Date: Wed, 16 Jul 1997 09:25:02 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Paper 11 - DR: Future On-Line Courses and Course Segments Paper 11 - DR: Future On-Line Courses and Course Segments I'd be interested to learn from the organizers of proposed future on-line activities what they are planning - topic, format, date, etc. Will it be possible for other schools to participate? Does anyone have suggestions for future on-line courses and course segments? Donald Rosenthal Clarkson University Potsdam NY 13699-5810 315-265-9242 ROSEN1@CLVM.CLARKSON.EDU ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 00:22:18 -0500 From: George Long Subject: paper 11: GRL answer to short question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Don Rosenthal asks: Paper 11 - DR: Future On-Line Courses and Course Segments I'd be interested to to learn from the organizers of proposed future on-line activities what they ar e planning for future activities . . . The next courses will be Fall 97 - the thermodynamics of elasticity, (for PCHEM classes, will be arounf thanksgiving, Spring of 98 will be OLCC-2, env. and industrial chemistry again, and olcc-3 pharmeceutical chemistry. I guess contacting the chair of the organizing commitees is the thing to do for those who wish to participate, or contact me if you are interested in the p-chem project. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 00:49:26 -0500 From: George Long Subject: paper 11: grl-being a digital professor MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT as I read the discussions during this conference, one question kept coming up. why aren't more lurkers participating, why aren't more people participating (even lurking) and why do some faculty look on the application of computers, and the internet in education as a fad, at best? It has been 4 years since the first chemconf (93), and we seem to be at a point where interest in such events is (at least my impression) leveling off far below what I originally expected. It seems that being a professor, is to some extent, viewed as a solitary endeavor, and thus there may be such a thing as too much interaction, at least for some (most) individuals. one thing I've gained from participating in on-line projects was the abillity to work together with many different colleagues, but in doing so, I must admit that there aren't any really good models to follow fo faculty to colaborate succesfully. so we have 9and still are) basically feeling around in the dark. Perhaps we need to develop new models of faculty interaction - but how does one do this when the SOP is the individual professor being master of his/her class, and generally not wanting any input from outside. This seems to be a inconsistent with what the information age is about, and seems to me to be a limited and narrow view of the role of faculty. on the other hand, to operate as a group of faculty requires that one sacrifice at least a modicum of academic freedom. So my question to the list would be "what is the future of academic freedom in the information age?" How can we find (or should we look for) a balance between what a faculty member chooses to teach, and the influence that an outside group might have. Should we look to "groups" of faculty, perhaps with complimentary strenths and weaknesses, as the model for some future "digital" faculty ? George Long IUP p.s. i apologize for the typos, etc. but I am using a poor telnet connection (from out of town) to do this email. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 08:25:00 EDT From: to2 Subject: Re: paper 11: grl-being a digital professor George Long asks: > why aren't more lurkers participating, why aren't more people > participating (even lurking)... We've asked this in the past and the response from some lurkers has been that they are quite happy to watch and read and that they are "not ready" or don't have the time to participate actively. As for the "leveling off" of interest, it may simply be a sign that the initial novelty is wearing off and that the whole thing is settling down into a steady state. Tom ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tom O'Haver Professor of Analytical Chemistry University of Maryland Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry College Park, MD 20742 Maryland Collaborative for Teacher Preparation (301) 405-1831 to2@umail.umd.edu FAX: (301) 314-9121 http://www.wam.umd.edu/~toh ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 08:48:51 -0400 From: Michael Fuson Subject: Re: paper 11: grl-being a digital professor MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit to2 wrote: > > George Long asks: > > why aren't more lurkers participating, why aren't more people > > participating (even lurking)... > > We've asked this in the past and the response from some lurkers > has been that they are quite happy to watch and read and that they > are "not ready" or don't have the time to participate actively. > > As for the "leveling off" of interest, it may simply be a > sign that the initial novelty is wearing off and that the > whole thing is settling down