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This TAD Consortium Information Service has been sponsored by Juta

Publishers - web: www.juta.co.za - phone: +27 21 797 5101

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 Dear TAD friends,

This information circular contains a range of links to web resources, which

may be of interest both to web developers and people considering use of the

Internet in education. In addition, there is information of South Africa's

most visited web sites and IT policy in India, as well as a case study use

of the Internet for history studies. I hope you find it useful.

Remember to diarize the next meeting. It is between 09.00 and 13.00 on 12

August at the CSIR Conference Centre.

Regards

Neil Butcher

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ABIS FIGURES - SA'S MOST-VISITED SITES

Source: media.toolbox (www.mediatoolbox.co.za)

The Audit Bureau of Internet Standards (ABIS) falls under the auspices of

the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) and measures the number of individual

user visits to a given Web page. These are the official ABIS figures for

January to March 1998-06-08 for SA's top Web sites. Figures provide an

indication of average monthly "page impressions":

1. M-Web / 3 245 862 / 1 238 424 / 162%

2. iafrica / 3 160 745 / 2 132 213 / 48%

3. Ananzi / 1 579 016 / 1 132 384 / 39%

4. em&g / 786 248 / 800 554 / -2%

5. Business Day / 298 294 / 188 799 / 58%

6. NetAssets / 207 758 / 83 399 / 149%

7. Financial Mail / 125 293 / 101 640 / 23%

8. Business Times / 123 555 / 106 467/ 16%

9. Car Today / 121 570 / 68 815 / 77%

10.Intertainment / 115 774 / 58 400 / 98%

11.ITWeb / 40 307 / 29 469 / 37%

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India proposes tech plan

By Reuters

Special to CNET NEWS.COM

July 6, 1998, 12:40 p.m. PT

NEW DELHI--Aiming to be a software superpower, India today released a

proposed blueprint to spread the use of computers and to network the nation

of 950 million people.

An action plan prepared by a government-appointed task force to boost

information technology called for sweeping tax incentives and cheap credit

to enrich India--in the running to become one of the world's richest sources

of software engineers.

"When implemented, they [the recommendations] are expected to create more

than 1 million jobs in the next five years and increase annual software

exports from India to $50 billion by the year 2008," a separate government

statement said.

Indian software exports were estimated at $1.8 billion in 1997-98 (April to

March).

Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and three other ministers are to consider

the recommendations of the national task force on information technology and

software development and to give their views within ten days, the government

statement said.

The panel urged a boost in spending on computers, new "cyberlaws," and the

recognition of "telecommuting" workers who operate from remote offices at

home.

"Computers and [the] Internet shall be made available in every school,

polytechnic college and university, and public hospital in the country by

the year 2003," the action plan report said.

The task force, set up by the Hindu nationalist-led coalition government,

proposes to allow individuals to deduct 20 percent of their expenditure on

information technology products from income tax payments.

"No gift tax shall be charged for the giver or income tax for the receiver

on PCs up to 30,000 rupees [$706] of the original purchase price," it said.

The panel, which said the government must aim to ensure information

technology for all by 2008, recommended that Internet access nodes be built

at all district centers by January 26, 2000, when India will mark the 50th

anniversary of the adoption of its constitution.

The report, submitted on Saturday to the government, said 1 percent to 3

percent of every government ministry or department budget should be

earmarked for expenses related to information technology.

It wanted 7.0 billion rupees ($165 million) immediately set apart for

funding to solve the millennium bug in public agencies.

The millennium bug refers to software problems that need to be resolved in

computers that denote years by their last two digits. If not fixed, valuable

data could be wiped out when the clock strikes the start of 2000.

The task force was headed by Jaswant Singh, a key leader of the ruling

Bharatiya Janata Party and deputy chairman of the Planning Commission that

sets public spending priorities.

The report said the government should issue the necessary notifications to

reduce the import duty on some computer parts and components to zero by 1999

under India's commitment to the World Trade Organization's declaration in

1996.

Story Copyright c 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights

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The Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), a Washington, D.C. based

professional association responsible for chartering, regulating, and

supervising the nation's 6,876 state-chartered commercial and savings banks

and 419 state- regulated branches and agencies of foreign banks has

announced that their education division has signed an agreement with the

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to implement a training program for RBZ's

bank examiners. Zimbabwean students will complete pre-course study using the

CSBS' multimedia CD-ROM courseware on PCs in Harare, Zimbabwe. Students will

then use the Internet to enroll in CSBS' Online University. Intensive

weeklong classroom training by CSBS instructors will compliment the CD-ROM

and Internet training phases. The final phase of the learning will consist

of six weeks of bank examinations in Zimbabwe. A seven-member team of CSBS

staff and instructors will rotate to Zimbabwe in three-week shifts during

the training program. The project is being

funded by the World Bank. CSBS is the nation's leading provider of education

and training to the state banking system.

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The Educational Technology WebRing (EdTech) is a collection of educational

technology resource sites on the World Wide Web for Higher Education

professionals. Each site is linked to the next. So no matter where you

start, you will eventually be able to make your way around all the sites and

end up back at the beginning.

