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John C. Butler: Associate Dean, Natural Sciences, in the Department of Geosciences, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
Introduction
I began producing Internet-based course resources in the summer of 1995 and a total of four have been prepared (http://www.uh.edu/ academics/nsm/geosc/butler.html); all but one has been through at least one iteration. Many non-technical questions arose during the preparation stage (Butler, 1998).
- Where would students gain access to the Internet?
- What level of familiarity with the Internet would the students bring to the course?
- What if I gave this party and no one came? If they came to the party would they dance?
- Will the Internet add value to the course?
At first, an interest in the technology itself was the driving force. Later on I began to explore how my peers were using the Internet in particular and teaching in general (http:// www.uh.edu/[similar]jbutler/anon/anonfield.html). After three years, the experiment continues and this note addresses what has been learned to date. Although the details pertain to a very small set of undergraduates at the University of Houston, the generalizations may cut across campus boundaries.
Access to the Internet
The Physical Geology resources (www.uh. edu/[similar]jbutler/physical/physical.html) are in their third year of use. Approximately 800 students take this three credit hour, one semester course during a fall semester at the University of Houston and probably more than 95 percent are majoring in a college other than Natural Sciences and Mathematics. The accompanying laboratory is not required; approximately 20 percent of the 800 students take the one hour lab which is taught by a teaching fellow. This is one of a number of courses which can partially satisfy a six hour Natural Science Core Curriculum requirement which all bachelors degree candidates at the University of Houston must satisfy. Since 1987 I have taught a relatively small section of this course (approximately 50 students as compared to our average section of approximately 125). The students are drawn from across the university and, to a first approximation, have backgrounds comparable to the students taking the other sections of this course.
For the past three fall semesters I have surveyed the class on the first class day to find out, among other things, how many students had access to a...