into a steady state. > > Tom As a lurker, I'd also like to comment that while I enjoy and profit by monitoring the conversation, much of what I might contribute myself is already expressed, indeed overexpressed, and I have no desire to further clog the bandwidth. One of my pet peeves is the habit of replying to the first comment encountered of an active thread instead of reading all the messages comprising that thread (received to that point) and then contributing. -- Michael Fuson Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry email: fuson@cc.denison.edu Denison University phone: 614-587-6782 Granville, OH 43023 fax: 614-587-6417 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 16:17:34 -0400 From: "James N. Stevenson" Subject: Re: paper 11: grl-being a digital professor MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:49 AM 7/25/97 -0500, you wrote: >as I read the discussions during this conference, one question kept coming up. > why aren't more lurkers participating, why aren't more people participating >(even lurking) I've been to a few conferences and it seems to me that when someone is giving a paper there may be, let's say, 30 people in the room. How many will ask a question or make a comment after it is over? More than two or three? Not at the conferences that I've been at. I don't think it is so strange that there are many "lurkers." And, as a sometimes lurker ... there are times in which I have found myself "in the wrong room" (that is, the subject isn't what I thought is would be and rather than walk out during the talk I just wait 'till it is over and then quietly leave. Or ... as has occurred recently, I find other things come to the top of the priority list and I haven't even read the papers yet...so I just collect the responses and wait until I can read the paper. Sincerely, James N. Stevenson E-mail: jims@austin.concordia.edu Concordia University at Austin or: ctxstevenjn@crf.cuis.edu 3400 IH35 North Phone/voice mail:512-452-7662 Ext.1209 Austin, TX 78705-2799 Fax:512-459-8517 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 17:06:57 -0500 From: George Long Subject: Re: paper 11: grl-being a digital professor MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT At 04:17 PM 7/25/97 -0400, James N. Stevenson wrote: >I've been to a few conferences and it seems to me that when someone is >giving a paper there may be, let's say, 30 people in the room. How many >will ask a question or make a comment after it is over? More than two or >three? >Not at the conferences that I've been at. I don't think it is so strange >that there are many "lurkers." > >And, as a sometimes lurker ... there are times in which I have found myself >"in the wrong room" (that is, the subject isn't what I thought is would be >and rather than walk out during the talk I just wait 'till it is over and >then quietly leave. > >Or ... as has occurred recently, I find other things come to the top of the >priority list and I haven't even read the papers yet...so I just collect >the responses and wait until I can read the paper. > I understand and appreciate this comment, Its true that traditional meetings are much different then this, and are designed as one time social events, and can only be attended by relatively few people. In my original post, I did not mean to be critical of lurkers, etc. Rather I was interested in examining how we, as faculty, choose to use the internet. That is what things are important to us, and which things are not. I believe, that despite the ability to communicate more, we choose not to. It may be that our work does not require the additional communication, or it may be that we are so used to working in relative isolation, that our work styles, etc., are not geared for collaboration. (here is where the idea of academic freedom came up, it may be that we have institutionalized isolation (or maybe I should use the term independence, it depends on your perspective). I'm interested in examining whether the isolation (independence) is still a positive thing given the advances in communication technology ?? Happy to be at my own computer .... **************************************************************************** Dr. George R. Long grlong@grove.iup.edu http://www.iup.edu/~grlong/ Department of Chemistry Indiana University of PA Indiana PA, 15705 **************************************************************************** -------------------------------- Date: Sat, 26 Jul 1997 11:40:13 -0600 From: "Dr. Red Chasteen" Subject: Paper 11: student level Clearly these teachers have been teaching and learning and teaching and learning and iterating towards as successful a use of the web as we have seen so far (no insult meant to Scott Van Bramer or the other online teachers by any means). One of the conditions that contributes to the give and take among students in Sam Houston State's experience (with Virginia Tech's product "Web Course in a Box") is the relatively even distribution of student abilities. That means that the difference between the hard workers and the lurkers (again no insult meant to the quiet ~750 