Enabling Active Learning in Web-Based Virtual Campus:
(Creative Pyramid Schemes)
Michael Daecher
University of Texas at Austin
E-mail: lantern@mail.utexas.edu
URL: http://www.utexas.edu/depts/eimc/il.html
Designing Web-based learning environments for correspondence students has
been a challenging and delightful project for Independent Learning, a
component of EIMC: A Distance Education Center at The University of Texas
at Austin. While extrapolating Web sites from the mail-based courses
provided to all students, we have learned how to construct "pyramidal" Web
sites which entirely parallel course components available to anyone with
access to the mail, sites constructed from essential elements found in text
files and value-added elements accessible to students with a wide range of
computer capabilities. Our dual task has been to assure that all students
enjoy the same basic educational opportunities and that students with
greater computer capabilities wind up with dynamic learning tools rather
than ornamental "bells and whistles." Focusing first on the evolutionary
and then on the technical challenges of our work putting courses on the
Web, we will demonstrate how these challenges informed two of our
upper-division college-level courses - "American Science Fiction" and
"United States History Since 1865." We will place special emphasis upon
the philosophical and practical considerations governing our instructional
design, working relationship with the course author and instructor, choice
of Web authoring tools, choice of Web-integrated conferencing software,
standards for selecting educational resources located on the Web, copyright
concerns, nature and interplay of text and graphics, consideration of
cross-platform complexities, and course-specific marketing initiatives.
N.A. Web '96 Home Page
This page updated and maintained by:
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Last update: 22 August 1996