FCN News 1 May 1998

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:

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Upcoming Events

Local and online events of particular interest to FCN members (see also upcoming conferences below):

Campus News

Grayson Hall. University Planning is coordinating the plans for rennovating Grayson Hall (after the Law School moves to its new digs). Allan Chung reports "After completion in Winter 2000, we hope Grayson will have the potential of being the campus showplace for instructional environments, including electronic." User groups have started meeting, with Allan coordinating the classroom user group. If you are interested in becoming involved in the Grayson planning, contact him, <mailto:achung@oregon>.

TEP Summer Short Course. The deadline for the Instructional Technology Summer Short course has been extended to May 15. "All instructors who have made a long term commitment to quality education at UO are encouraged to submit a one-page proposal." A $500 stipend will be given to each participant, to be used for technology-related needs. For more information, contact Georgeanne Cooper, <mailto:gcooper@oregon>, or see <http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~tep/itssc>.

 IT Curriculum. See <http://libweb.uoregon.edu/it/> for the spring schedule. We're starting to organize the summer curriculum as well. If you have suggestions, or if you'd like to arrange a special session for members of your department, contact Colleen Bell, <mailto:cbell@darkwing>.

Staff Computer Training Needs Survey. The CSTDAC recently conducted a survey of UO staff training needs. They found very high demand for workshops on a variety of topics, with Microsoft Office 97 (especially Excel), Pagemake, and use of scanners topping the list as most-requested items. For details, contact Kathy Dickison <mailto:kbrenner@oregon>.

Seen on the Net

Statistics Every Writer Should Know. It's no substitute for a course in statistical methods, but it may be particularly useful to the students in your course who have no knowledge of statistics at all. Have them visit <http://nilesonline.com/stats/>. The target audience is journalism students, but it's a great site for anyone in the social sciences or information science, or for anyone who needs to understand the newspaper!

Internet Change. A study by the U.S. Commerce Department <http://ecommerce.gov/> says that traffic on the Internet is doubling every hundred days and predicts that electronic commerce will grow to $300 billion a year by 2002. (USA Today 16 Apr 96). Meanwhile, a study published in Science by Vanderbilt professors Donna Hoffman and Thomas Novak finds that, even controlling for education and income level, African-Americans have less access to the Web and use it less often than white Americans. <http://www2000.ogsm.vanderbilt.edu/paperlist.html>.

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence. "On April 18, 1997, President Clinton asked Federal agencies to determine what "resources you can make available that would enrich the Internet as a tool for teaching and learning. In response, more than 30 Federal agencies formed a working group to make hundreds of federally supported education resources available at this web site." <http://www.ed.gov/free>.

Michigan introduces $30 million education/technology plan. Michigan Governor John Engler has proposed a plan to give 100 grants of $10,000 each to schools, libraries and community centers to fund computer equipment, Internet access, and teacher training on the use of computers, as well as 200 grants of up to $10,000 to teachers who have creative plans for integrating technology into the classroom. The plan also calls for the creation of a state virtual university. (EduPage, 12 Apr 98).

D-Lib Magazine. The April issue of D-Lib magazine (free, online at <http://www.dlib.org/>) contains a number of interesting articles, among them:

Sun Offers Free Java Software Licenses. Sun Microsystems Inc. announced it will make educational software licenses for Java application development products available free to the education community—including colleges, universities, high schools, and K-12. Products available under this program include Java Workshop 2.0, Java Studio 1.0, Java Web Server 1.1, JavaPureCheck, JavaStar, JavaSpec, and JavaScope. Download at <http://www.sun.com/edu/java/free>.

Distance Ed Clearinghouse. This site at the University of Wisconsin-Extension was named "Publication of the Year" by the International Teleconferencing Association (ITCA). The site focuses on distance education programs and conferences, technologies, applications, and research.<http://www.uwex.edu/disted/home.html>

New Specs for Math on the Web. The WWW consortium has recommended a new standard for displaying equations on the web. MathML, or Mathematical Markup Language, is based on XML, the language that many believe will be the successor to HTML as the standard for web page design. <http://www.w3/org/Math>.

Hawkins to lead Educause. Two major academic computing professional organizations, EDUCOM and CAUSE, are slated to merge this year. The new organization has selected its first CEO, Brian Hawkins, who is currently senior vice president for Academic Planning and Administrative Affairs at Brown University. <http://www.cause.org/>.

How To -- Citing Internet Sources

A recent study claimed to find that 40% of all student papers now cite Internet resources, rather than just those old fashioned books. For that matter, Internet sources are more and more frequently finding their way into scholarly works, often as examples of popular culture. That raises lots of interesting issues, among them (1) teaching students how to evaluate Internet resources for credibility, currency, and appropriateness, and (2) how to cite such resources.

The Modern Language Association style manual is one of the most prominent sources for guidelines on academic writing, and MLA has recently posted a site which contains the only MLA-authorized guidelines for citing Internet resources. Take a look at it: <http://www.mla.org/main_stl.htm>. Of particular interest in that guideline is an attempt to distinguish between web sites based on content rather than simply form of publication. Thus, a web page that is the equivalent of a book is cited differently from a personal home page.

If you aren't publishing in a context that requires MLA style, the rules are less clear. But including as much publication data as you can in a citation is generally a good idea. In particular, it's important to include the author, page title, and date page was written if known (you can often find out when the page was last updated by selecting View/Page Info in Netscape or File/Properties in Internet Explorer). And always include the URL of the page and the date you visited the page, since the page may change and your readers might care about which version you saw.

MLA Style. 28 April 1998. Modern Language Association. of America. 1 May 1998 <http://www.mla.org/main_stl.htm>.

Conferences and Workshops, Real and Virtual

An 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:

Traditional conferences and workshops:

The Lighter Side -- educational reform in the '90s

Lectures were once useful; but now, when all can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary. If your attention fails, and you miss a part of a lecture, it is lost; you cannot go back as you do upon a book. . . . People have nowadays got a strange opinion that everything should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shown. You may teach chymistry by lectures. You might teach making shoes by lectures!

Samuel Johnson, quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson (1791).

Administrativa

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/>.