of CHEM CONFers either) is small enough so that most students don't feel intimidated in making some online efforts via e-mail etc. In majors' chemistry classes we have gotten pretty good response in our student forums; however... I have an honors non-majors science course in which the students' abilities in chemistry are VERY different. After all they are non chemistry majors. Since these are honor students they are very competent in their major area but very uncomfortable outside it. Their on-line assignments were posted this way: http://unx1.shsu.edu/wcb/schools/SHSU/chm/tchastee/6/announce.html Besides telling me that an "honors non-majors' chemistry" course is an oxymoron and that this is the wrong population with which to use on-line forum techniques, has anyone got any suggestions/examples about how to "activate" this type of student? Thanks! Red Head -- Dr. Thomas G. Chasteen Department of Chemistry Sam Houston State University Huntsville, Texas 77341-2117 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:33:22 -0500 From: George Long Subject: Re: (GRL) Paper 11: student level MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT >I have an honors non-majors science course in which the students' >abilities in chemistry are VERY different. After all they are non >chemistry majors. Since these are honor students they are very competent >in their major area but very uncomfortable outside it. > >Their on-line assignments were posted this way: >http://unx1.shsu.edu/wcb/schools/SHSU/chm/tchastee/6/announce.html > >Besides telling me that an "honors non-majors' chemistry" course is an >oxymoron and that this is the wrong population with which to use on-line >forum techniques, has anyone got any suggestions/examples about how to >"activate" this type of student? > >Thanks! Students use these types of forums only under two conditions. First, they find something of value in participating, or second, they are required to use the forum (list, etc) as part of the course and are graded on that participation. The second case is simply creating an "artificial" value for participating, and is done in the hope that when required to participate, the students will see the intrinsic value in participation, and continue to participate because they value the forum (list) as a place to obtain information. Does this happen ?? sometimes - perhaps not as often as I would like. Do different levels of student abilities effect the interaction? - clearly, students are less tolerant of others lack of knowledge than faculty. Perhaps you could require students to do things like ask as question, and answer a question (or maybe corect an error). Grade them on these tasks. perhaps they will see the value of the exercise and continue it without the stick and carrot. As to whether this is an appropriate group to use on-line forum techniques, I'd guess it is perhaps the best place to use this, since each student should bring a unique perspective to the subject. **************************************************************************** Dr. George R. Long grlong@grove.iup.edu http://www.iup.edu/~grlong/ Department of Chemistry Indiana University of PA Indiana PA, 15705 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 08:17:50 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: Conference Evaluation Form To: ALL CHEMCONF '97 PARTICIPANTS From: Donald Rosenthal Conference Co-Chair Chair, ACS Division of Chemical Education's Committee on Computers in Chemical Education 315-265-9242 ROSEN@CLVM.BITNET and Thomas O'Haver Conference Co-Chair 301-405-1831 TO2@UMAIL.UMD.EDU Re: EVALUATION OF THE COMPUTER SYMPOSIUM Date: July 29, 1997 A Conference Information and Evaluation form is appended. We would appreciate knowing the extent to which you participated, what you liked and didn't like, and what suggestions you may have for future meetings. Please fill out the form and return it. EVEN IF YOU DID NOT PARTICIPATE OR ONLY PARTICIPATED TO A SLIGHT EXTENT, FILL OUT AND RETURN THIS FORM. WE ARE INTERESTED IN OBTAINING THE PROFILE OF THE AVERAGE VIEWER - YOU ARE A PART OF THIS AVERAGE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INFORMATION AND EVALUATION FORM FOR CHEMCONF '97 1. NAME ________________________________ DATE _________________________ 2. ADDRESS AT WORK _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ 3. TITLE AT WORK _________________ (e.g. Professor, Teacher, Student, etc) 4. ELECTRONIC MAIL ADDRESS ________________ 5. COURSES YOU TEACH ___________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ STATISTICS 6. How many of the eleven papers did you read? ______ 7. a. How many of the eleven papers did you look at? ______ b. What percentage of the papers you looked at did you read? ______ 8. TIME SPENT READING PAPERS (in hours) ______ 9. Average number of times you accessed discussion each day ______ 10. a. Amount of time you devoted to the discussion (in hours) ______ b. What percentage of the discussion did you read for the papers which you looked at? ______ 11. Total Time Devoted to the Conference (in hours) ______ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EVALUATION