DOCUMENT RESUME IR 018 888 ED 421 168 Galloway, Gary M. AUTHOR A Model of Internet Usage for Course Delivery. TITLE 1998-00-00 PUB DATE 6p.; In: "SITE 98: Society for Information Technology & NOTE Teacher Education International Conference (9th, Washington, DC, March 10-14, 1998). Proceedings"; see IR 018 794. Speeches/Meeting Papers (150) Descriptive (141) Reports PUB TYPE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *Computer Assisted Instruction; *Computer Uses in Education; DESCRIPTORS Conventional Instruction; Distance Education; Electronic Mail; Higher Education; *Internet; Nontraditional Education; *Teacher Education; Teaching Methods; Teaching Models ABSTRACT To improve teacher training, a model was developed to summarize and categorize teachers' levels of current and future Internet usage in teaching. This model was intended to prepare teacher educators to help inservice teachers learn to use the Internet to support their courses. Three levels are determined by how the Internet is used educationally by teachers. This three-level model is derived from the principles of two mutually exclusive instructional approaches: explicit and implicit teaching. Level 1 use of the Internet focuses on supporting a traditional classroom setting in two areas: management and instruction. Teachers' usage of the Internet reaches Level 2 when they use the Internet in the actual delivery of instruction. Level 2 e-mail usage finds students submitting assignments as attachments or directly in the message, receiving data and answering questions through the Internet. Level 3 finds complete courses offered and received through the Internet where teachers and students interact with each other and the material exclusively via technology. From the teacher whose goal is to increase efficiency, to the teacher concerned with designing a Web-based course, the three-level model structures various types of instructional use. As teachers are trained in the use of telecommunications and the Internet, this model can direct their study from beginner level through becoming independent distance educators. (AEF) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** A Model of Internet Usage for Course Delivery By: Gary M. Galloway "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS OF EDUCATION MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY U.S. DEPARTMENT Research and Improvement Office of Educational INFORMATION 00 EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES G.H. Marks CENTER (ERIC) been reproduced as This document has or organization received from the person 9 60 originating it. C>0 been made to Minor changes have quality. improve reproduction TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES C.) opinions stated in this INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." Points of view or necessarily represent document do not or policy. official OERI position A MODEL COURSE DELIVERY INTERNET USAGE OF FOR Gary M. Galloway Indiana University Northwest In the world of limited funding, where teachers' needs always seem beyond their resources, the Internet is being used to expand educational opportunity. The Internet is not specifically designed to meet the needs of teachers or of educa- tion. The Internet is a network of networks, and it is up to educators to create educational opportunity and bring the educa- tion to the Internet. Teachers are quickly realizing that the Internet is a tool with unlimited possibilities for supplementing managing and delivering whole courses. To improve teacher training, the following model was from Level One to Level Three is based on the increase of developed to summarize and categorize teachers' levels of student interaction with the Internet and course content. current and future Internet usage in teaching. Educators Both instructional approaches are "needed to address the have embraced the use of technology in education to better needs of students in a diverse classroom" (Mercer & Mercer, "challenge the bright and more effectively engage the less 1998, p.142). It should be noted that Level One and Level able" (T.H.E. Journal, 1997, p. 8). People are gaining access Two are intended as supplementary to traditional course to the Internet at a record pace. The Department of Educa- structures and not intended to provide a complete course. tion (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1996), ran a Level Three may include entire courses offered on the survey that showed over 50% of U.S. schools have access to Internet. Everything from electronic mail between teachers the Internet. That figure rose 15% between 1994 and 1995, and students to interactive Web pages for full course and the Clinton Administration has urged a national delivery and beyond is described in terms of this three-part commitment to have all classrooms and libraries connected model. to the Internet by the year 2000 (Grabe & Grabe, 1998). Level One This model of Internet usage will hopefully better prepare Level One use of the Internet focuses on supporting a teacher educators to help inservice teachers learn to use the traditional classroom setting in two areas: management and Internet to support their courses. instruction. "Management" ranges from course support Three levels are determined by how the Internet is used material (syllabi, reduction of paper copies, etc.). "Instruc- educationally by teachers. Grabe & Grabe (1998) indicate tion" encompasses the