Only professional sites related to academia will be linked (after a review

of educational content). All educational resources and fields are invited to

apply. If you have a site related to educational technology in Higher

Education and would like to share it with the rest of the world... please

submit your site.

Note: No "slight" is intended by excluding K12 sites. There is already a

WebRing for K12 on this topic. Separating them out is one way to keep things

more in line of the interests of users... and will save a probable later

separation after many sites are in the ring.

Dawn

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[[[ * Technology Terminology Links * ]]]]

Here's a set of locations you can look to for definitions and acronyms

useful to educational users of technology.

Kathy Schrock's "TEACH" (Teaching Educators Acronyms of Computer Hardware)

is updated monthly and is designed with the needs of teachers in mind.

The "On-line Dictionary of Computing" comes from Princeton University, and

has definitions that link to other, related terms.

The 'WhatIs' homepage gives definitions and examples (e.g. an animated gif

appears when you look up that term). This site also provides links to other

sites that might offer courses in or additional information about the term

you're searching for.

The TechWeb Encyclopedia claims to have 11,000 definitions, and includes a

list of new terms.

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I have just completed a fairly extensive set of web links to ed theory,

Paulette Robinson

pr58@umail.umd.edu

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Professors are Human: Breaking Down the Barriers Between Instructor and

Student

by Steven Kreis

history: The History Guide

lessons: Lessons Learned and Taught

model: The History Guide as Development Model

The delivery of information on the World Wide Web has the distinct

possibility of enhancing and transforming current pedagogical attitudes and

practices in higher education. Faculty in a number of disciplines have

succeeded in making additional course material available on the Web. Some

professors have uploaded syllabi along with links to additional resources.

Others ask that their students deliver their assignments online for peer

review. Still others have taken the rare step of uploading their lectures

and initiating e-mail forums for discussion. One need only view the

collection of course materials at the World Lecture Hall to get an idea of

the possibilities which exist in the integration of technology with the

practices and goals of higher education. Instructional aids, multimedia

technology, interactive Web sites, MUDs, discussion lists, audio, video, and

innovative content all have helped to transform the classroom experience in

profound ways. This transformation necessarily in

volves both student and professor.

Although most online course material includes some details about the

instructor, few of these Web sites go so far as to discuss the professor as

a unique individual. This is a missing ingredient in faculty development

programs. Students often enter the classroom without an idea of what is

expected of them beyond course requirements. Rarely do professors explain

why they teach or even how they came to teach in the first place. This is

important, because if students know this information, they may be more

likely to perceive their teacher as a human being who is willing to share

themselves as well as what they know, and, therefore, become more

approachable. If students sense a personal relationship with their

professors, they may be more willing to engage in constructive dialogue

about the course content.

The purpose of this article is to describe a publication available to my

students on the Web that not only provides access to the content of an

entire course online, but also personalizes the course by including details

about myself that convey a sense of who is teaching (and why they should

trust me) as well as what is being taught. This publication is The History

Guide.

The History Guide

The History Guide includes a number of sections of use to all students,

regardless of whether or not they are enrolled in my courses. The first

section of The History Guide consists of a multi-part primer that was

created to assist students who are enrolled in history classes at either the

secondary or college level. One of these sections, "A Student's Guide to the

Study of History", was written to supply answers to fundamental questions

about the study of history and discusses the following issues:

--- The Proper Attitude

--- Why Study History?

--- Why Write History?

--- How to Read a History Assignment

--- Taking Notes in Class

--- Studying for the Examination

--- About Your Instructor

The "Student's Guide" concentrates on writing both the short essay and the

longer research essay (11 parts). The tone is deliberately conversational,

based as it is upon experiences over the course of my academic career.

Perhaps the most important section of the "Student's Guide" highlights the

necessity of maintaining a proper attitude throughout the course of study.

The proper attitude, it is suggested, is as much the responsibility of the

student as it is the instructor. Since education is a dialogue between the

instructor and student, all those concerned must be prepared and willing to

engage in the process of self-improvement.

History departments often supply their students with printed guides to the

study of history. These guides can certainly help students with a number of

details pertinent to the discipline of history in general. However, these

guides rarely go beyond the mechanics of writing or research techniques. The

"Student's Guide," on the other hand, personalizes the historian's craft by

discussing history from the viewpoint of the actual experience of a

practicing instructor in the field. The fact that the "Student's Guide" is

an online publication means that its content can by updated with a frequency

impossible in a more traditional format.

The next component of The History Guide is a brief "What is History?" page

that offers up a number of quotations by historians about their craft. The

intent here is to energize and stimulate the historical imagination. The

"What is History?" page is followed by a section of hand-picked "History

Resources." Since extensive meta-lists of history resources already exist,

the idea was to choose resources for their specific content and presentation

rather than inundate the student with hundreds of links arranged in more or

less random order.

