One way that you can maximize the potential for using on-line resources in your teaching is by creating a class Web site. Class sites can range from simple on-line schedules to fully-developed spaces for disseminating student work.
Depending on the intended scope of your site, you have several options for organizing your class pages. If you plan on creating a page that lists schedules and some resources, you might be able to use a single HTML page placed in your main Web account directory. In most cases, however, you'll probably want to create a separate directory within your Web account space for your class work. For instance, if you were teaching a first-year composition class as well an upper-level class called "Writing about Trains," you might create sub-directories called "comp101" and "trains" respectively. Additionally, since you're likely to teach more than one section of a given course over time, you'll probably want to organize your class directories using a date or some other recognizable featurefor instance, "comp-spring98" or "comp101-2." By creating a separate directory for each of your classes, you will have more options for expanding the scope of your class site and you will be able to keep your main Web directory better organized.
You'll also want to think about organization within the directory that you set up for your class. If your course is divided into major units, you might create sub-directories for each so that you can organize course materialsfor instance, your "Writing about Trains" class site could contain the sub-directories "steam," "electric," and "diesel." Another alternative would be to organize the site around class resources or activitiesfor instance, by using directories for "assignments," "handouts," and "resources."
You will want to pay special attention to the organization of your directories if you are planning on including any student work as part of your class site. At some institutions, students will have their own Web accounts, but you may also be loading pages for your students into your own Web directory. To keep confusion to a minimum, you will most likely want to create sub-directories for each studentfor instance, "anderson," "benjamin," and "paredes-holt." Having a space clearly delineated within the structure of the class site will make it easier for you to upload projects that students have been working on. You may be able to upload entire directories of student work, greatly simplifying your posting process. Get familiar with the process of uploading directories to your Web account and then organize your class site so that you can post the files that students create as efficiently as possible.
We can't stress how important it is to think about setting up clear organizational structures before you build your class sites. Remember that if you change your directory structure after you've built a large site, you'll have to change all of your internal links to reflect the new setup. Planning ahead will save you loads of time in the long run.
Class Web sites have the potential to significantly extend the reach of the traditional syllabus. The on-line syllabus can be valuable because it collects resources in one place. So, when students see "Paper One due," they can connect to the assignment immediately. Similarly, many of your reading assignments, examples and reminders can be easily incorporated into the syllabus.
Still, class Web sites can do significantly more than just provide a hypertextual syllabus. You can create a more dynamic class page in at least two ways: 1) by incorporating some of the more interactive features of the Internet into the class page so that students can use the class site as a space for working through exercises on the net and for meeting to converse and share resources or 2) by using the site as a publishing venue for the work done by students in the class.
The best way to think about why you might want to devote some energy to creating an enhanced class site is to think about the kinds of teaching that you favor. A class site that consists of simply an on-line schedule and policy statement does little to shift the model of the teacher creating and disseminating information. A class site where students hold conversations with each other and where they can present the texts that they create to a larger public can facilitate more student-centered pedagogies. Neither model is necessarily better, but if your teaching style emphasizes collaboration and active roles for student learners, then a more interactive class site that publishes student work can provide you a terrific opportunity to develop your teaching goals.
There are a number of elements that you can begin to include in the site in order to make it more useful for your class. In addition to policy, schedule and contact information, you may want to devote sections of the class Web site to disseminating generic Internet tools and resources. For instance, you might want to provide links to the most useful search engines from your class page or to collections of writing related resources. If your school has information about signing up for e-mail accounts or other technical resources, you may want to provide links to those as well. You can also link to many of the sites on the Net that are devoted to various Internet technologies. See the Resource node at the Connections Web site for some helpful links.
If you plan on having your class work with HTML during the semester, you'll probably want to provide links to Web-building information, HTML tutorials, image and icon resource sites and Web style guides. You might also want to create links to some sites on the Web that you find notable in their construction. By pointing students to some positive and negative examples before you have them create their own projects, you can help them to avoid mistakes and arrive at a clearer sense of purpose for their own designs. Compiling these links and resources will allow students to use the class site as a launching pad when they begin the process of building with HTML.