direct interaction between content that a theme of technology use in the classroom creates the (from the teacher) and students. need for students to have an active role in order to benefit Typically, the management of a course is a tedious and from that technology. Traditionally, an active learner may cumbersome process. The mountain of paperwork each manipulate information to help in building their own teacher is under continues to grow and takes away valuable personal understanding of content, but for the Internet to be instructional planning time. This process is also difficult for helpful, its use has to be structured and its presentation the student who follows this paper trail. One option for integrated for specific content. Simply exposing students to using the Internet for management is to create a course Web information does not ensure that learning will occur. At all site that can automate much of the process. This site can three levels of Internet inclusion, the student is subject to contain almost anything that an instructor deems important an environment whose value to the course is completely to the course. The result is increased efficiency. The student determined by the teacher. And so, this process requires can access information from anywhere and at anytime by both active students and active teachers. simply getting online. This access allows the student to This three-level model is derived from the principles of track changes or updates and better follow the flow of the two mutually exclusive instructional approaches: explicit course. and implicit teaching. These two instructional approaches Level One involves explicit instruction where the account for the most common teaching practices (Mercer, teacher is more directly involved. The teacher will guide Lane, Jordan, Allsopp, & Eisele, 1996). Level One Internet the student to the information on the Internet. Discovery by use includes an explicit approach exclusively and Levels the student will be controlled by the teacher and by the Two and Three use an implicit approach. The transition Telecommunications: Systems and Services 1207 3 structure of the content on the Internet. This requires that a students make use of Internet tools to explore content and teacher's preparation include scouting the Internet to find second, teachers can create actual lessons on the Internet. information that relates specifically to the content. Davies Teachers can provide assignments directing students to (1997) has indicated that advance planning for Internet use use a Web browser to explore specific Web sites and e-mail is important. to learn course content. The browser is equipped with a There is no creating or shaping of the Internet at this "bookmark" tool which gives students the ability to keep level. The teacher simply maps an activity and makes use of track of relevant places as they move through the Internet. the already existing Internet. Students are exposed to skills There are also search engines that improve one's efficiency and concepts in a clear and direct fashion in order to in moving from place to place on the Internet. Chat rooms promote mastery. The approach is one of explicit teaching are available for online collaborations with other students, where the teacher and the Internet serve as the providers of the teacher, or possibly an expert in a certain content area. knowledge. This level of use does not require that the Some students are likely to have difficulty using these student have any knowledge of computers beyond that of a tools at first. Teachers may begin by modeling the use of "point and click" ability because the teacher takes the these tools for the students to observe. There is a good student to the information. compromise between teacher modeling and a completely The Internet is analogous to a library where the teacher independent student usage. The teacher could create a takes the student into the library and directly to a book simple Web page with specific instructions of tool use, (Level One). The Internet also serves as a provider of URLs, or even links to existing Web sites. This is designed knowledge because the content on the Internet is authored to improve the students' ability to explore rather than teach by someone other than the teacher. Just like reading a book, content. The more the students use this technology, the viewing the Internet leaves the viewer subject to structure more proficient they will become. All that is left is for the and content choices of that author. If the teacher assumes teachers to use their imagination in creating assignments the students have some Internet access, the teacher can and activities (i.e., searching for resources, collaborations, create a list of specific Web addresses (URLs, or uniform etc.). resource locators) to visit and specific things for the student Level Two e-mail usage finds students submitting to do. This is much like a directed worksheet where the assignments as attachments or directly in the message, Internet is the medium. In the library analogy, this would receiving data and answering questions through the involve identifying the call numbers for specific books and Internet. So, Level Two accounts for e-mail usage expanded using these numbers to locate the books. Using the card to involve instructional issues beyond the simple forms of catalog is a system that is a bit more complex and the casual communication. Grabe & Grabe (1998, p. 14) activity of using the card catalog moves us beyond Level provide a list of e-mail project categories from Harris (1995) One use and into Level Two. to help structure instructional activities. They are listed and E-mail can be used for students to contact the teacher described here to help generate ideas for Level Two usage and other students in the same course or around the world. of the Internet: The introduction of electronic mail to this level marks a Interpersonal Exchanges "talk" among individuals, change in the type of interaction the student is having with between an individual and a group, and among groups. the Internet, but when this interaction takes the form of This can be a Level Two usage by making the "talk" communication at a non-instructional level, it remains a questions about content. Level One use of the Internet. unstructured exchange among individuals or Key Pals groups; e.g., exchanges to develop cultural awareness or Level Two language skills. Teachers' usage of the Internet reaches Level Two when Global Classrooms - study of a common topic and they use the Internet in the actual delivery of instruction (as exchange of accounts of what has been learned; e.g., compared to merely supporting instruction with additional themes in fairy tales. content). The teacher can use the Internet to deliver course Electronic Appearances - e-mail or chat interaction with activities (assignments, collaborations, etc.) to students that a guest, perhaps after some preparation; e.g., local have traditionally been provided on paper or a chalk board. engineer responds to questions from students in a At Level Two, this is done with an implicit approach to physics class. instruction. This means that the teacher becomes a facilita- Electronic Mentoring - ongoing interaction between tor of knowledge and creates situations where students can expert and student on a specific topic; e.g., college discover the content and create their own meanings. This is education majors offering middle school students to say that the learning is somewhat self-regulated and the advice on class projects. teacher assistance is more indirect. Teachers can use the Internet in two ways to accomplish this. First, they can have Technology and Teacher Education Annual 1208 1998 4 Impersonations - participants interacting "in character"; Level Three e.g., correspondence with graduate student impersonat- This model has first accounted for increasing student ing Benjamin Franklin. interaction with the Internet and course content. The second Information Collections - working together to collect focus has dealt with educational philosophy (explicit/ and compile information provided by participants. implicit roles). Level Three is an extension of the same Information Exchanges - accumulation of information phenomenon where students are even more dependent on on some theme; e.g., recycling practices. the Internet for course content. Level Three finds complete Electronic Publishing - publication of documents based courses offered and received through the Internet where on submission by group members. teachers and students interact with each other and the Tele-Field trips - shared observations made during field material exclusively via technology. Level Three involves trips. a greater technical function of Internet tools for interactive Pooled Data Analysis - data collection from multiple lessons, online assessment, real-time collaboration, and sites, combined for analysis; e.g., cost comparison of more. gasoline. The length of a Web-based course (WBC) tends to take Information Searches problem solving based on clues twice as long as a normal course. Generally speaking, the and reference sources; e.g., identifying state landmarks time for development planning takes longer as well. One or cities in response to a progression of clues. must make many pedagogical decisions about the course. It Electronic Process Writing - posting written work for seems that the most organized teacher (regarding lesson critiques before revisions; e.g., composition students content) will be able to make the easiest transition to a commenting on classmates' papers. complete WBC. One suggestion is that teachers develop Sequential Creations - working on sequential compo- one WBC lesson or unit at a time to make the transition nents of an expressive piece; e.g., adding a stanza to a more gradual. This model exemplifies the details of a poem. gradual transition. At this level, having some form of technical support can The Internet is a tool that has no inherent or required be a very crucial element in the success of a WBC. It is mode of application. The role of this technology in important to note that e-mail and e-mail attachments will, education is the responsibility of the teacher. Teachers can most likely, become an important part of your course. This provide entire lessons on Web pages. This can be done with will be for communication, assignments, projects, assess- descriptions of assignments, explanations, concepts, ment, etc. Look at any branch of the course and e-mail may examples, and illustrations. This is where a teachers' Web be seen as having a role. One problem to anticipate is the design skills or Web support personnel become important finicky nature of file conversion that is inherent in e-mail factors in quality and feasibility of creating lessons on the interaction. There are ways around most of the problems Web. that