The most ambitious section of The History Guide is composed of two sets of

lectures: "20th Century European History" and "Modern European Intellectual

History." Included in these sections are the actual lectures that are

presented during class, and these are hyperlinked extensively. Besides

external links, I have also included a number of images that point to

internal Web pages. For example, a student reading my lecture on "The Age of

Anxiety: Europe in the 1920s," encounters a discussion of José Ortega y

Gasset's Revolt of the Masses (1930). An inline image of Ortega is

included-clicking on the image takes the reader to an internal page that

contains a brief biography of Ortega as well as a lengthy selection from The

Revolt of the Masses. Such an approach presents the student with a lecture

as well as additional material, something accomplished traditionally (in

history, at least) by a textbook and another book of primary and secondary

sources.

There is something decidedly different between students reading a textbook

or monograph and students reading the lectures of their professor. It is a

psychological difference; students begin to get the impression that their

professor-someone whom they can now identify by sight and sound-is talking

to them, rather than an anonymous author whose name adorns the cover of the

text. The goal is to break down the traditional barrier of authority erected

between instructor and students and to empower students with knowledge

rather than hide that knowledge as if it were the instructor's intellectual

property alone. This has profound ramifications for the students' classroom

experience in terms of both what they retain and what they learn about the

learning process itself.

With this in mind, I concluded The History Guide with my Vitae, Intellectual

Autobiography, and a statement of my Educational Philosophy. The intent of

including these materials is so that students will gain a greater sense that

their instructor is a unique human being with a unique experience and not

"just a professor." In this way, the authority of the instructor over

students is further relaxed as I allow my students into my private world,

the world of an academic, historian, father, and individual.

Lessons Learned and Taught

What is to be concluded from such an exercise? Allowing students to obtain

syllabi, lectures, handouts, assignments, and take-home examinations from

the Web site encourages them to trust their instructor. After all, I present

my students the opportunity to view the entire contents of the course freely

and outside the confines of the classroom. Students enjoy the fact that they

can contact me via e-mail whenever they choose. And students appreciate the

fact that I made the effort to let them know that I was "only human."

One criticism leveled at professors who publish their lectures on the Web is

that students will not bother to come to class. My experience on this issue

has been decidedly different. Students are eager to attend classes because

they have a better idea of what is going to be discussed. In the classroom,

they can actually listen to the lecture rather than busy themselves with

note-taking which, in many respects, forces most students not to listen to

the lecture. And of course, having the freedom to download, print, and read

any lecture at any time means that students can gain a greater sense of the

continuity of the course, thus enhancing their overall experience.

Furthermore, a relationship of mutual trust is created between the

instructor and students as well as among the students themselves. Classroom

discussions of various subjects are more vibrant and more informed and

students hesitant to speak in class find themselves "integrated" into the

classroom experience. All this is accent

uated by an e-mail forum that engaged the students in the "class after the

class."

It is crucial that students understand that their instructor is human and

not just a body standing at the lectern. With this in mind, I have made

myself available to my students in a number of ways. The rewards have been

immense. Students not only learn more but are eager to learn more. Likewise,

I too feel improved since I have had the opportunity to understand the needs

of my students in a manner quite unlike that of the traditional classroom.

And because I have made a conscious effort to keep abreast of the latest

developments in the World Wide Web and the Internet, I have had the chance

to experiment with new forms of information delivery. The Web is clearly an

excellent vehicle of communication when used in conjunction with the more

traditional classroom experience. And by helping to break down the barriers

of authority, it has made students more willing to follow their professor

down the path of individual self-improvement.

The History Guide as Development Model

The basic question which the preceding discussion raises is this: in what

ways is it desirable to include a project like The History Guide in future

faculty development programs? Technological issues aside, the vast majority

of professors would consider their written lectures their intellectual

property and would hesitate to place them in the public domain. This is

certainly understandable. Current conditions of tenure require publication

in the traditional manner. Whether Internet publications will eventually

qualify for tenure review is uncertain.

Most history departments have created their own Web sites since the

explosion of the World Wide Web in 1995. These sites do contain valuable

information regarding degree programs and course offerings; e-mail

addresses, fields of expertise, and degrees conferred upon faculty are

frequently included as well. However, important details about the

instructors are often absent. Why is this the case? Is it because faculty

find this sort of information of little use to others? Is it really that

important to prospective students to know something beyond where one faculty

member or another received a Ph.D.? I would suggest that it makes a profound

difference. Faculty should realize that students are interested in such

details for the simple reason that it helps personalize the classroom

experience. Furthermore, since many of us are engaged in training a future

generation of teachers, it makes sense that we pass on to them an

explanation of why we came to teach in the first place. My own classro

om demeanor suggests to the students that I am engaged in teaching them how

to learn as much as I am teaching them how to teach. It seems necessary to

me that both roles be present at the same time.

This article does not intend to suggest that every professor create a Web

site containing the full text of their lectures. What I would like to

suggest, however, is that in the interests of student motivation and

success, professors ought to be more willing to let their students partake

of at least a glimpse of their private world. The History Guide has been my

attempt to complete such a task. If the barriers of traditional

professor-student authority are not relaxed or at least modified, we, as

educators, may certainly fall victim to the admonition of Cicero: The

authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to

learn.

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Telematics for African Development Consortium
P.O. Box 31822
Braamfontein
2017
Johannesburg
South Africa
Tel: +27 +11 403-2813
Fax: +27 +11 403-2814

neilshel@icon.co.za