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Preparing to teach with the Web

Before you embark on a project to use computers in your teaching, make sure you clearly understand your means. Assess how much support you can expect to receive at your institution. Although there are educators who can accomplish such a project on their own, most of us need at least some assistance. Contact your computing services department and find out what support it offers for Web-based projects. Ask colleagues who have developed instructional materials to tell you about their process and experiences. And think about how the project will affect you personally: your time, your position, your teaching style. Assess your situation before defining your strategy.

Courses

Most institutions offer courses on creating Web sites either for the entire community or specifically for faculty. As the Web becomes more established in the classroom, institutions are beginning to offer their faculty courses focused on using the Web to teach. Find out what courses your institution offers. Even a course in basic HTML is worth taking — it will give you a foundation upon which to begin building your site.

Course offerings

Just as there are many ways to create a Web site, so you are likely to encounter a variety of options when selecting a course. There may be an "Introduction of the Web" course, with little about creating sites but more about the Web, its components, and how to use it (search strategies, useful links). You may find an "Introduction to HTML" course, which explains HTML and teaches how to mark up Web documents. Or you may find software-specific courses for tools such as FrontPage or GoLive or for courseware systems like CourseInfo or WebCT.

If there is an introductory course that covers Web basics, take it. In the early days of the automobile, drivers were well advised to have some understanding of its inner workings in case things went wrong. The World Wide Web is a new contraption, and though you may never need to peek under the hood, it will pay to have some inkling of how it works should you find yourself stranded.

For tool-specific courses, your choice will depend on the tool you decide to use to create your site. But any course on using a site creation tool is worth taking, even if it's not your tool of choice. Though the method will be different, you will be able to apply the issues of design and structure to any software package.

Help

Some pioneering educators prefer to gather the necessary tools and knowledge and make their course sites on their own. The plausibility of this type of autonomy is one of the best aspects of the Web. In the bad old days, most faculty developing instructional software relied heavily on programmers to realize their instructional goals. All too often these projects stalled as programming support shifted to other projects or programmers were lured away by better-paying jobs outside education. The architecture of the Web is far more transparent than custom-programmed instructional modules. Many educators are fully capable of realizing their own vision with the Web as their development tool.

Yet there are many hats to wear when creating a Web site, and most of us don't have a large assortment to choose from. The librarian hat is for the first stage, where we determine what resources are available and where to find them. Then we don the educator hat to choose from the available resources those that best address the educational goals of the project. We wear the information and graphic design hats to structure and present the materials effectively. And finally, in the programmer hat we execute the vision conceived while wearing the educator and designer hats. Most of us lack experience in at least one of these roles, and seeking assistance in that area can make a world of difference in the realization of the project.

Institutional help

Most institutions have an academic computing unit devised to support the use of computing in educational ventures. Support for course Web sites may include facilities, software, instruction, programming, design, and content development. It may be enabling support — that is, support to get you started and set up before sending you off to fly on your own — or full course site development support, where a developer or team of developers works with you to create a site that meets your instructional needs. The team may include a programmer, graphic designer, instructional designer, and project manager.

It is worthwhile at this stage to investigate the assistance available at your institution. Try to get a sense of how much time you need versus how much help they can give. Review the array of options and determine which will complement your resources, skills, and knowledge, so that all aspects of the development process are covered.

Student help

Faculty often hire Web-savvy students to develop their course sites. This may seem like a good option — the students are skilled in Web programming and often have an investment in and understanding of the course materials. Sometimes this approach works, particularly for sites that do not require fancy programming. But putting course site development in the hands of students can be risky. Students often know too much about technology for your own good. You may wind up with a super-spiffy course site that is too complicated for anyone but the (graduated) student to modify.

Student help can be a boon for faculty who are uncomfortable with the technology or those too busy to spend time developing and maintaining Web-based course materials. Keep in mind the risks, however: reliance on institutional computing support staff is better than reliance on transient students. Most institutions offer their faculty some level of computing support, so the chances are that you won't be abandoned. If you do use student help, keep a hand in what they're doing: spend time each term reviewing the site and outlining plans, and have your student webmasters thoroughly document their work and train replacements before moving on. Or opt for a hybrid approach: use student help, but have institutional support staff monitor students' work and documentation.

Do you want help?

One of the reasons the Web is popular is that it empowers. One person can author, edit, illustrate, design, publish, promote, and maintain his or her own work. Many people relish this autonomy: if something needs to be changed, they change it; if something breaks, they fix it. It is important at this planning stage to decide if the success of your site depends on self- sufficiency. Is one of your primary incentives for publishing a Web site the fact that you can have full control? If so, take steps at this early stage to minimize your reliance on others.

Facilities

Many institutions provide special computing facilities for faculty use. The aim of these project rooms is to give faculty access to software and hardware for specialized, limited-time use. A typical setup may include hardware and software for converting materials to digital format — for example, a workstation for transferring video from videotape to computer or a scanning station for converting slides or prints to computer images. The facility may be staffed with students or computing support personnel.

