Editor's Note: This discussion took place on the H-Teach Network

Author: clm1b36@panam1.panam.edu
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 11:06:26 -0500

Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 09:24:48 -0600 (CST)

Dear Colleagues,

The president's office at my university is encouraging the creation of generic web pages for each of the general education core courses. As part of a pilot venture, I have been assigned to create a page for the first half of the U.S. survey course. I have a free rein as far as form and content,but it is understood that the page will be sufficiently generic to be useful to all students. My department does not have a shared survey curriculum or syllabus; we have individual adoptions as far as textbooks and/or course readings; and testing procedures, outside assignments, etc. vary greatly from instructor to instructor. I have asked my colleagues in the department for ideas about how to structure this resource and what contents would be most useful, but so far no one has come up with anything. So, I'm throwing this open to the "faculty lounge in cyberspace." I welcome any suggestions and/or references to existing sites that might provide ideas and inspiration.

Thanks all!

Author: George Cassutto 
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 14:29:56 -0500

Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 13:16:35 -0500
 
 Readers,
 
 It looks like Chris is about to take on a major task, so I could not
 resist sending him and you my thoughts on what might be useful. I feel
 as though I am somewhat of an anomaly on this list because I work in the
 secondary education setting, but I am always interested in what is
 taking place in the field of History on the collegiate level. So, it may
 be to our mutual edification if my counterparts in the halls of acedemia
 know what our needs might be on the middle and high school levels.
 
 He wrote:
 
 I have asked my colleagues in the department for ideas about how to structure this resource and what
contents would be most useful, but so far no one has come up with
anything.  So, I'm throwing this open to the "faculty lounge in cyberspace."  I
welcome any suggestions and/or references to existing sites that might provide
ideas and inspiration.
 
 
 When doing web-based searches for material that one might find in the US
 History textbook, one all too often finds course descriptions and
 listings with very little historical content. When conducting research,
 or when assisting one's students in conducting research, finding only
 course descriptions in the place of actual information can be quite a
 frustrating experience for both teacher and student. There certainly is
 a place for on-line syllabi, but wouldn't their usefulness be heightened
 if actual primary source documents and secondary analysis were somehow
 linked to those course outlines?
 
 I am sure these on-line texts exist, and I recognize that developing
 them for the web is extremely labor- intensive. But even links to
 existing resources, or the development of primary source material
 through transcription or scanning documents would be a great help to
 those students and teachers striving to locate slightly esoteric
 historical material via the internet, which can then be imported into
 powerpoint presentations, hypertext presentations, additional web pages
 (copyright laws taken into account, of course),
 and hard-copy papers as supporting documentation and illustrations.
 
 This list often publishes extensive lists of historically-oriented web
 addresses that might be used to embellish an on-line course outline that
 has been expanded with historical content. My own web page also has a
 number of such bookmarks lists. The trick is [for some poor soul] to
 take the time to insert those resources into a coherent survey course
 outline.
 
 Well, I am not sure if this response is what Chris was asking for, but
 at least I have outlined an area where, IMHO, the web is lacking, and
 where acadmic institutions can improve in filling that gap.
 
 Thanks for your time,
 
 George Cassutto
 Teacher of Social Studies
 North Hagerstown High School (MD)
 http://www.fred.net/nhhs (Main Page)
 http://www.fred.net/nhhs/html/cassutto.html
 nhhs@fred.net
 georgec@umd5.umd.edu

Author: "Jamie N. Cohen-Cole" <cohencle@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 16:05:06 -0500

Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 15:10:56 -0500 (EST)

George Cassutto mentioned that there are not many web based course offering that offer much content (focusing instead on the meta content of syllabi instead).
I do know of one site that has VERY good content: The Galileo site developed by Albert Van Helden at Rice University.

http://es.rice.edu/ES/humsoc/Galileo/index.html

                         Jamie Cohen-Cole
                         Princeton University
                         Program in History of Science
                         cohencle@princeton.edu

Author: Jody Ross <rossjoan@pilot.msu.edu> Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 13:04:08 -0600

Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997 12:54:48 -0500

Re: Chris Miller/U.S. Survey Web Page

I have spent some considerable time over the last couple of years on web site design. Working closely with informatics/human factors folks to design a useful and usable web tool. While site content is important I belive site design/layout is also vital to a useful/usable web page. Do you plan to do any prototyping? Have you given thought to layout and wording? How will you know how students are using the page and if they find the page (resource) useful and useable?

What is the purpose of the web page - to provide information about courses specific to your institution? To provide links to other history "rich" sites? Do you plan to post student work? I suspect the answers of some of these questions will determine how your page will/should be designed.

I would be delighted to share some of the lessons learned in my endeavor to understand the efficacy of web sites (for teaching/learning/sharing information) if I know a bit more about your project. My knowledge about content may be limited, however, my understanding about useablity is growing. Please feel free to contact me directly for more ideas/suggestions.

I no longer believe "if you build it they will come" -- a hard-earned belief.

Jody Ross

rossjoan@pilot.msu.edu

http://pilot.msu.edu/user/rossjoan

"It is never too late to be what you might have been."

George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans)

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