If your students are creating projects using HTML, the class Web site will provide a natural venue for their work. Consider ways of foregrounding the work of students on the class pagefor instance, using a button or visible link near the top of the class site. Also require students to provide <MAILTO> links and other contact information on their pages and to use descriptive titles and perhaps include search keywords within a <META> tag in the <HEAD> of their documents (see Chapter Seventeen).
Even if students are not creating "native" hypertext projects using HTML, you can still incorporate the motivating influence of a Web audience into more traditional writing assignments. With little effort, you can use an HTML translator (a program which inserts HTML formatting commands in a word-processed document) to prepare student papers for the Web and post them for feedback. You can also ask students to insert the various formatting commands into their files using their word processor and to save the files in a text only format for you to post. Stress from the beginning the public nature of the finished projects and ask students to compose with a sense of the Web audience in mind.
To maximize the potential for interaction with the audience, register the class site with as many Internet search engines as possible. (You can register easily at sites like Submit It (http://www.submit-it.com/). You might also request that more specialized sites on the net add links to your pages where appropriatefor instance, asking the "History of Trains" site to link to your students' essays about the impact of trains on the development of the U.S. West. Finally, you might publicize your class site via any discussion lists and newsgroups that seem appropriate. You'll want to avoid spamming, but if you compose a friendly and informative announcement about your students' work and post it to a relevant group, you're likely to attract some interested readers. Overall, it is unlikely that hordes of readers will instantly flock to your students' projects, but with a little "PR," you should be able to generate enough traffic so that your students' work finds a legitimate public audience.
To make your site even more of a working space for students, you can experiment with the creation of on-line assignments. In Figure 1, an assignment taken from a class site devoted to writing about the Internet asks students to analyze an image from the movie Bladerunner.
The assignment shown in Figure 1 is enhanced by its presentation on the Web in several ways. In the opening paragraph, there is a link to more extended information about the "third project" so that students can get information about the larger film analysis project before continuing with this particular assignment. Next, the assignment provides a brief demonstration of what is involved in this particular task, describing an image from the film in order to give students an example of the kinds of analysis that the instructor expects. The assignment then asks students to begin the process of analyzing their own image and uses the hypertextual capacity of the Web to provide links to archives where students can browse through a number of stills from the film. Finally, the assignment includes a <MAILTO> link at the end so that students who are unsure of how to proceed can ask for clarification from the instructor.
Even at the most basic level of selecting useful links for students, creating assignments on the Web can facilitate a number of new learning possibilities. For one, students tend to work through assignments like this at their own pace. If students don't complete the work in class, for instance, they can return to the assignment from home or from a computer lab and continue working through the tasks that you have outlined. Additionally, having a daily assignment like this on-line means that students who miss a class can quickly get up to speed by going to the Web site and working through previous assignments. You can also supplement your own expertise and resources by incorporating links to the wealth of resources on the Net. Because the Web has become so comprehensive, you can easily demonstrate the kinds of information that students might work with on any given topic.
It is possible to create sites that provide even more opportunities for students to conduct class activities on the Web. Figure 2 shows a form which is used to send e-mail to a class discussion list.
At the simplest level, you can use the mail and collaboration functions which are built into most Web browsers to facilitate interaction. For instance, you can create an assignment that asks students to formulate a research question and that also provides a <MAILTO> link so that students can send either you or the entire class a copy of their question. The form used in Figure 2 relies on a CGI "mailscript" to process the readers' comments and send them on to the class discussion list. By tinkering with the "mailscript," you can customize the fields that students use to compose their response, allowing you to create a series of prompts to which students can respond.
Web discussion forums can also be incorporated into a class site. Depending on your institution, you may have access to a "hypermail" or "forum" function that you can use to hold on-line conversations or to archive student work. As with the on-line forums discussed in Part Three of Connections, Web message forums provide an informal way for students to brainstorm ideas and come up with collective arguments and positions about a topic. Additionally, because these discussions will be publicly archived on the Web, students can return to gather resources for later projects or to continue a conversation that has caught their interest.
"Mailscript" CGIs and Discussion Forums require a significant level of expertise to set up, but once your college or university has instituted these functions, making use of them is often fairly straightforward. You'll want to coordinate with experienced instructors and with the administrators of your Internet services in order to implement CGIs in your class pages. You can also get more information at the Connections Web site. Remember, too, that there are a number of forums already established on the Connections Web site where instructors can send studentes to hold electronic discussions.