Scaling Up: Using a Web-Enhanced Curriculum
To Support Sociology Courses

Department Websites: A Stalled Process?

ASA 2000 Presentation: Making Your Department Technologically Up to Date: What Are Reasonable Goals and Sources of Help? (a useful starting point for reviewing different types of departmental websites, and their tendency to remain fixed in their structure)
Julien Dierke's SocioLog: U.S. Sociology Department Websites (647+ sociology department websites in the U.S.)
Technology Payoffs for Teaching and Research: A Baker's Dozen of Tips (although not pegged at the departmental level, this webpage is designed to demonstrate how faculty investment in technology can have careeer payoffs)

Scaling Up Web-Enhancement from the Course to the Curricular Level

Brief online Powerpoint presentation on the the idea of a web-enhanced curriculum (download)

World Lecture Hall (a useful site for getting a sense of the different levels and meanings of course web-enhancement)
The Technology Source (peer-reviewed bimonthly online journal from Michigan Virtual Unviersity)
Syllabus Magazine (monthly magazine on high tech in higher education; available online or by free print subscription)
The Internet and Higher Education (very useful peer-reviewed print journal from Pergamon Press; table of contents available online)

Educational Repositories and Learning Objects

Introduction to Learning Object Respositories (an explanation of the concept with links to some current approximations)
Learning Object Tutorial (TeachLearn 2001) (an introduction with greater attention to technical aspects, including SCORM and interoperability)
A Primer on Learning Objects (from a developer's perspective)
Merlot (Multimedia Educational Resource or Learning and Online Teaching--an ambitious but only partly-successful effort to share educational resources and subject them to peer evaluation)
Wisconsin Online Resource Center (a FIPSE/NSF-funded project to assist faculty of 16 Wisconsin technical colleges in creating learning objects in their discipline; includes several dozen examples)
Maricopa Learning Exchange, Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction (over 500 "packages" created by faculty and technical staff at the Maricopa Community Colleges in Arizona)
Educational Sites for Teachers (links to selected sites providing organized listings of educational resources for teachers)
Shibboleth Project (open source middleware project for institutional sharing of educational resources with access controls)
SCORM (Shareable Content Object Reference Model--an effort to develop technical standards to enable identification and use of educational resources across platforms and course management systems)

Towards a Web-Enhanced Curriculum: One Department's Experience

Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice
Rutgers University, Camden

ASA Footnotes: "Enhancing the Curriculum Through the Web at Rutgers-Camden (Feb. 2002)
Rutgers Focus: "Rutgers Departments Share Programmatic Excellence Award (June 2003)

Technology Notes

Streaming Audio and Video Project (a report on my department's efforts, with examples of streaming videos, slideshows, and screen movies)
Windows Media Encoder (free from Microsoft, useful particularly for narrated "screen movies;" click on Select Download down-arrow to locate it)
Total Recorder ($11.95 download; useful for recording any sound coming through your sound card, regardless of source)
Hot Potatoes (free suite of programs, including crossword puzzles, useful for review quizzes)
RealPresenter and RealSlideshow no longer recommended due to conflicts with new Real Helix server.

 

The URL to access this webpage is: http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/~wood/asa2003.htm

August 15, 2003