might be encountered, and most of those are probably The teacher needs to become familiar with the world of not too complicated. Consult your technical support Web-page construction. It is fair to say that almost anything department. a teacher would like to include in a lesson is possible, and At this point, there are no requirements or essential there are so many Web-page editors available today that the features that must be included for a WBC. One should still process can be fairly automated. In fact, lots of software that consider issues of course quality, from the perspective of teachers may already use in preparing lessons provides the the student, when developing the course. One quality issue option of being saved in an HTML (hypertext markup is whether or not something more than a mere tutorial is language), Web-ready format. This means that many being developed. To ensure that this happens, it seems teachers may already have much of the ground work important to focus on the interactivity of the course. completed for learning to prepare their own Web pages. To Discussions are a nice way to do this. Many use asynchro- make more intricate Web pages and take full advantage of nous discussions via e-mail, which has the advantage of the tools available, it can be as simple as choosing a Web- convenience. Another way to do this is through online page composer and learning it. The Internet would be a discussions (chat sessions) done in real-time. Scheduled and good place to search for one because many are available as assigned by the teacher, he or she can then directly freeware or shareware. This would allow the beginner to participate and thus help drive the discussion. Many download one for free or for a small registration fee. teachers have said that this process was invaluable. It even Learning Web construction may be viewed as programming gives teachers the opportunity to get to know the students. in hypermedia, usually with a very user-friendly word Verifying the identity of the student can be a concern. Is the processor-style editor or a relatively simple authoring person taking the test the same person as the one doing the language, such as those found with Toolbook or homework or participating in the discussions? The chat HyperCard. Telecommunications: Systems and Services-1209 References sessions help the teachers identify and learn the students better. Davies, T. G. (1997). Blending learning modalities: A return to the Another quality concern is whether or not the technol- `high techlhigh touch' concept. echnological Horizons in ogy used in the WBC is of high or low technology? It Education, 24(10), 66-68. Grabe, M., & Grabe, C., (1998)Learning with Internet tools: A seems fair to say that a teacher wants as many people as primer. NY: Houghton Mifflin. possible to have access to their course. That prerequisite Harris, J. (1995). Curricularly infused telecomputing: A structural dictates that the course should be developed closer to the approach to activity design.Computers in the Schools, 143), low end of technology since many people are always 49-59. playing "catch up." This will surely be a point of constant Mercer, C. D., Lane, H. B., Jordan, L., Allsopp, D. H., & Eisele, debate and cause the WBC designer to continually work on M. R. (1996). Empowering teachers and students with revising the course. instructional choices in inclusive settingsRemedial and special Education, IZ 226-236. Summary Mercer, C. D., & Mercer, A. R. (1998)Teaching Students with From the teacher whose goal is to increase efficiency, to Learning Problems, 5h Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: the teacher concerned with designing a Web-based course, Prentice-Hall. the three-level model structures various types of instruc- National Center for Educational Statistics, (1996)Advanced tional use. Recognizing that such an organizational system telecommunications in U.S. public elementary and secondary schools, 1995 (NCES 96-854). Washington, CD: U.S. includes a large degree of overlap, all levels include Department of Education. teachers using the Internet to improve instruction. Teachers T.H.E. Journal, (1997). Innovative learning environments: News. make use of the Internet incrementally through the use of Technological Horizons in Education, 213), p. 8. this model by progressing through the three levels. It is suggested that if the ultimate goal is to develop a WBC Gary M. Galloway is a student of educational computing at (time permitting), that it be done in a modularized ap- Indiana University Northwest, 3400 Broadway, Gary, IN proach, one unit at a time. 46408. Voice Messages: 219 980-6537. To help instructors focus on planning a list of ten ideas/ E-Mail: [email protected] issues for the development of a WBC include (in no particular order): Identity of student & passwording Time - course planning, course length Online discussions Technical support Assignments & activities Content Student access Copyright issues Technology - hardware & software Testing and assessment Understanding how and at what levels the Internet may be implemented into education is a first step that will better enable us to meet specifically identified goals and objec- tives. As teachers are trained in the use of telecommunica- tions and the Internet, this model can direct their study from beginner level through becoming independent distance educators. 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