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OID: SIANME Fourm Summary -- May 29, 1998

Scholarship in a New Media Environment
The Instructional Enhancement Initiative
Looking Back -- Looking Ahead
May 29, 1998
Moderator Lianna Johnson, Academic Administrator for Life Science Core Courses
Panelists Elissa Tognozzi, Lecturer, Italian
Cameron Campbell, Assistant Professor, Sociology
Annelie Chapman, Technology Teaching Assistant Coordinator, TA, Slavic Languages
Justin Cale Johnson, Graduate Student Researcher, Near Eastern Language and Cultures

Cameron Campbell, Assistant Professor of Sociology, began his remarks by noting it was hard for him to evaluate IEI, having just arrived at UCLA. But he had received some feedback from students related to certain practical considerations. Foremost among these was difficulties students encountered connecting via modems from home. Scanned document in particular presented a problem due to their long download downs. Many preferred a textual alternative. In general, he found that students were satisfied with value received from instructional websites if these websites were enriched beyond just the simple posting of the syllabus. Students seemed to resent those professors who eschewed the use of the web on principle.

Annelie Chapman noted that that any discussion of the Instructional Enhancement Initiative should focus on the Instructional aspect, rather than technological side, since enhancing instruction was the project's stated goal. Noted that as the Technology Teaching Assistant Coordinator (a "train-the-trainer" program run by the Office of Instructional Development) for Slavic Languages she concentrated on finding instructional resources on the web, developing modules for instructors in her department to use as needed. She noted that the department was still in a primitive state; that is, many of the instructors had not yet taken to using all of the capabilities of the web. For Chapman, biggest challenge was solving the problem of using Cyrillic fonts from within a Netscape browser, a problem she hoped would soon be addressed and solved.

As far as WebCT was concerned, she observed that an oft-made mistake is to assume students are computer literate, which is not always the case. Indeed, a problem for instructors open to technology is to get to far ahead of the students' capabilities.

She also remarked on the differing needs of instructors, drawing on her own experience in the TTAC program. Each discipline has its own requisites. Yet, no matter what the need, there was no denying that using the Web required a significant amount of an instructor's time.

Elissa Tognozzi addressed her remarks to those people who balk at using technology, the non-technological quotient. Dr. Tognozzi came to UCLA this past September, having never so much as surfed the web. Her father, a musician who played with Arturo Toscanini, and later became an educator, taught her to be open to new trends -- in her father's case, Kenny G and Rap, in Dr. Tognozzi's case, new technologies. Approached by a Graduate Technology Consultant in Humanities, she discovered how real audio files and links could be incorporated into her website. Evan Nisonson, who heads up the Humanities E-Campus consulting corps, told her that although he could not provide content for her website, he could provide almost her with the necessary support.

Dr. Tognozzi then proceeded to incorporate Italian rap Real Audio files on to her website to increase motivation. In time, she added links to Italian newspapers and other authentic language materials. Although she did admit that searching for such material was quite time-consuming, she found that once she knew what materials existed, and what could be done with them, she could more easily delegate some of the research and assembly work to her TA's.

In her view, the IEI worked quite well, "revolutionizing" her approach to language instruction. There were problems: students, for example, who resented receiving instruction in this way due to slow downloading speeds of 28.8 modems. To solve this program, Dr. Tognozzi has scheduled one class session per week of her fall course offering in a computer lab. She has also integrated the online work into her curriculum so that students will not view it as add-on work but rather a part of the course.

Justin Cale Johnson is a Graduate Technology Consultant himself . He is also a research assistant working to develop the cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (http://early-cuneiform.humnet.ucla.edu) which, by the end of June, will have posted 6000 digital images of cuneiform tablets on the web, and ultimately plans to post 60,000.

One of the vexing problems he has encountered is the inability of HTML to accommodate the variety of fonts required to view documents in various foreign languages (including hieroglyphs). Maintaining a library of relevant fonts, Johnson noted, is an overwhelming task for Humanities Computing. For the time being, Johnson suggests using Adobe Acrobat and converting original material to Portable Document Format (PDF) files, which can maintain all original formatting and can be viewed by anyone with the freely downloadable Acrobat Viewer. New web programming languages now in development will make it possible to view and search graphics mounted on the web by mounting them as vector-based rather than rastar-based images (drastically reducing file size), but such developments are perhaps a year or two in the future. For the time being, cautions Johnson, all faculty should explore and make use of Adobe Acrobat. When the new standard is fully operational, Johnson suggests adopting it as a campus-wide standard, thus simplifying the task of creating and supporting the development of instructional web materials. In point of fact, he has suggested that HCF and the other computing services make PDF production tools (Adobe Distiller) available on their APP servers and that PDF should be made a centerpiece of the IEI in the fall quarter.

Lianna Johnson, Academic Coordinator for Life Sciences, noted that the IEI did not just support the development of instructional websites, but was used to erect computer labs as well. In her case this proved crucial, since two years ago Dr. Johnson had created software for use in her Life Sciences 3 and 4 courses. Labs constructed thanks to the IEI permitted her to integrate and make use of the software in her instruction.

