Worldware 2: The World Wide Web
About the Web
By now, everyone knows about the World Wide Web, a loosely coupled system of
easy-to-use information servers. "Loosely coupled" means that any web document
can have links to any other web document. The web only hangs together as a "web"
insomuch as individual authors include links to documents by other authors.
Web servers themselves are often flashy and noisy and pasted with advertising, but they
also come quite close to providing us with our own printing press - or more accurately, a
printing press cross-bred with a television station. This development brings its own
problems, like uncontrolled growth, impossible indexing, and non-authoritative citations.
But the incredible economic efficiency with which new sites can be brought up has
encouraged academics to build their own sites on very specialized topics. The excitement
and variety of information comes with real costs for serious researchers, but a great deal
of information of real academic value is online on the Web.
The Web can be used to support a class in many ways, ranging from very simple
applications to full-blown online renditions of the course itself. Here are some
introductory examples.
- At the modest end of the scale, a faculty member might build a web site that consists of
only a single page, with contact information, and a list of links to other relevant web
sites.
- A more elaborate implementation might involve a site with several "pages",
perhaps including a syllabus, a page of pointers to other sites, a list of assignments,
with answers to previous assignments, progress reports on peer work groups, and so forth.
- It is very possible to put up a highly articulated course outline, with course notes. In
fact, the web lends itself very well to this kind of application, where clicking a heading
can reveal the next level of detail. The outline can be reviewed at the beginning of each
class, and students can study from it on their own time.
- At the top of the scale is the web equivalent of a textbook, a site that contains
virtually all of the study materials required for a course. Graphics, sound files, video
clips, and online tests are possible components. Building such a site is challenging,
but the payoff is the degree of customization that can be achieved.
As you can see, the Web can be implemented in class in ways that range from very modest
to extremely ambitious. We will examine many of these options in greater detail, after a
brief introduction to the mechanics of the Web itself.
Web Mechanics
There is no external enforcement of order on the Web. The only reason the system
works is because the software adheres to two publicly available standards, HTTP and HTML.
HTTP is the "communications protocol" or language that is spoken between a
"web server" (the computer on which the Web pages reside) and a "web
browser" (like Internet Explorer, which runs on your desktop computer).
HTML is the formatting language in which Web pages are actually written.
The process begins when a user directs a browser to one particular page on the Web. The
browser contacts the Web server (using the HTTP protocol) that "hosts" the page,
and requests a copy of the page. The server delivers a copy, at which point the browser
then displays the page (which is defined in HTML). From there, clicking links within the
page direct the browser to load other pages, which may be either local to the calling page
or remote.
From the customer's point of view, using the Web is as simple as clicking. Most of the
time, that is.
Augmenting the Browser: Power and Complexity
A contemporary web browser is happy to display formatted text, pictures, tables, and
other simple elements. However, the Web standard makes provisions for the use of
additional "helper" and "plug-in" programs to expand the capabilities
of browsers. This provides a great deal of power, but it also adds greatly to the
complexity of navigating the web.
Browsers can be augmented through two different means. The first of these is through
plug-ins, which operate from within the browser itself. The other is through external
programs. Each plug-in or external program handles one kind of data. A different plug-in,
for instance, is needed for audio, versus streaming video, versus highly formatted
documents, and so forth. In most instances, the Web pages that require the use of external
programs or plug-ins will say so, and may provide links to sites on the Web where the
plug-ins can be easily obtained. Many plug-ins are available at Microsoft's
and Netscape's web sites. Installation is generally not
difficult - these programs generally install themselves after you download them.
Here are some types of data not natively supported by browsers, and
programs that are designed to help them provide that capability:
- Audio
- There are many ways a Web page can deliver audio. The most popular of these for academic
uses is Read Audio. For a demonstration (and to see if your computer is able to handle it), try
listing to the news at http://www.npr.org.
- Video
- Again, there are many formats. The most widely supported standard is called QuickTime,
and is handled as a plug-in. If you have the QuickTime plug-in, you should be able to view
this movie of Mahatma Gandhi
http://www.nuvs.com/ashram/mm/index.html.
If not, go to the link provided on this website.
- Acrobat
- Acrobat is a program that lets a browser display very finely formatted documents -
documents that are ready to be printed, like journal articles or book chapters. You can
obtain Acrobat from Adobe
Systems.
- Java
- Java
is a programming language that is designed to work well on the Web.
It's closely related to the C++ programming language. Java can be used to
add functionality to Web pages, but it doesn't require that the user find
and load additional programs. Instead, Java Web programmers build small
applications - called applets - that download automatically from a Web
page when the page is loaded, and provide whatever functionality is
needed.
Using the Web in Class
The web can be used in support of a class in a number of distinctly different ways.
If you don't distinguish between them, the possibilities will seem overwhelming and
confusing. Further, the Web has many opportunities and limitations; to make successful use
of it in class, you'll need to know about both.
In using the Web in class you can either make use of Web pages that already exist, or
you can create your own. Both options will be discussed below. Whether you do one or the
other depends upon your needs and skills, although BlackBoard provides an easy
interface to develop a course site without knowing any HTML. How to build a Web page is discussed later in this document, and is taught at the recurring faculty workshops
about which you receive regular e-mail, as well as with ElementK,
which allows you to learn anywhere/anytime you wish. You may also request a private
Blackboard training session from your Resource
Specialist.
For Classroom
Demonstration
The first way the Web can be used in support of class work is in the classroom itself,
as an aid for demonstration during lectures, much the way an overhead or slide projector
might be used. Here are some examples of preexisting pages that might be used.
Models
Some Web pages model dynamic systems, actions or events. Examples:
- Reliability and Regression Analysis
- http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~lane/stat_sim/reliability_reg/index.html
- The Solar System Live
- http://www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Solar
Media clips Web pages are very useful for serving small media clips.
Examples
- Plants in Motion - flowering time lapse movies
-
http://sunflower.bio.indiana.edu/~rhangart/plantmotion/flowers/flower.html
- Folk musician recordings
- http://www.folklife.si.edu/
Maps
There are many geographic and map resources on the Web. Here are two examples.
- Kurdish history and maps
- http://www.akakurdistan.com/kurds/stories/index.html
- Perry-Castaņeda Library Map Collection
- http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/Map_collection.html
Other Ideas
One can easily imagine other ways the Web can aid lectures, including creating a
virtual city tour, a virtual Museum tour, or an archive of images which could enhance
spontaneity in lectures.
As an Information
Source for Your
Students
The Web is often used as an information resource for students. This requires little or
no in-class time with computers.
The Web is unlike our more familiar reference sources. It has very different lists of
strengths and difficulties. While there is a lot of junk out there, there are also many
sources of excellent, useful material. Furthermore, students are already using the Web as
an information source. The challenge is to get them to be critical in their source
selection.
Why bother pointing them to Web information sources?
The Web's strengths as an information resource are significant:
- It's a source of very timely national or worldwide news (ex., Hindu news can be heard at
http://air.kode.net/)
- A timely source of professional news (ex., Science discoveries not yet
in the textbooks)
- Many reliable data sources a available (ex., U.S. Government data)
- Provides access to current news and culture of foreign countries (like a short-wave
radio, or international cable TV)
- The web is searchable (although this is chaotic)
- Multimedia is supported over the Web
- At its best, the Web engages students and encourages exploration
This last point is very important. Exploration is encouraged because the
"costs" to students of experimentation are very low.
Some Web sources exhibit a level of "editorial control", such as those that
are available through the College Library's Web page. Its list of full-text and
bibliographic databases grows substantially every semester. For these sorts of resources,
it is useful to talk with a Reference Librarian. In addition, pages hosted by professional
associations, academic institutes and academic departments are reviewed in some fashion,
as is the case with pages hosted by journals, professional associations, meeting
proceedings and so on. Some businesses that act as reviewers and clearinghouses of sorts,
such as is the case with news organizations.
Of course, for countless pages information quality is very much in question. The first
that come to mind are political groups and social movements, certain media outlets, and
pages by individuals.
For course support
The Web can be used for administrative support for classes, which may indeed be its
most popular role. With Blackboard, it's even well suited for anything that the students need to read,
as well as change (i.e., two-way sharing of files, either with the
instructor, or within designated student group areas which can be specified
on the
BlackBoard site by the instructor.)
Syllabi, etc.
Course syllabi are now frequently placed up on the Web, often with other class
materials. One example is:
- British Literature
-
http://people.ku.edu/~kconrad/314s04.html
BlackBoard
provides sections for the Course Description, Books, and Staff
Information, to name a few. Other materials that can easily go on-line with the Web are bibliographies, problem
sets, assignments, lab notes and so forth. In this format, the materials can't be lost,
the instructor can make modifications whenever they are needed, and additional paper
generation and wastage is avoided.
Course links
Another popular use of the Web in class is "course links", a page which a
faculty member creates to direct students to on-line resources. Examples of course links
pages abound, and are often a part of on-line syllabi. Course links do not need to be
encyclopedic to be of use in a class.
BlackBoard
provides an External Links
section for this purpose.
- The Victorian Web course links
-
http://www.victorianweb.org/misc/related.html
To Deliver the Course
Content
The Web is also well-suited to providing the course content, rather like an on-line,
hypertext textbook, immediately linked to the rest of the Web. Again, an instructor may
find existing material on the Web that might be used, or her or she may decide to create
materials from scratch. In either case, it would be wise to begin with just one or two
modules, rather than attempting to do the entire course at once - a Herculean undertaking.
Here are some examples of existing modules that might be used
- Materials in Egyptology
- http://www.library.nwu.edu/class/history/B94
- Exercises in math for science from U Penn
- http://dept.physics.upenn.edu/courses/gladney/mathphys/Contents.html
Delivering the entire pedagogical program for the course is a tour de force. It would
be possible to tackle this project slowly, with a module or two a semester, augmenting an
existing textbook. Here are examples.
- Epidemiology
- http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/
- Earth System Science
-
http://resweb.llu.edu/rford/courses/ESSC500/ESSC500geos.html
There are numerous advantages of delivering course content over the Web:
- An on-line course is like a "custom text book", tailored exactly as you want
it
- Can be modified as you go along
- Potentially more engaging to students
- Can link to other materials right from the "textbook"
- Can spend time in the classroom on things other than reviewing basic materials (if
materials are well done)
There are sizeable difficulties as well in such a project. Developing an entirely
Web-based course is extremely time-consuming and can be very difficult. For example,
graphic design and interface design become larger issues the greater the amount of data
that is being served. It is not an undertaking to begin casually.
Using the Web for Class Projects
Faculty have experimented with the Web as an opportunity for collaborative class
projects. The final product could be a "public" Web site that covers a topic of
relevance to the class.
In a related application, the Web can serve as a publication media for students,
giving
them the opportunity to make a public contribution to scholarship. Students might be
expected to build a Web page or site for a final or continuing project. Like poster
sessions and other forms of "limited publication", these experiences can be a
source of pride for students, and can also provide another level of motivation.
How Do I Find the Neat Stuff?
"Where do you find this stuff, like movies of Gandhi, etc.?" Perhaps the best source is other instructors in your field, or
mailing lists
in your discipline. There are some general techniques as well.
Most people begin with "search engines", the generic web-searching web sites,
like Yahoo,
Excite, or Google.
Because of the lack of real structure, finding things through these engines requires
patience above all else. Search engines almost always return "hits" - but most
of the time there are too many to sift through, and most are junk. It is helpful to learn
the techniques for limiting a search, which differ at each site. The Reference Librarians
can help with searching. Pick your terms carefully - "Russian Literature
syllabus" is probably going to hone things down for you much more precisely than
"Russian literature" by itself. But mostly it's a process of trial and error.
Patience, perseverance, and keeping your eyes open on a ongoing basis are the keys of
finding useful Web sites.
Section Summary
It should be clear that "using the web in class" could mean a variety of
different things. In its simplest implementation, it means scribbling on the blackboard
the URL's (web address) of sites you want the students to visit. In the most complex
implementation, the web site is the course, for which the instructor is a facilitator. But
even the simplest implementation can be extremely valuable. And as usual with technology,
it often pays to start slowly.
Implications for Personal Pedagogy
Given all the alternatives for using the Web in class, several pedagogical
questions immediately arise.
Why would I want to do this?
The only reason to use any form of instructional technology is because you think it
will enhance or expand your teaching. That could mean several things:
- It lets you do things you couldn't do before
- It lets you do things more efficiently
- It encourages broader or deeper learning or engagement from the students
Only the instructor can decide if the Web is worth trying in support of class. The
examples given in this Primer demonstrate some of the enticing possibilities, and we hope
they stimulate your thinking.
It is worth noting that all classes are concerned with transferring information, even
if information transfer per se isn't the final product, as in a literature course. For
example, all classes involve communication between student and teacher, and between
student and student, both concerning course content, and about course administration. The
Web is an information tool. It's very accessible, and very flexible, and worthy thinking
seriously about harnessing.
Will it change my teaching?
The short answer to this question is, "Only if you want it to." The Web
doesn't have to change your classroom behavior or lecturing style. As we have seen, many
uses of the Web don't take place in class at all. But other instructors might welcome its
use as a classroom lecture aid, even though this would require some adaptation in
lecturing style. It could offer great flexibility through its access to resources, but it
would also demand flexibility in case of technical problems.
How do students react to it? Isn't this that evil "edutainment" thing?
Not necessarily. There is a difference between "engagement" and
"entertainment". "Engaging" materials ideally draw the student in
beyond a superficial level, and over a significant period of time.
More difficult questions are lurking here. Are students engaged right now? If not, why
not? What can we do? If we say we don't want to turn lectures into television-like
entertainment, we need to come up with other serious proposals for engaging our students.
The Web, with its many forms of media, its timeliness, and the ease with which it enables
exploration, may be a very useful addition.
How much time will it take?
This depends very much upon what exactly you decide to do. Collecting Web sites to
which to refer students doesn't involve much additional time. Building basic pages, like
putting support materials on the Web with
BlackBoard, won't take all that much ongoing time.
To learn how to construct Web pages without the use of
BlackBoard, instructors at Trinity are directed to
ElementK,
advertised workshops, or one-on-one training.
Whether you should create your own web site for a class depends completely upon what
use you would like to make of the web in class. Creating a web site for each
of your courses in
BlackBoard
isn't too difficult, and the structure of the
site is predefined to help you focus more on content. It is best route to
take if you have not created course web pages before. It will also provide
you with the other bells and whistles
BlackBoard
contains, such as a
weighted grade book, discussion groups, chat, online quizzes, etc. should
you chose to avail yourself of them in the future.
If you find the Blackboard template to be too confining for your needs,
you may choose to develop your own web pages, perhaps even linking to them
from within
BlackBoard
and use both in combination. However, web authoring
tools for personal web site development (like FrontPage) are new applications to master. If your computer skills are
average or good, creating a page from scratch is easy, but it is not trivial.
One often overlooked (but later bemoaned) fact of web pages is that they need to be
updated regularly. Do not publicize any pages that you don't feel you'll be able to keep
up-to-date and accurate.
Fortunately, you can always begin by creating a web page solely for your own use and
experimentation. Once you feel comfortable with the process you can make an informed
decision about creating a class page. And there are, indeed, new challenges in building
Web pages. For instance, text must be neatly - and legibly - laid out, with thought given
to not overloading a page with information, and making good use of headings and other
structures. Also, information must be broken logically across multiple pages, which calls
for planning ahead. The good news is, it's all very doable.
Creating a web page involves understanding things about the local environment (i.e.,
our campus web servers), and about web pages generally. There are a number of resources at
your disposal:
- The first step in creating a web page should be familiar: contact your
Academic Computing Resource Specialist. Based on
whether you're interested in
BlackBoard
or editing a site yourself with
a web authoring tool, your Resource
Specialist can make recommendations on how to proceed. In addition, he or she can tell you
what server and what account to use to create your pages.
- Trinity also has a license with ElementK
to provide online instruction to faculty and staff at your own
pace and convenience.
- The Computing Center also offers periodic
workshops
for faculty and staff on creating web pages. These are announced through campus e-mail.
For
BlackBoard
instruction, a member of Academic Computing would be
happy to meet with you individually, should you choose to do so.
- You will find online documentation about
BlackBoard
and building a web page at the
Computing Center's Help Guides Page.
- There are many, many books on creating Web pages. Visit a commercial
bookstore, like Barnes and Noble, and leaf through their holdings to find
a handbook that speaks your language.
- There are also helpful sites on-line.
If you're interested in digitizing video or audio, you can get assistance
from our Media
Technology Services Department,
as well as the Academic Computing
Resource Specialists. They can help get your raw
material into a form that can be provided successfully over the Web.
If you have a student in your department with an interest in working on
Web-related projects, Academic Computing would be happy to provide any
necessary training. A desire to learn and an interest in the material
supersedes any required technical prowess of the candidate. We've found that
the most successful students are those who have a strong link to the
department or to a faculty member's area of study, not their initial
technical ability. Please let us know how we can be of service!
Facilities
You will need a projection facility to demonstrate the Web in class. The Registrar's web site
has the room
schedule to let you know what features classrooms have
and when they are available. Also, be certain to visit the rooms ahead of selecting one, to be sure it suits your
teaching style.
Once you've been assigned a room by the Registrar, visit the room with a
member of Media Technology Services or your Resource Specialist
at least two weeks before classes begin to learn the procedures for
activating the projector and computer.
