John Schmitz, Marsha Woodbury, Mary Connors, Aaron Buckley & Chip Aubry
Agriculture Instructional Media Lab
Office of Academic Programs, College of Agriculture
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
How can large lecture-discussion classes at the university be enhanced? A resource that complements paper-based class materials in AG / HRFS 100 at the University of Illinois is an integrated learning environment called the Discovery System. Intended to support a variety of student needs, it is a WWW-based system that is accessed by NCSA Mosaic software and can be brought up from most campus computer sites from both IBM and Macintosh platforms. The system is a multimedia hypertext. Students are taught to think of a hypertext as something like cable TV: They can flip between files in Mosaic-space as easily as flipping between channels watching cable TV.
Four modules are provided in the system: Networking, Thinking Skills, Issues, & Careers. There is also a Reference Desk, a Fun Page, and individual home pages for discussion sections. Features of the system include custom icons and active maps that help students understand and navigate the system. One kind of active map provided in the system utilizes coded landscape drawings as an interface to documents and hyperlinks.
In Networking, students learn concepts such as cyberspace and electronic mail as well as practical skills for using software such as Mosaic and Pine. This module is general enough to be used by students at all levels in other Colleges on campus. A new feature of this module is a "Communications Center" where students can launch NCSA Telnet to access their mainframe account. This feature highlights our attempt to provide an integrated environment where students have seamless access to a variety of resources and capabilities. Eventually we plan to also be able to launch teleconferencing and virtual environment software from within the system.
In Thinking Skills, students are exposed to resources on critical, creative and holistic thinking and complete a tutorial on concept-mapping. For example, a list of critical writing tips can be used by students to guide revisions of their papers. We plan an miniature active map icon bar as an interface to these resources from any point in the system. Here too we are providing general resources of use outside the College.
In Issues, students find additional resources on the issues and systems studied in the course. For example, an Environmental Systems Module provides not only HTML versions of material from the class textbook, but also additional resources such as an Eco-Calendar, an Eco-Internet map, a Bioregion Information Center, and more. This module represents the fullest implementation of the integrated learning environment strategy.
In Careers, students discover course and career opportunities in the field and find practical resources such as resume tips and interview preparations. Such information is widely sought by students, and it is expected that this highly practical use of the system will promote use of other components of the system.
Can large lecture-discussion classes be enhanced by providing integrated learning environments such as the Discovery System? Our study of system use has just begun but early returns are favorable. Students find it easy to navigate between documents and seem to be intrigued with the variety of capabilities at their fingertips. Perhaps such systems may play a significant role in the revitalization of the large lecture class.
Information on Authors
John Schmitz, jschmitz@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu is receiving his PhD in the philosophy of education from the University of Illinois this semester. He is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Illinois and is Director of the Agriculture Instructional Media Lab. He has published articles on critical thinking and on general education and spoke at MIT this summer on the "Ecology of Critical Thinking" at the International Conference on Thinking. His curriculum develoment interests include hypertext learning environments.
Marsha Woodbury, marsha-w@uiuc.edu received her B.A. from Stanford in 1968. Her 1991 M.S. in Journalism is from the University of Illinois. She has almost completed a doctorate in Computer-Assisted Instruction in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education, also at the University of Illinois. Marsha is the primary author of the Networking Module of the Discovery System. Marsha's home page tells more: http://gopher.ag.uiuc.edu/aim/marsha.html
Mary Connors mconnors@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu has a Bachelors in Education and a Master's in Art Education from the University of Illinois. Mary's research and writing focuses on multicultural arts education. She has traveled in Europe, Africa, India and the Far East studing the arts of these cultures. Her first book "Native American Arts and Culture," has just been just published by Teacher Created Materials. An artist and curriculum designer in the AIM lab, she has designed a variety of graphics for the Discovery System and has collaborated on the design of the Thinking Skills module.
Aaron Buckley, buckley@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu, a senior at the University of Illinois pursuing a double major in Economics and Sociology, plans to attend law school. Aaron has done computer graphics and programming for over ten years and is involved in all aspects of the Discovery system, including active maps, forms and original graphics.
James "Chip" Aubr, jma53175@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu is a senior at the University of Illinois U-C studying
Business Administration with degree concentrations in Industrial Distribution Management and Management Information Systems. His duties in the past at the AIM Lab have included HTML coding, assembled tutorial texts, and has created graphics/ icons for the Discovery System. Find the Beastie Boys on Chip's home page:
http://gopher.ag.uiuc.edu/www/aim/chip.html
Acknowledgments
The course instructors of AG / HRFS 100, Associate Dean William L. George and Assistant Dean Rebecca McBride, have supported this project at many stages. Michael Michela of the Educational Technologies Assistance Group, UIUC, has consulted on the project for almost two years. Donald Meyer has provided excellent network support and HTML consulting.
E-mail address of primary author: jschmitz@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu