Don't read this by e-mail! Instead, read the hypertext version of this newsletter: <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/news/current.html>. Contents:
Local events of particular interest to FCN members (see also upcoming conferences below):
Also, take a look at the workshops in the new IT Curriculum schedule for Spring 1997. The full schedule, with additional details, is available at <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/>. The following are only a selection, chosen as likely to be of particular interest to FCN members, from the complete list. Call your students' attention to the complete list!
Friday, April 4 10:00 am - 11:20 am EC Beyond Surfing: How to Find What You Really Want on the Net 12:30 pm - 1:50 pm EC Introduction to Lexis/Nexis 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm EC The Electronic Scholar: Environmental Studies Monday, April 7 9:00 am - 10:50 am EC Using PowerPoint for Presentations Tuesday, April 8 10:00 am - 11:50 am ITC Introduction to Web Publishing 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm EC Beyond Surfing: How To Find What You Really Want on the Net 4:30 pm - 5:50 pm EC Introduction to Lexis/Nexis Wednesday, April 9 3:30 pm - 4:50 pm IMCB System Maintenance and Troubeshooting: MacOS 6:00 pm - 7:50 pm EC Introduction to Web Publishing Thursday, April 10 9:00 am - 9:50 am EC Using Motet for Computer Conferencing 11:30 am - 12:50 pm EC Introduction to Lexis/Nexis 3:00 pm - 4:20 pm ITC Introduction to Scanning: Creating and Moving Digitized Images
Not really. But we've achieved almost the effect of doubling our UO Library collection by instituting Orbis Borrowing. From your office, you can now use the online Orbis catalog to request any book not available at UO but available for loan from any of the 11 other Orbis libraries. The book will be sent from the owning library to UO, and when it arrives (typically within a couple of working days) you'll be able to pick it up at the Knight Library circulation desk.
Visit the Orbis catalog at <http://orbis.uoregon.edu>. Find the item you want, and select "Request This Item", then follow the instructions.
Note: Orbis borrowing is brand new -- it was turned on March 10. There are still numerous rough edges to the documentation and the service, so please bear with us. Note also that not all materials in Orbis are available for delivery to UO through this service; for example, bound journals do not generally circulate, and so can not be borrowed through Orbis, though individual articles are available as usual through Interlibrary Loan.
For further information on Orbis borrowing, ask a reference librarian for assistance.
Many faculty are now using the web in a wide variety of ways at UO. Two notes of interest:
Ron Mitchell (Political Science) uses the web to provide course information to students (including lecture notes), Motet conferencing for group discussion, and a web-based simulation game. He also assigns a web publishing project and collects feedback information from students as the class proceeds. He reports having collected (using the web, of course) surveys of what students thought of the web components of his current course, PS 477. Survey results are on line in <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rmitchel/iep/webassess.shtml>. Of particular note -- students are very enthusiastic about having lecture notes posted on line, and routinely print them out in toto. You can also check out the course home page at: <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rmitchel/iep/iephome.shtml>.
Jennifer Freyd (Psychology) regularly uses listservs, group projects, and web browsing and publishing as part of her courses. For example, in her Psych 435 this term she required her students to work in small groups throughout the quarter for both weekly 20-minute in-class problem solving activities and discussion, and outside class for their final projects. Final projects (worth about 1/3 of the course grade) consist of both a written (or web-published) project and an in-class presentation during the final week of the quarter. Those presentations are modelled on a professional conference, complete with a conference web page that links to the student presentations. For a look at the "conference" in more detail, see <http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/~jfreyd/copsy/copsycon/>. For a discussion of the pedagogical goals of the class, see <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/misc/copsy_sharing.html>
I'm planning to highlight other examples of faculty web use in future issues of this newsletter. If you'd like to be mentioned, let me know.
What is IT? It's the "Info Technology Curriculum," a new joint effort by the University Library and the University Computing Center to provide a full range of computer and Internet training for everyone on campus. It combines the former Internet Curriculum and Computing Center Workshops into a single coordinated program covering a wide range of computing technology, the Internet, and networked information resources.
More than 50 different workshops will be offered spring term.
These non-credit workshops are free of charge to all UO faculty, staff and students. No advance registration is necessary, except where noted. Seating is limited, and available on a first come, first served basis. Topics covered spring term include:
Check out the IT Curriculum web site for further details: <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/>.
New and recommended on paper:
Khan, Badrul, ed. (1997). Web Based
Instruction.. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Educational Technology
Publications, 480 pp.
Available (soon) in Knight Library, this new book surveys the design, development, delivery, and evaluation of instruction using the World Wide Web.
Document Transfer and Conversion Tool. Check out <http://www.unc.edu/courses/ssp/convert.html>, a new tool from the U. of Virginia. It allows you to use Netscape to send files to another user, converting the format in the process. For example, using this tool, your students can send you a paper in WordPerfect 4.1, and you can receive it in Word 6.0 or in html. This tool also is useful for collaborative writing projects among people with "incompatible" software, or for simple conversions of documents to html for web publication. We'll look at this tool in more detail in a future issue of this newsletter.
Supreme Court considers CDA. The U.S. Supreme Court began Wednesdaay to hear arguments on how First Amendment rights apply to the Internet. At issue is the Communications Decency Act, which bans the dissemination of sexually explicit material to minors. The Clinton Administration is appealing a stay on enforcement of the law enacted by a U.S. district court last year.
Bookseller price war on net. With the Barnes & Noble bookselling company opening an operation today on America Online (and moving ahead with plans to begin selling books on the Web later this Spring), its much smaller rival Amazon.com, currently the biggest bookseller in cyberspace, is increasing the discount on 700 popular titles to 40%. But Barnes & Noble, which had $2.4 billion in sales last year, will prove formidable competition for Amazon, which had 1996 sales of only $17 million. Forrester Research says: "It's a case of a relatively successful pipsqueak taking on a heavily fortified giant. They can only compete by finding a niche and providing superior service." (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 18 Mar 97; quoted from Edupage, 18 Mar 1997)
Don't remember the URL of a site you visited two weeks ago? Want to find out what your unsuspecting children do when they use your system? You can find out where your browser has been in the past month by typing about:global in the Go To box. The resulting page may be saved by selecting File->Save As, so you can hold it as evidence -- or just keep referring to it in the future. [from Tip World published via e-mail by PC World]
How far back Netscape keeps track of is based on the time set in Options->General Preferences->Appearance, "Followed Links Expire After n days".
This is a selected and somewhat idiosyncratic list of upcoming conferences relevant to educational tech., both "virtual" (online) and traditional. For conferences that require physical travel, my emphasis is on conferences in the Northwest and on those I find personally interesting. The Educom and CAUSE calendars, <http://educom.edu/web/calendar/calendarHome.html> and <http://cause-www.colorado.edu/information-resources/events.html>, contain a more extensive list of mainstream conferences. Virtual conferences and tutorials:
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Traditional conferences and workshops:
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Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was slightly grey.
It didn't have a father, just some borrowed DNA.
It sort of had a mother, though the ovum was on loan.
'Twas not so much a lambkin, as a little lamby clone.
And soon it had a fellow clone, and soon it had some more.
They followed her to school one day, all cramming through the
door.
It made the children laugh and sing, the teachers found it droll.
There were too many lamby clones, for Mary to control.
No other could control the sheep--their programs didn't vary,
And so the lab resolved it all, by simply cloning Mary.
But now they feel quite sheepish, those scientists unwary.
One problem solved, but what to do, with Mary, Mary, Mary,...
The UO Faculty Consultants Network Newsletter is published (approximately) twice a month. If you have materials for inclusion in the newsletter you can send them to <mailto:jqj@darkwing>. This newsletter (as well as other FCN-related material) is available on line in <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/fcn/news/>.