Evaluation - Scale 1 to 5 - 1 is Poor, 3 is Average and 5 is excellent 12. Overall evaluation of papers ______ 13. Overall evaluation of discussion ______ 14. Overall evaluation of Conference ______ 15. What did you like most about the computer Conference? _______________ ________________________________________________________________________ 16. What did you like least about the computer Conference? ______________ ________________________________________________________________________ 17. What changes could be made to improve computer Conferences? (Schedule, Papers, Short Question Sessions, Discussion Sessions, etc.) ______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ 18. Compare this Conference with the usual one-site Conference. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 19. Would you be interested in organizing and chairing a three week - 5 paper session for a future on-line conference? ____________ If you are interested please indicate a topic for the session. ____________________________________________________________________ Please return this form to Thomas O'Haver (TO2@UMAIL.UMD.EDU) between ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ July 30 and August 8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 08:19:44 EDT From: Donald Rosenthal Subject: 1998 On-Line Conference MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT SCHOOL YEAR ON-LINE CONFERENCE January 30 to May 1, 1998 1. David W. Brooks University of Nebraska at Lincoln Lincoln, NE 68588-0355 dbrooks@unlinfo.unl.edu "Silicon Cognition and Teaching" 2. John Clevenger Truckee Meadows Community College Reno, NV 89512 clevenge@scs.unr.edu "Collaboration: Why Participate In An Unnatural Act?" 3. Brian P. Coppola The University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1055 bcoppola@umich.edu "First, do no harm . . ." The (Moral) Obligation of the Faculty 4. Rosamaria Fong British Columbia Institute of Technology Burnaby, British Columbia, CANADA rfong@bcit.bc.ca "Students' Response to the Use of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) for Teaching Chemistry" 5. Scott R. Goode et al University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 Goode@sc.edu "Teaching Forensic Analytical Chemistry" 6. Paul B. Kelter et al University of Nebraska Lincoln, NE 68588-0304 pkelter@unlinfo.unl.edu "********************************" 7. Jimmy Reeves University of North Carolina at Wilmington Wilmington, NC 28403 reeves@uncwil.edu "Pulling out all the stops: Applying Technology to Every Facet of Chemical Education" 8. Oliver Seely et al California State University at Dominguez Hills Dominguez Hills, CA oliver@dhvx20.csudh.edu "On-line Exercises and Public Domain Databases in Chemistry" 9. Sylvia Ware Education Division American Chemical Society Washington, DC 20036 saw97@wash24.acs.org "From Pre-School to Death: Life-Long Learning and the ACS Education Division" 10. Gabriela C. Weaver University of Colorado at Denver Denver, CO 80217-3364 gweaver@carbon.cudenver.edu "Using the World Wide Web to Provide Teaching on Demand in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory" ------------------------------------------------------------------ The exact schedule and abstracts for the talks will be available on the Conference Website within a few months. Periodically, Announcements about the School Year Conference will be distributed via CHEMCONF. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 29 Jul 1997 10:54:34 +0000 From: "Kevin W. Paulisse" Subject: WWW-based discussion board A recent discussion on ChemConf concerned on-line resources for chemistry courses and addressed ways in which students and faculty could interact over the internet. It seems that a WWW-based discussion board, on which students and faculty can exchange messages, would be ideal for this purpose. Choosing the correct WWW-based discussion board is important. The board must be easy to use for new users and there must be a simple way to keep various lines of discussion neat and organized. At Hope College we have developed a WWW-based discussion board application that is designed specifically for academic uses. It offers a very intuitive "Yahoo-like" user interface. Users (students) navigate and browse through ongoing conversations. They can add to discussions using a form at the bottom of each discussion, i.e., without using e-mail. The program allows administrators (professors) to organize discussions by moving, reordering, creating, adding, and removing subtopics and messages. This program also allows users to format their messages without knowing HTML. It also allows users to upload tables, images, and more. This discussion board has been used and will again be used for chemistry classes at Hope College. This discussion board is ABSOLUTELY FREE and can be downloaded immediately! If you would like more information about this discussion board, called "Discus," please visit the Discus Home Page at this URL: http://mulliken.chem.hope.edu/discus/home Kevin W. Paulisse William F. Polik --------------------------------