Getting help from course management software to teach a large-enrollment introductory geology class

Journal of Geoscience Education, Mar 2003 by Cervato, Cinzia

If the student is automatically enrolled on the course's WebCT account, all he/she will need to do is to log in on the institution's WebCT page. The class or classes the student is currently enrolled in will appear on a list upon login. Below the class name, there will be a list of new items highlighted in green that will allow the student to access directly any item that changed in the site since he/she last logged in.

WebCT 's page looks ike a regular WWW page with frames. At the top of the page there is a Menu Bar that allows the student to log out, to return to the opening page (MyWebCT) where all the WebCT-enhanced courses the student is enrolled in are listed, and to access a useful location-sensitive Help item. To the left of the page, a Control Panel allows the course designer to manage the course, files, students, and add a page or a tool. Below is the Course Menu, a list of the items accessible to the students. The main, central part of the page is the Content Area. A'Breadcrumb' is accessible on top of the Content Area and allows tracking of the various items that have been accessed in the order they were accessed, with the most recent, active one furthest to the right. Above the Breadcrumb, the instructor has the option to toggle between the View and the Instructor Design options. The View option shows the items that will be viewed by students, the Instructor Design option allows the instructor to easily create and modify the WebCT Page.

To begin, let us assume that we have chosen a blank WebCT template for the course. Under Manage Course (Control Panel), one can add one or more Teaching Assistants (TAs) to the course by entering their login ID. The ID is automatically matched with the institution's email directory and Last Name and First Name entered in the appropriate columns. TAs have access to all tools like the students but have also limited instructor privileges that allow them to edit the "Gradebook". They are, however, not course designers and cannot, therefore, modify the tools or the page.

Next, one can populate the WWW page with various items or tools. WebCT provides a series or tools to choose from. Tools are grouped into five categories:

1. Communications: Mail, Discussions, Chat, Whiteboard

2. Course content: Content Module, Syllabus, Glossary, Search, Image database, Calendar, Index, CD-ROM, Compile, Resume Course

3. Pages/URLs: Organizer page, URL, Single page

4.Evaluation Tools: Quiz/Survey, Self Test, My Grades, Assignments.

5. Study Tools: My Progress, Language, Student Presentations, Student Homepage, Student Tips. For Geology 100, I selected the following tools:

* Organizer page

* Syllabus

* Content module

* Calendar

* Mail

* Discussions

* Chat

* Survey

* My Grades

* Student tips

Operations on WebCT are done by selection (click on the radio button next to an item among a selection) and by choosing the action with buttons. The Organizer page is a folder that contains one or more tools. I used one for Communications (containing "Discussions", "Mail", and "Chat") and one for Course Notes (containing one "Content Module" for each file of notes).