IAT Infobits - July, 1995
No. 25
ISSN 1071-5223
About INFOBITS
Infobits is an electronic service of the Institute for Academic Technology's Information Resources Group. Each month we monitor and select from a number of information technology and instruction technology sources that come to our attention and provide brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators.
Don't Overlook Email
Hypermedia & Instructional Software Clearinghouse
OCLC Research Reports Available
New HEIRAlliance Reports
1996 Olympic Games on World Wide Web
New Documents for Foreign Language Instruction
So much of the educational technology news these days focuses on the World-Wide Web, networked multimedia, interactive video, and other new products. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement generated by these new technologies and forget some of the old standbys. A recent letter from an Infobits subscriber in Sarajevo, who wrote to say that his only entry into the Internet is through email, points out how valuable basic email service still is to many people in the educational community. Several recent articles reporting on the value of email in the education experience also confirm the continuing usefulness of this resource.
Two articles on using email in education are in a new publication, the International Journal of Educational Telecommunications (IJET). In the article "Can University Faculty Affect Student Attitudes Toward Electronic Mail?" (by Cheryl A. Wissick, et al., vol. 1, no. 1, 1995, pp. 71-84), the researchers indicated that using email to extend class discussions, promote group activities, and enhance faculty's accessibility not only improved the students' attitudes towards email, but also towards the course, the course content, and, unforeseen by the researchers, towards the faculty using email in their courses.
Per Mehus, in "An Inter-Cultural Approach to Literature: E-Mail in the Literature Classroom," (pp. 85-92) describes a two-year project using email to teach literature and writing with secondary school students from Norway and the United States. In addition to reporting on the project's successes, Mehus outlines some of the technical aspects of using email in a class and makes suggestions for improving similar projects in the future.
IJET will also feature a regular column by Andy Carvin (see "EdWeb Project and Educational Discussion Lists," IAT Infobits, No. 19, January 1995) and abstracts of recently-published materials relating to educational telecommunications.
The International Journal of Educational Telecommunications [ISSN 1077-9124] is published quarterly by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), P.O. Box 2966, Charlottesville, VA 22902 USA; tel: 804-973-3987; fax: 804-978-7449; email: aace@virginia.edu. Subscriptions are $65/year (US individual), $75/year (Canada/Mexico individual), $80/year (all other countries individual), $83/year (US institutional), $93 (Canada/Mexico institutional), $98 (all other countries institutional).
In "Creating Communities on the Internet: Electronic Discussion Lists in the Classroom," Robert M. Bender (Computers in Libraries, Vol. 15, No. 5, May 1995, pp. 38-43) discusses using a listserv to foster student communication in an interdisciplinary studies course at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Bender concludes that the removal of time and space constraints that email afforded "resulted in a freer exchange of ideas and greater learning, understanding, tolerance, and creativity."
Computers in Libraries [ISSN 1041-7915] is published ten times a year by Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, NJ 08055 USA; tel: 609-654-6266; fax: 609-654-4309. Subscriptions are $87/year (US), $97/year (Canada/Mexico), £67.50/year (Europe), $105/year (outside Europe).
HYPERMEDIA & INSTRUCTIONAL SOFTWARE CLEARINGHOUSE
The Hypermedia & Instructional Software Clearinghouse (HISC) at the University of Missouri-Columbia College of Education was created to establish a set of procedures for collecting, reviewing, and distributing instructional, administrative, and utility programs for educators, trainers, and instructional technologists. HISC's goal is the creation of a software library where developers can have their programs published and users can find respected and reliable programs at minimal cost. (Most of the programs are listed at $7.00/copy.) Each program must meet specific guidelines through an extensive review by at least two evaluators. The focus of the clearinghouse is on a collection of stacks created in Hypercard for the Apple Macintosh computer, but programs for other platforms (MS-DOS and Apple II) are also solicited.
A copy of the current HISC catalog or a submission guideline packet is available from Rhetta Standifer, Manager, HISC, University of Missouri-Columbia, College of Education, 111 Townsend Hall, Columbia, MO 65211 USA; tel: 314-882-2824; fax: 314-884-5455; email: c534403@mizzou1.missouri.edu
OCLC RESEARCH REPORTS AVAILABLE
The OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Inc., is a not-for-profit computer library service and research organization. OCLC operates a service for cataloging and resource sharing, provides online reference systems for both librarians and end-users, and distributes online electronic journals. Their 1994 Annual Review of OCLC Research is now available in printed and online versions. OCLC Projects reports include "Scholarly Publishing on the World Wide Web," "Evolving Issues and Trends in Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery," and "Translating Mathematical Markup for Electronic Journals." The review also includes reports of collaborative research with other projects.
Copies of the reports are available in print format free of charge from OCLC, Annual Review, MC 410, Office of Research, 6565 Frantz Road, Dublin, OH 43017-3395 USA. Electronic versions are available on the World-Wide Web at URL http://www.oclc.org/oclc/research/publications/review94.htm
The Higher Education Information Resources Alliance (HEIRAlliance) is a vehicle for cooperative projects between the Association of Research Libraries, CAUSE, and Educom. Continuing their "What Presidents Need to Know" series, the HEIRAlliance has just published the sixth installment, "What Presidents Need to Know...about Evaluating Institutional Information Resources." In conjunction with this report, another document, "HEIRAlliance Evaluation Guidelines for Institutional Information Resources," has also been published. Both are available in print format for $5.00 each from CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; tel: 303-939-0310; email: orders@cause.colorado.edu
Electronic copies of these two documents are available free of charge by sending email to: heira@cause.colorado.edu with the message:
get heira.es6
get heira.guide
All the HEIRAlliance reports are available on the World-Wide Web at URL http://cause-www.colorado.edu/collab/heira.html
or from the CAUSE Gopher server at URL gopher://cause-gopher.Colorado.EDU:70/11/heiralliance
1996 OLYMPIC GAMES ON WORLD-WIDE WEB
Get a head start on next summer's Olympic Games activities by checking out the IBM-sponsored 1996 Olympic Games World-Wide Web site. In addition to the events program and travel and ticket information, the site includes a section on the Cultural Olympiad, a "four-year, multi-disciplinary arts and culture festival that is designed to provide an evolving air of celebration and excitement in the years preceding and during the Games. Acting as a world stage for the Olympic host city and its artists, the Cultural Olympiad is creating a legacy of cross-cultural relationships among the world's artists and arts organizations, and enhancing the host city's local and regional arts community."
The URL is http://www.atlanta.olympic.org/
NEW DOCUMENTS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE INSTRUCTION
In conjunction with demonstrations we provide at the IAT for foreign language educators, we have two new documents in the Information Resource Guides series: "Foreign Languages on the Internet: Selected Sites" and "French Language Resources on the Internet: Selected Sites." Copies of these and other guides are available from the IAT World-Wide Web site at URL http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/guides.html.
URL: http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitjul95.html
Infobits editor: Carolyn Kotlas
© Copyright 1995, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.
May be reproduced in any medium for non-commercial purposes.
Center for Instructional Technology
Academic & Technology Networks
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
