On Fri, 10 Sep 1999 20:47:45 -0700 Larry Dickerson
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Ken Steele wrote:
>
> >Mike: How do you like WebCT? I found it to be cumbersome and
> >have discovered that there are PD perl scripts that one can use
> >more flexibly.
>
> I'm quite surprised to hear the negative comments about WebCT. I have
> taught intro psych totally online for five semesters now, the last three
> with WebCT, and our students take to WebCT very quickly, much faster than
> the combination of web/e-mail/FirstClass that we used initially. I have
> steered away from the bells and whistles like Chat and Whiteboard, which I
> have found to be distractions to learning; I have found that the basic
> WebCT is very conducive to the cooperative learning activities and other
> social interactions that I emphasize. The learning curve for WebCT course
> designers is as easy as I can imagine for someone like me, who wouldn't
> know a perl script from a pearly gate.
>
Larry:
Here is an example of what I mean. Say I discover an
interesting url that I want my students to view or an
interesting article that I want them to read. I could go to my
class web site where I might have a table labeled "Interesting
Stuff for Students." The easy (for me) action is to type the
url into the next row, highlight it, and indicate it to be a url
with my web editor and that is all. And if it a reference to an
article, then I just type in the text string and that is all.
My table could be a list of text strings, urls, gifs, adobe pdf
files links, real audio file links, etc. It doesn't matter.
Here is what you must do in WebCT (abridged from page 39 of the
WebCT tutorial) to add a reference to a book, article, or URL to
your course content page:
"WebCT's Reference Editor allows you to associate your course
content with external references so that students can find
supplementary information on the current topic. These
references can be any of three types:
References to textbooks
References to articles
References to URLs
To access the Reference Editor, you must be on a page located on
the WebCT Path. On the Page Design Menu, click on the
References button. ...
The top frame updates to list the references which are defined
for the current page. ... The bottom frame shows the Reference
Editor Menu.
Before you add a reference to a page, you must create a new
"Resource". A resource is the actual book or article that
your're referring to. When you create new resource, you enter
the publications information into WebCT's database. This
information only has to be typed in once. After the information
is stored, and you wish to make reference to that resource, all
you have to do is select from a list of available resources."
Whew! (URLs are handled in a similar manner through separate
menus.)
What is important to note here is that a simple task like
putting up a reference (only a text string) has been turned into
this multi-step process. I have to go to a special add
reference function, which is going to put my reference in a
database, require me to give it a label to put in my resources
list, and then I reference the label in the list. And if
this were a link to an image or a sound file or url, then I
need to go through separate menus to accomplish the same
task.
For me, it is much easier to type in my table "Check out the hot
new article by Smith & Jones in the current issue of Psych
Bulletin"
Ken
----------------------
Kenneth M. Steele [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Associate Professor
Dept. of Psychology
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
USA
