ED-MEDIA 1999 Proceedings Book - Association for the ...

• Classroom Corner where students receive lesson contents, tutorial and workshop notes as well as a variety
of course related information and announcements.
• Student Lounge that is dedicated to most activities that involve students. These include the information
about student progress in the subject, test and assignment scores and course records. The Student Lounge
also contains a “Student Presentation” area where the results of students collaborative projects are viewed.
• Student Communication Corner that offers WebCT built-in bulletin board, private mail and real-time chat
tools (Goldberg, 1997). The tool that was used most extensively by all students was the bulletin board. It
served as the main forum for course communication, and provided an effective tool for students to
participate in class discussions outside the regular lecture and recitation sessions.
• Assessment and Survey Corner houses assessment-related information and assessment tasks such as
assignments, on-line quizzes and "Critical Thinking" tasks. The bulletin board gave students a good
platform to practice the task of critical thinking in this subject. A dynamic link was established between
Critical Thinking tasks, weekly face-to-face recitation sessions, the bulletin board postings and the
consequent follow up postings. This dynamic link worked nicely in IACT101 learning environment.
• Additional Resources and Help/Student Manual.
Student Use and Student Tracking Information
During the first eight weeks of the operation of IACT101 learning environment, the site had:
1. around 8000 visits; approximately one visit per student per working day,
2. over 2000 articles were posted to the bulletin board (about half related to the subject matter),
3. close to 1200 times the timed/on-line quiz environment were used by students, close to 800 on-line
electronic submissions were made (short assignments and Critical Thinking tasks), and
4. 1800 hours of students engagement and interaction with on-line course notes was recorded.
More detailed statistics collected at the end of the semester (week14) showed a linear increase in student use and
a close to uniform usage distribution across students.
Student Survey
Two on-line questionnaires were administered to obtain information regarding student access to the course and
student acceptance of, and reaction to, the IACT101 learning environment. Information on the effectiveness of
peer interaction and perception of the on-line learning environment as a tool to influence students’ learning were
collected and analysed. Some 176 students completed both questionnaires, and a vast majority indicated that the
Web-based learning environment directly contributed towards their active learning of the subject matter (Survey,
1998). The implementation of the on-line support of IACT101 increased the class average score by 9% and
increased the completion rate by 10% compared to the previous year where the Web-based learning environment
was not used, but all other aspects of IACT101 were the same.
Conclusion
Providing on-line support for classroom-based education has potentially significant educational and
administrative benefits. A resource-based approach provides an effective and affordable mechanism for
achieving improved quality in traditional on-campus education. In IACT101 case, the majority of students
appreciated the efforts of the instructor, were excited about learning while interacting with others, and expressed
the opinion that the IACT101 technology-enhanced learning environment directly contributed towards their
active learning and satisfaction.
References
Bishop, A. S., Greer, J. E., & Cooke, J. E. (1997). The Co-operative Peer Response System: CPR for Students. Proceedings
of ED-MEDIA 97/ED-TELECOM 97, Calgary, Canada, 1997, Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education
(AACE) Charlottesville, VA, 172-178.
Goldberg, M. W. (1997). Communication and Collaboration Tools in WebCT, Proceedings of the conference Enabling
Network-Based Learning, May 28 - 30, 1997, Espoo, Finland.
Gosper, M. V. & Rich, D. C. (1998). Introducing Flexibility into Educational Programs: The Macquarie University
Experience. Proceedings of ED-MEDIA98/ED-TELECOM98, Calgary, Canada, 1997, Association for the Advancement of
Computing in Education (AACE), Charlottesville, VA, 472-478.
Survey (1998). http://edt.uow.edu.au/edtlab/iact101/survey_results/index.html