If you plan to use teaching materials on your course Web site, you may have use for such a facility. Converting standard teaching materials — texts, images, video — requires special hardware and software, and it makes little sense to purchase and maintain conversion systems for limited use if such a facility exists.

Funding

For large-scale Web-based instructional endeavors you may want to seek funding, either through your institution or through funding agencies. These days, talk of curricular development generally includes a technology component, and the current preferred medium for delivering instructional technology is the Web. Many institutions have either centers for curricular development or special monies for funding curricular innovation. Various agencies also support technology-based advances in teaching and learning.

The availability of funds can mean the difference between a basic informational course Web site and a full-blown educational resource. For faculty, the greatest demand of curricular development is time. A successful project needs intensive faculty involvement, and funding can enable this by offering a temporary break from teaching and administrative tasks.

Another great development hurdle is copyright permissions. The fair use doctrine that has facilitated instructional use of copyrighted content cannot easily be applied to Web-based materials (see Copyright and Web Teaching). Monies for curricular development could be used to acquire licenses for copyrighted materials. A grant could also be used to purchase hardware and software, pay for development and design support, and fund project assessment.

If you are planning a project that will have a wide impact at your institution, or in the world, consider seeking development funds. You stand a much greater chance of realizing your goals with monetary assistance, and others will benefit from your initiative.

Personal means

You may have any number of reasons for undertaking the development of a Web-based teaching resource, from improving the classroom experience by enhancing your teaching-learning method to simplifying everyday administrative tasks. Whether high-minded or practical, it is important to be realistic about the impact fulfilling your goals will have on you personally.

Workload

How much time will it take to add a Web component to your teaching? And once the component is in place, how will its use affect your regular teaching workload? These are important questions to ask before beginning development, and the answers depend upon the nature of your endeavor. Consider the scope of your project: Are you using a course site to distribute information? Such a site takes time to develop, but once implemented it could decrease your regular workload. Are you using a course site for communication? Many faculty find that monitoring sites with discussion areas or other feedback mechanisms is like adding office hours because it makes them more "available" to their students.

Time is an important consideration, and it should not be taken lightly. Many ambitious projects fall by the wayside because the time demands are too great. At this stage in the development process, be realistic about the time required to realize your goals and the time you are willing and able to invest. Do not undertake a course Web site project with the sole intention of saving time or you will be disappointed. Neither should you undertake an ambitious project that augments your current workload without estimating the demands it will make on your time and gauging whether you can meet them. Given the number of variables involved — the scope of your site, the tools you use, your technology expertise, the amount of support available to you — it is not possible to provide an accurate measure you can use in estimating time demands. When budgeting time, consider your project's scope. If your goal is to create a full-blown Web-based classroom full of course content, instructional materials, and online communication, you should plan to spend at least as much time creating the site as you would preparing a new course. If your aim is to move existing course materials online, the time demands will be far less, though certainly still greater than doing things traditionally.

Another thing to keep in mind is that a Web site is never "finished" in the way that other publications are. In fact, keeping a Web site "fresh" is one of the responsibilities of being a Web author, and once a site is allowed to get stale (and Web sites have a short shelf-life) it loses its effect and its audience. Your course site is an ongoing project that will need updates and refinements for as long as it is in use. The decisions you make now about site structure and organization will need to be revisited again and again as your Web teaching method evolves, styles change, and new technologies become available. Decide whether you have the stamina to stick with the project for the long run.

Promotion

In the traditional model for higher education, rewards of promotion and tenure are generally influenced more by achievements in research and publishing than by teaching excellence. This appears to be changing as students assume the role of consumer and demand better services. An innovative curriculum with a strong technology component is seen as a selling point for many potential students. Yet although institutions may be shifting their attention to the classroom, shifting policy and resources is another matter. The traditional model is so firmly entrenched that it may be some time before classroom innovation is rewarded in the same way as print publications and advances in research are esteemed. As things now stand, developing a course Web site may not gain you much institutional recognition.

The rewards for using the Web to teach are many: new challenges, better teaching and learning, increased interaction. For many educators, however, it may not be realistic to hope to gain some tangible institutional reward for course Web site efforts.

Change

It is impossible to adopt a new medium like the Web without undergoing a transformation. Using the Web in teaching, when done right, is not a case of old message, new medium. If you opt to use the Web as a tool for teaching — and you really use it — your teaching method will change. And change is best when you're ready for it.

When you approach your project, be ready to accommodate change. Trying to pound your time-tested methods into a new medium is analogous to bashing a square peg into a round hole: you will expend energy and experience frustration, and you will never get the two to fit. The Web was built for change, and your approach to using it should be equally flexible. As you use the medium, adapt your message: exclude materials not well served by the Web, experiment with new teaching methods enabled by the Web, apply the Web to aspects of your teaching poorly served by traditional methods. Think about ways to incorporate the strengths of the medium by investigating new tools for teaching and learning, such as real-world simulations, computer-based collaboration, and automatic feedback. Understand that when you make a commitment to using the Web to teach, you are making a commitment to change, and make the most of it.

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From Web Teaching Guide
Copyright 2000 Sarah Horton

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