Teaching and Learning Using Internet On-Line Courses

Charles E. Ophardt, Professor of Chemistry,
Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, Illinois 60126, USA
email: charleso@elmhurst.edu

Main Menu Page
Power Point Slides
Overview
Rationale for Distance Learning
Online Discussion Methods

Course Development:

Faculty need motivation, quality training in new technologies, access to hardware and software, institutional support structure, and time to learn software and develop materials.

A possible list of software may include the usual word processors, spreadsheets, and databases. Software to create and manipulate graphics, photos, video, sound, and computer movies or animations might be essential depending upon the course. Finally, a rudimentary knowledge of HTML programming language is helpful, although there are many software programs that automatically convert documents into HTML such as Word and Netscape Composer.

Creation of a "virtual course materials or textbook" on the Internet:

Write Your Own Materials and "Textbook":

A major motivational factor in "building" or developing an online course is the ability to be selective in choosing and developing the course materials which you, as the instructor, use to stimulate the learners. These may be in lieu of or in addition to a traditional "paper" textbook. As the designer of a course, you may develop personal course notes, diagrams, graphics, simulations, and homework exercises. You have control over material presented and may update it constantly with improvements. It is also useful to react almost instantly to current events as internet sources are readily available. A current event or media story can be incorporated immediately into the course.

Copyright: Due care needs to be taken relating to fair use copyright laws. Copyright violations may be avoided if you use personal pictures and graphics or "stock" unprotected pictures and graphics. Scanned photos, pictures, and graphics from other textbooks and journals, which are eventually posted to the internet, are copyright violations. Copyright problems may be avoided if you provide links to other material on the open internet. In this case you are not downloading and reusing the material, but only providing a link to the authors web server. Although recent high profile court cases indicate that even this may be a copyright infringement unless you get permission from the original site.

Create Hyper Links to Resources on the Internet:

There is no need to "reinvent the wheel" by writing new materials when a wealth of materials is already available on the internet from a variety of reputable sources. In the course design, it is possible to search for the best materials available, not just what happens to be present in the text book. Many primary sources of information are available from government agencies, the business community, the academic community, and special interest groups. Electronic or virtual field trips may be constructed to for various course applications.

The downside to creating hyperlinks to good information on the internet is that it may behave as "vapor ware" - the site may be taken off or moved from a server without a trace. The availability of internet sites needs to be continually checked and rechecked, which in itself is a time consuming process.


Use Existing Course Materials:

Course requirements, syllabi, homework assignements are probably already available in word processor form. All of these existing assignments can be converted to web based assignments. Existing word processed documents can be converted to HTML format "easily" - using software that converts it automatically to HTML, such as Word, Adobe Page Mill.