Development of functional, instructional websites, Johnson pointed out, was highly dependent on staff development and support. WebCT, which Life Sciences uses as its course server software, promotes communication, and is particularly useful in the development of quizzes. With WebCT, an instructor can develop short answer, multiple choice, and matching quiz questions with automatic feedback which can be instantly. In a class of four to five hundred students, such as Dr. Johnson sometimes has, such a facility can provide an immense savings of time in terms of course management. To make the tests challenging, Dr. Johnson incorporated secondary research tasks into the formation of her online questions. For example, to respond to a short answer question in genetics, students were directed to the Virtual Fly Lab online where students could run a lab test cross-breeding flies with varying attributes which, in a real lab situation, would have taken days to accomplish. Students then returned to the online quiz and selected their answer, which was then automatically graded and recorded.

In her classes in Molecular Biology, Dr. Johnson has found the web's ability to display complex processes and structures was especially useful, since this particular branch of study is so graphical in nature. Computers, Dr. Johnson noted, have opened new doors for her as an instructor. She stressed, however, that she a teacher, not a technologist, and thus relied heavily on support to develop courseware and to assist students make use of it.

Finally, she stressed the need for students to enhance their education by making use of computers.

The forum was then opened up for questions from the floor.

Q. To what extent are panelist's jobs tied up in developing material
LJ: Dr. L. Johnson noted that her job as academic administrator included the development of material and the supervision of support staff. Unlike most faculty, her research was in education development, including constructing a searchable library of images for other faculty to use.
ET: Besides supervising TA's, Dr. Tognozzi teaches several courses. She was not sure of exactly how much time she spent developing web material, but because she comes from a family of teachers, she assumes she will teach "all the time." She considered such work part of her professional development program. It also kept her job interesting. Nevertheless, it did require a "massive" amount of time, but she has surmounted this obstacle by having her TA's apply for OID minigrants to help support the effort.
Q. Should homework solutions be posted? Does this not discourage participation in class if learning is viewed as being "just a click away?"
CC: Dr. Campbell noted that although he had heard colleagues assert that posting discouraged learning, he himself posts all his course notes on the web. He exports his transparencies to an HTML file. Students are free to choose whether they want to come to class or not. He feels it should be their decision.
LJ: Lianna Johnson that she was also concerned that students might take the easy way out. But this problem existed before the web. As an example, she pointed to published study guides complete with answers to exam questions. Students sometimes miss a part or all of a class. For them, posted course material is a resource, even though most know that such postings contain only a small part of what was covered in discussion or lecture. In her case, even in the 8th week, she found that students were crowding her classes, often sitting on the floor. The more significant problem, for Dr. Johnson, was how to actively engage students thoughout the course.
CC: Dr. Campbell observed that posting notes before lecture often permits students to print them out beforehand, then annotate them while in class.
LJ: L. Johnson added that she often publishes her Powerpoint slides on the Web.
TD: Teresa Dawson-Muñoz, of the Office of Instructional Development, noted that David Cordes, the Teaching Assistant Technology Coordinator, posted his notes prior to class. Although his was only one section of a multi-sectional math class, he discovered that more students, rather than less, attended his section, assuming, Dawson-Munoz suggested, that they thought he might be more organized and/or better equipped to answer their questions.
Q. PDF files are not necessarily small. They may also misrepresent small details, such as accent marks or subscripts.  
JCJ: J.C. Johnson noted that work had ceased on the development of new versions of HTML. New specifications allow each discipline to develop its own language. Thus PDF is the best interim solution. He noted that the new Netscape Composer will soon have a spellchecker in Netscape 5.0, thus confirming a move to make the browser the user's primary software tool. But an overreliance on HTML is problematic because HTML streaming will never satisfy all the needs imposed upon it.  
CC: Campbell noted that he often prepared documents in WordPerfect, then exported them to HTML with embedded GIF formulas. 
Q. Has using the web changed the structure of lectures? 
ET: There are no lectures in foreign languages. 
LJ: With 200-300 students, it is hard to made substantive changes in the way instruction is delivered. But the web has proved useful in discussion sections. 
JB: Judy Burns, lecturer in Film, theater, Television. Noted that she holds interactive session the web. Using chat, she works with her students online, then post notes in the form of lectures to her bulletin board afterwards. Looking forward to using videoconferencing tools and using video email. 
MF: Michael Fiore, of Chemistry and Earth and Space Science (The Science Challenge) noted that UCLA in concert with UC Irvine and Fullerton had developed a hybrid course format with lectures on the web and instructors in labs functioning as mentors. Students did individual and group work in labs. The course is presently under evaluation but preliminary results showed that students in such labs were attaining higher grades than students in traditional lectures. The department is interested in developing classes with TA's were mentors. 
LJ: TA's often felt uncomfortable facilitating computer interaction rather than delivering information via the traditional lecture. 
WM: Wayne Miller of Humanities Computing noted that each course had its own specific needs, much as there are different genres in literature. Thus communication via computer can be thought of as a different genre as opposed to face-to-face instruction. 
Q. Was anyone frustrated by the fact that some classrooms not fully wired or equipped with data projection facilities.
RS: Ruth Sabean of the Office of Instructional Developed explained that 65 our of 200 general assignment classes were connected by the UCLA Connected project. Next phase called for the connection of 20 more. Audio visual equipment is freely available to anyone teaching an undergraduate class, and suggested instructors have a look at http://www.oid.ucla.edu/avs for specific information relating to the classroom they are in teaching in or the equipment they might require. 

You can view the entire forum on videotape by asking for The Instructional Enhancement Initiative Looking Back -- Looking Ahead at the Instructional Media Lab, 270 Powell.