Possible uses for web-based course material in Anthropology This material has been put together as background for a discussion of the potential role of information technology in the Anthropology curriculum, with emphasis on undergraduate classes.  S. Wilson, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas

 

• Main reasons to use the web with undergrad teaching

• increases the time students are involved with the material
• increases their interaction with each other, professors, and TAs 
• gives them more places to express positions and debate issues
• makes collaboration easier, especially file sharing
• allows for faculty and students to share information about new sources of information or events.  
• allows for quick rearrangements of schedules
• gives students access anywhere to class material -- syllabus, schedules, readings, etc. 
• allows a mix of public and private forums for the class -- so that shy students will have a way to ask questions, but that common questions can be dealt with in a public forum

 

• Examples of web use in a large class:

  Here are some examples of web-based course material from a class of about 100 students I taught.  This is the class's main page.

  My aim with this web material was to have students increase the amount of time they spent thinking about this material by working through short weekly assignments. The web site allowed us to look at current events, documents that aren't like what they get from the course reading packet, and things that aren't in written formats (i.e. graphic,  audio). The weekly assignments were also designed to further this "active" pedagogy project by having them take positions and voice opinions, usually in pages they handed in but sometimes in public forums.  

  some examples:

   

  • the first assignment has them read something from the packet and listen to an interview they can get on-line, and then hand in some commentary on the two things. I really like using web based homework

  • second, in this assignment I had them read an article that appeared that week and then participate in a discussion forum, which you can see on that page. It ran to about 90 pages printed out...

   

• Readings, etc., on the web

• In another class (Introduction to Technology, Literacy, and Culture) Lester Faigly and I used a lot of web-based readings, shown on this schedule, in part because of the issues the class dealt with.  The links on the readings column show web sites and the plain text are articles in our course packet.
• I have come to like having this medium to share things with students, or have a variety of current things to talk about in discussion.  The TLC course was taught last Spring when the war in the Balkans was going on.  We talked about the war on the web in class.

 

• More uses of discussion boards

  • Here's another series of discussion boards from another class. we had them do one of these almost every week: Discussion boards. Read a bit of the one about radio, for example.
  • The assignment for that discussion board was to listen to some things from Feb 16th on this schedule.

• Lectures on line?

  I've put all the graphics from lectures on line, for example here, but I don't think I'll do this any more. They don't make sense without hearing the lecture.

  The images on the previous link are from a Powerpoint presentation.  I use these kinds of presentations for part of most sessions in large lecture classes.  

• Small graduate classes

  • In small classes a small web site can be a sort of shared bulletin board, for schedules, updates, new readings, drafts worked on in common.
  • Here's an example of a graduate class site used for occasional readings and keeping an up to date schedule, presentations, etc. --  Archaeology of Complex Societies. Here's the schedule, which was more useful than the rest of the site.
  • in my quantitative methods class I put exercises and data sets on line.

 

 

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• General points

  • When Anthropology professors talk about teaching they often separate this range of material into "content" courses and "conceptual" courses.  Most people think the kinds of information technology available are most appropriate for teaching "content" or "facts."   I don't think, however, that the focus of most of our curriculum is really on teaching either content or concepts. In general we are more interested in getting students to see things -- often things they have seen for their whole lives -- from a new perspective. For that, and in general, an "active" or "constructivist" philosophy seems most appropriate. Constructivism, in contrast to anthropological usage, refers to one of several theories of how people learn. (Here is more research on this.)  

• Other research issues: technology in education

  • The topic of "technology in education" is extremely large, with so many different variables that it's hopeless to try to say that technology is generically good or bad in education. Technological change stays several years in front of the education research, so it's hard to find relevant research. Here are a few sources, but my observations are based on my own experiences.
  • some good papers in the Dept. of Education's 1999 Evaluating the Effectiveness of Technology conference, especially one with a more negative slant called The Technology/Content Dilemma.
   

smw 11/2/99