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Welcome to Geology 1031/5061
This Web Site is designed to expand the computer-based
resources for students, taking Geology 1031/5061. It incorporates
graphics, text, video data, interactive exercises, exams, as well as
links to the extensive Geoscience resources on the Internet. Students can
test their knowledge on-line by submitting the answers to various
questions over the net, and receiving immediate response about the
correctness of their answers.
The interactive capability of the Web makes it easy for the instructor to
provide an individual approach to the students - for example, the instructor
can vary time limits and context of exercises by providing each
student with a distinct set of assignments. Each student can access
her/his own data/information using her/his unique username and
password.
The Internet also brings to life different ways of communication
between the student and instructor (or assistant) - electronically. In
some cases, the teacher can publish an answer on the
Web, thus broadcasting it to all students, rather than answering
questions on an individual basis (by e-mail, or in person).
Students can comment on their use of the Web (as well as any
other comments about the course in general) by completing anonymous
on-line survey.
This course was offered for the first time Summer Session II, 1996.
Feedback was received from some students, although some parts of this
Web were not available during SS II.
Thus, at the beginning of the Web design we were asked to put in more data,
as well as links to other sources, on-line.
Students liked the ease of navigation around the Web site. An anonymous
feedback form provided confidential messages
to the instructor.
Because only two out of four field trips were required, the entire
class
was not on each trip. However, observations made on the field trips were
used in the course of the lectures to ellucidate general geological
principles. Photographs and videos made on the trips were digitized and
made avaiable on the class Web Page. Thus students who could not
participate on a given trip could at least make the same observations
from the "virtual" information as the participants made on the trips.
This greatly facilitated integration of the field trip material into the
course in a meaningful way for all the students.
During the coming quarter, Fall 1996, this course will be offered for
the second time - and its WEB pages will be an integral part of the
course.
Students will have 24-hour access to the Department of Geology and
Geophysics Computer Lab, as well as to the other University Public
Computer Labs. All of these locations have Internet connections and
Netscape Navigator installed. At the very first lecture the instructor
will introduce students to the Department Computer Lab, to the
World Wide Web and the class Web site. Students will receive handout
explaining basic steps of connecting to the Internet from their home
computers.
In order to better serve students, accessing the Web over the
telephone lines (slow modem connection), almost every page has Text-only
Version. Student's feedback indicated that two versions do not overlap,
but suplement each other - graphically enhanced pages (so-called Normal
Version) are used for the University Labs access (where students have
access using Ethernet connections and newest version of Netscape
Navigator), and the plain text pages are fast and easy to download
remotely, using most primitive Web browser like Lynx.
One of the most important problems for Web designer is
the compatibility of the Web Site. Users should be able to access the
stored information from virtually any computer system connected to the
Internet, while using any WWW browser.
This Web Site was designed so it can be viewed properly when using many
hardware (eg. Macintosh, PC, Sun, SGI) and software
configurations (eg. MacOS, Windows 3.1 and 95, SunOS, Solaris, SGI;
Netscape 2.0 and higher, Netscape Gold 2.0 and higher,
Microsoft Explorer 2.0 and higher, NCSA Mosaic, Lynx). Since old Web
browsers do not support new features like tables, frames, all HTML 3.0
extensions, etc., we tried to use these features only when it was
absolutely necessary.
The simplified flow diagram gives an
overview of the connections between different pages. Some important parts
are not included, eg. interactivity of the exercises, etc.
The Web site provides the students with class materials,
interactive exercises, exams, and, as noted above, exciting and useful
links to the extensive geoscience resources on the Internet. Students
learn in a very real way that material they are studying in the course
is also a part of ongoing research.
Some of the reasons why Internet is the best place for these
materials:
- it ties the course to current research available on the Internet,
- 24 hours/day - 365 days/year access to the class information,
- interactive exercises (which are cross-linked to handouts and other
on-line resources) help better understand the mistakes, if any,and more
fun than usual text-book problems,
- exams can be taken on in-home basis,
- individual approach - instructor can limit the time and
amount of examination based on the student performance,
- on-line submitting - can be done from home computer, or anywhere else
- even from that infamous internet cafe,
- SAVING PAPER.
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