Rethinking the Course Web Site

Karl Skutski

Adjunct LecturerDepartment of Modern Languages & Literatures

DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY

Memory Lane

Actually go to library

Read books & journals selected or recommended by profs

Copy citations on note cards

Organize and analyze research findings

Develop outline / write paper________________________

DELIBERATE PROCESS

SUSTAINED LEARNING

The Problem

Today

The Wild Wild Web

Instant access to an unlimitedhodgepodge of unscreened information, much of which is of highly questionable value

Ranked by browsing popularity

McDonalds-ization of knowledge

Good stuff lost in cyberspace

Academic journal articles are “long, tedious and boring” by comparison

The Problem

Today’s Postmodern Student

Weaned on the Web

Primary source of news and knowledge !?

Wants instant gratification

The era of “just-in-time” knowledge

Why copy—or learn—anything if you can cut-and-paste?

Hyper-learning (not sustained)

All alone in cyberspace

The Problem

Today’s Postmodern Student

The Problem

Typical Research

The Problem

First-listed Yahoo! source

Wikipedia

Movie reviews

Amazon customer/reader comments

Newspaper and magazine articles

Fan club sites

The Course Web Site

A Partial Solution

Syllabus

Objectives

Assignments

PowerPoints & lecture notes

AN ORGANIZED PORTAL TO YOUR FIELD OF STUDY

+

The Course Web Site

A Partial Solution

The Course Web Site

STUDENT FRIENDLY?

Design like a commercial site

A little “coolness” helps (i.e., graphics)

Intuitive navigational structure

Engaging and exciting

Spoon-fed research guidelines

LAUNCHING PAD FOR STUDENT RESEARCH

A Partial Solution

The Course Web Site1. Create a site that would serve as an

organized portal to the serious study ofcontemporary international cinema and literature

2. Attempt to prevent “lazy” research by pointing students in the right direction

3. Enable students to create a custom “textbook”

Primary Objectives

The Course Web Site

4. Assess student research skills and monitor their use of secondary sources

i. Do they know how to properly quote from and/or paraphrase outside sources?

ii. Are they properly interpreting texts?

iii. Plagiarism

i. Intentional

ii. Unintentional

Secondary Objectives

The Course Web Site

1. Instant classroom access to wide range of archived materials:

PowerPoints

Music and art

Video clips

Podcasts

2. Point out preferred research sources in class

In-class Uses

The Course Web Site

1. Ever-evolving multi-GB filing cabinet for organizing years of research

2. Secure back-up external “hard drive”

3. Sharing interests, resources, researchand writing with professional colleagues around the world (and their students!)

Personal Benefits

“Collective Fabric” of Knowledge

Personal Benefits

University of Colorado at Denver , School of Education Corollary Sites:

Contemporary Philosophy, Critical Theory and Postmodern ThoughtKnowledge is a fabric of relations in which one individual is fundamentally entwined with all others in a collective discourse. This page illustrates that woven fabric Each of the following sites links to the Postmodern site here at U.C. Denver. The UCD page serves, not as a hub, presuming some privileged position, but as a conductive thread, one of many fibers which transforms a collection of unique sites into a common woven text. This Corollary page returns a thread to each of the diverse sites, strengthening possibilities for community within this collective fabric known as postmodern thought. Ryder (1999).

Organizational Approach: The Problem

1. Information overload

2. Books least appealing—and perhapstoo intellectually dense and esotericfor undergraduates (non-major)

3. Academic journals often deal with secondary and tertiary issues (student doesn’t yet know basics)

4. Most-browsed sites may not be best

5. Unguided research (alone in cyberspace)

Logic

www.feminism.org

www.feminist.com

www.now.org

www.madre.org

Organizational Approach1. Broad overview of field of study

2. Introductory articles to key concepts

3. Introductory articles to major artistsand theorists

4. Handful of selected readings on specific topics students are likely toresearch:

“Portrayal of Women in Middle EasternCinema”

“A Feminist Reading of Fellini’s 8 1/2”

5. Student’s own research

Logic

www.feminism.org

www.feminist.com

www.now.org

www.madre.org

The Course Web Site

1. Notepad (Microsoft Office)

or Web-page design package

2. Web host ($50.00 year)

_______________________________

HTML code guidelines

DHMTL menu builder

Adobe Photoshop or PhotoDeluxe

GIF builder

The Mechanics

Sample Siteswww. skutski.org

www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/index.html

http://vos.ucsb.edu/browse.asp?id=2718

http://www.uiowa.edu/~commstud/resources/critical_authors.

Tml

www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/enin.html

http://www.english.upenn.edu/~traister/literature.html

http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/