Scaling Up: From Web-Enhanced Courses to a Web-Enhanced Curriculum. This article appeared in the inaugural issue of the online journal Innovate. Innovate provides an rss feed at http://www.innovateonline.info/innovate.rss.
(Reading articles directly from the Innovate web site requires
registration, but the access is free.) I'm impressed that a new journal
launched with rss feeds included; let's hope that other online journals
move quickly to add feeds so that readers (students and faculty) can
easily subscribe and stay updated through their news readers.
I believe that Robert Wood and his colleagues are definitely on
track in their efforts to move to a full web-enhanced curriculum rather
than simply focusing on individual courses. The field needs many more
case studies reporting on the specific use of tools and learning
objects for courses and curricula. The Rutgers effort deserves careful
study and emulation. Unfortunately Wood and his colleagues at Rutgers
did not make much use of shared resources from online repositories;
their focus is more on using tools such as streaming video and audio
enhancements for web courses.
A broader innovation in curricula and courses will occur when
departments begin to avail themselves of online instructional
resources. When (if?) that happens, then educational sharing and
instructional scholarship will move beyond individual colleges and
universities to a new kind of electronic academe. An important part of
that new acadmic culture will be the introduction of students to a
world of scholarship beyond their own institution. In the age of the
World Wide Web students should not be restricted to the perspective
provided by single courses from single instructors. ____JH
Scaling Up: From Web-Enhanced Courses to a Web-Enhanced Curriculum by Robert E. Wood.
"When educators discover the advantages of using online technology in
their teaching, they are often inspired to incorporate technology more
systematically into their departmental programs. In this article,
Robert E. Wood explains how he and his colleagues took this step in the
Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Rutgers
University, Camden. Rather than focusing solely on their own courses,
faculty members began working together to offer their students shared
access to online tutorials, course Web sites, streaming video sessions,
and a range of other resources. In the process, Wood observes, these
efforts had the effect of creating much greater cohesion within the
curriculum itself. The expansion of online resources helped the
department promote standards for student skills, including consistent
policies regarding plagiarism, research methods, and citation
conventions. In turn, faculty members were also able to establish
greater uniformity in conceptual and technical vocabulary from course
to course, while additional online resources helped to foster greater
communication among students and faculty. Wood's account provides a
positive model of how the spirit of collaboration can help realize the
potential of technology in higher education." [Innovate] [EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources Online]
10:43:46 PM  Google It!.
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