Infobits is an electronic service of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill ITS Teaching and Learning's Center for Instructional Technology. Each month the CIT's Information Resources Consultant monitors and selects from a number of information and instructional technology sources that come to her attention and provides brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators.

Social Aspects of the Internet
Blogs: A New Tool for Online Education?
Copyright and "Deep-Linking" to Online Content
More Readings on Online Course Drop-Outs
Online Accessibility Articles
Recommended Reading

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF THE INTERNET

"The Internet is poised to transform society far more profoundly than telephones, or even cell phones, have. Two contrasting schools of cyberthought offer explanations for what's happening. Optimists regard the World Wide Web and e-mail as realms for making and keeping friends, joining global communities, and exchanging ideas freely outside the bounds of oppressive government restrictions. Pessimists argue that online endeavors pull people away from real-world interactions, make them less concerned about their communities, and provide a forum for hate groups."

In "The Social Net" (Science News, vol. 161, no. 18, May 4, 2002, p. 282) Bruce Bower surveys several scientific studies to determine the effects of the Internet on social life. So far, these studies provide interesting insights, but no uniform conclusions. The article is available on the Web at http://www.sciencenews.org/20020504/bob9.asp

Science News; The Weekly Newsmagazine of Science [ISSN 0036-8423] is published by Science Service, 1719 N Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036 USA; tel: 202-785-2255; email: scinews@sciserv.org; Web: http://www.sciencenews.org/

For a glimpse on how the Internet is affecting interaction between faculty and students, see "Online Education's Drawbacks Include Misunderstood E-Mail Messages, Panelists Say" (by Jeffrey R. Young, The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2002, http://chronicle.com/free/2002/06/2002061101u.htm)

BLOGS: A NEW TOOL FOR ONLINE EDUCATION?

A "blog" (which stands for Web-log) is most commonly used as an online publicly-accessible personal diary or vanity website. Blog software "captures your words in dated entries, maintaining a chronological archive of prior entries. . . . Currently, blogging is one of the fastest growing trends on the Web. Nearly half a million people have downloaded blogging software."

In "Blogs: Learn to Blog, Blog to Learn" (Learning Circuits, April 2002), Jay Cross, director of the eLearning Forum and CEO of Internet Time Group, provides a brief introduction to blogs. Cross discusses how blogs can be used in learning communities and provides several examples of how he and others are creating e-learning blogs. The article is available online at http://www.learningcircuits.org/2002/apr2002/ttools.html

For more on the topic see "Blogging Goes Legit, Sort Of," by Noah Shachtman, Wired News, June 6, 2002.
http://www.wired.com/news/school/0,1383,52992,00.html

See also Peter Ford's "Weblogs in Education" website; it provides links to many other education blogs.
http://www.schoolblogs.com/

Learning Circuits (http://www.learningcircuits.org/) is an online publication of the American Society for Training & Development (ASTD), 1640 King Street, Box 1443 Alexandria, VA, 22313-2043 USA; tel: 703-683-8100 or 800-628-2783; fax: 703-683-1523; Web: http://www.astd.org/

When you provide a direct link to an online article for a course that bypasses the content owner's homepage, you are practicing "deep-linking." Some online publishers are threatening legal action against websites that engage in deep-linking, saying that it violates copyright law. Whether or not deep-linking falls within fair use for educational purposes remains to be seen. In "'Deep-linking' Flap Could Deep-Six Direct Links to Relevant Content for Students" (by Corey Murray, eSchool News, June 11, 2002) several intellectual property lawyers give their thoughts on this question. The article is available on the Web (by way of deep-linking) at http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=3789

eSchool News is published monthly by eSchool News Communications Group, 7920 Norfolk Avenue, Suite 900, Bethesda, MD 20814 USA; tel: 800-394-0115; fax: 301-913-0119; email: info@eschoolnews.com; Web: http://www.eschoolnews.com/

For the record, eSchool News encourages educators to link directly to articles and other information posted on their website.

MORE READINGS ON ONLINE COURSE DROP-OUTS

"Do Online Course Drop-Out Rates Matter?" presented articles on this topic (CIT Infobits, Issue 46, April 2002). Additional readings include:

"Confessions of an E-Learner: Why the Course Paradigm is All Wrong," by Eve Drinis and Amy Corrigan, OnlineLearning Magazine, April 3, 2002.
http://www.onlinelearningmag.com/onlinelearning/reports_analysis/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1457218

OnlineLearning Magazine: Innovative Strategies for Business [ISSN: 1532-0022] is published eleven times a year by VNU Business Media, Inc., 50 S. Ninth Street, Minneapolis, MN 55402 USA; tel: 612-333-0471; fax: 612-333-6526; email: editor@onlinelearningmag.com; Web: http://www.onlinelearningmag.com/

"Five Steps For Ensuring E-Learning Success," by Pete Weaver, American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) website.
http://66.89.55.104/synergy/emailmgmt/moreinfo/moreinfo.cfm?member_id=138902&sponsor_id=367&content_id=1293&b1=194&b2=192&b3=192

American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) is a professional association concerned with workplace learning and performance issues. For more information, contact ASTD, 1640 King Street, Box 1443, Alexandria, VA 22313-2043 USA; tel: 703-683-8100 or 800-628-2783; fax: 703-683-1523; Web: http://www.astd.org/

ONLINE ACCESSIBILITY ARTICLES

The theme of the latest issue of Educational Technology Review (vol. 10, no. 1, 2002) is "Accessibility . . . An Integral Part of Online Learning." The entire issue is available on the Web at http://www.aace.org/pubs/etr/current.cfm

Recommended Reading

"Recommended Reading" lists items that have been recommended to me or that Infobits readers have found particularly interesting and/or useful, including books, articles, and websites published by Infobits subscribers. Send your recommendations to kotlas@email.unc.edu for possible inclusion in this column.

Julia Duggleby, Infobits subscriber and Sheffield College's LeTTOL (Learning to Teach On-Line) Developer, recommends "Effective Online Tutoring Guidelines," a report produced by the LeTTOL team. Included in the report are sections that:

-- define online tutoring and consider how it differs from face-to-face tutoring;
-- consider the role of the online tutor through the various phases of course delivery;
-- examine the principles of good web design for learning and the underpinning principles for designing web-based learning activities;
-- consider the support that online tutors will need in order to carry out their work effectively; and
-- provide an overview of the current state of online learning, placing it in the context of other developments.

The report is available online at http://www.techlearn.ac.uk/NewDocs/Effective%20Online%20Tutoring%20Guidelines%20paper.doc

The report was commissioned by TechLearn, a service funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). JISC is a strategic advisory committee working on behalf of the funding bodies for further and higher education (FE and HE) in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Other TechLearn-commissioned reports on online tutoring are available on the Web at http://www.techlearn.ac.uk/Themes/E-Tutoring.htm

For more information on TechLearn, see http://www.techlearn.ac.uk/index.html

For more information on JISC, see http://www.jisc.ac.uk/

For more information about LeTTOL, see http://www.sheffcol.ac.uk/lettol/ or contact Julia Duggleby, Senior Lecturer, Learning To Teach On-Line, The Sheffield College, Sheffield S2 2YY, UK; email: julia.duggleby@sheffcol.ac.uk

Duggleby is also author of How To Be an Online Tutor (Gower Publishing Limited, 2000. ISBN: 0566082470). "The book focuses on how to provide a climate in which people can take responsibility for their own learning; how to guide learners through the course so that they complete it successfully; and how to be a facilitator for learning, leaving the technology and other learners to deliver the content."

Information Technology Services at UNC-Chapel Hill

Teaching and Learning

CIT Infobits - June, 2002

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