an Undergraduate Geography Curriculum, National Science Foundation, Division of Undergraduate Education; NSF Program : 7400 Undergraduate Instrumentation & Lab Improvements; funded July 1996. [Abstract] Krumme, Gunter , Economic & Business Geography, Entry Page for all of Krumme's Class-Oriented WWW-Materials. [http://faculty.washington.edu/krumme/ebg.html] Massy, William F. and Robert Zemsky, "Using Information Technology to Enhance Academic Productivity," Educom "White Paper", 1996. [http://www.educom.edu/program/nlii/keydocs/massy.html Noam, Eli M., "Electronics and the Dim Future of the University," Science v.270, October 13, 1995, pp.247-9. Supplementary Resources: Norman, Kent L., Teaching in the Switched On Classroom: An Introduction to Electronic Education and HyperCourseware Copyright (c) 1997 by Kent L. Norman. All rights reserved. [Department of Psychology and the Human/Computer Interaction Laboratory University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742-4411]