Using the Internet as a teaching strategy: informatics at work

Development of the World Wide provides educators with an enormous library of teaching tools. The purpose of this presentation is to share the results of introducing over 60 graduate students to use e-mail, internet mailing lists, computer conferences, and the World Wide Web as teaching strategies. Data were collected from students through questions and Electronic Communication Logs. Response of the students was categorized into 6 phases: 1) fear and trepidation, 2) excitement, "this is great!", 3) "help, my mail box is full", 4) venturing forth independently, 5) this is easy, and 6) accepting the internet as a useful tool. Identification of these phases provided a basis for developing teaching strategies specific to internet uses. Feedback between students and instructor increased and was far more timely than occurs in the classroom setting. The student responses to these experiences were overwhelmingly positive.