Department of Mathematics
Professional development seminar

Wednesday March 5, 1997: 3:15 4:30 p.m. PSA 307
Staying Abreast in Learning Technology Innovations:
The Virtual University and Distance Learning
Matthias Kawski

Distance education, e.g. through televised lectures and "snail-mailed" course materials and remotely administered tests has been around for a long time. It is only through the high connectivity and huge bandwidth of the Internet and WWW that distance education has taken on a completely new face.
As this seminar will be held in an old-fashioned, non-mediated classroom, we have little opportunity to experience various new uses of the new technology during the seminar. Instead all seminar participants are asked to SURF THE NET according to the instructions given below, to prepare a discussion on two different uses of technology:

  • First we may use the WWW and its relatives to provide access to, and bring course material, data, test-cases into the classroom from anywhere in the world in an instant. Other disciplines are far ahead of math, but even in math we now regularly utilize materials that are imported just-in-time from sites thousands of miles away. Below we provide links to selected such sites.
  • A much more radical way is to abandon the traditional classroom setting, and students meet with each other, and with real or virtual instructors via the net, possibly in an asynchronous way. This may take the form of multi-institutional specia topics graduate seminars, to large lectures with audiences of tens of thousands of students. Below are links to two very radical such "virtual universities" which may become serious competetion to the traditional universities.

    Assignments: Do this early, so you have time to reflect on what you find.

  • Find out what ASU is doing regarding Distance Learning. A good starting point is Distance Learning Technology at ASU. The old fashioned stuff are televised lectures typically with two way audio and one-way video. Find out if any math classes are offered via distance learning at ASU and find out which disciplines use distance learning the most.
  • Do a search on the WWW for "distance education/learning" and "virtual classroom/university". Visit a few sites, and take notes about interesting features you find (bring printouts where suitable).
  • Visit the sites listed on the bottom, and explore a few links provided at these sites.
    Specific tasks
  • Come up with one specific case how you can imagine improving your class using materials imported on the WWW into your classroom.
  • Formulate in a short paragraph your views on how the newly available material changes the role of textbooks.
  • Formulate in a short paragraph your views on how the newly available material changes the role of the instructor.
  • Reflect about what kinds of traditional classes can most easily be replaced by virtual-classes: Lectures, recitations in any format, lab-sessions, active teamwork .....Can you think of ways to marry the trends of more cooperative learning, active classes and distance education? (If you find the magic bullet, or just have a great idea, you may want to join us in a proposed A Center for collaborative research in learning technologies.)

    To get started:

  • The Western Governors' Virtual University proposes to become a serious competetion for the traditional universities. This project comes with the muscle of those who control much of the funding for our public universities, and it seems to be big enough in scope to not have to fear any accreditation issues. There is much guessing going on about where the is heading, but there is also some basic information publicly available.
  • IBM's Global Campus is a similar project on a grandiose scale is It started with a Call For Participation, but now the ranks seem to be closed, with many of the top universities from all continents involved. Take a look whether you can find anyhting interesting, e.g. via IBM Global Campus module descriptions
  • Calculus Courses via the WWW, with several year track-record, at a very traditional university:
    This is a starting point to explore the distance learning site of Calculus and Mathematica. Access to some pages may be quite slow, but you should by all means take a look what they did already long ago: Calculus&Mathematica Distance Education Site, in particular find out how on-line registration works (this program has students in South-Africa and China enrolled in these UIUC courses!). Absolutely crucial to their success is the provision of adequate tutoring over telephone lines, and the internet, using the software TIMBUKTU. Your job is to find out how the homework is handled, and what Timbuktu is about (check both the pages at UIUC NetMath and search on the WWW for TIMBUKTU). It may be helpful to also visit the new site: Net-Math at University of Illinois.

    Miscelleaneous

  • One of the wildest sites with major commercial aspirations is calculus@internet. Here you may find cutting edge VRML 2.0 samples for visualization in 3d, and innovative schemes for testing and handling homework. (Robert hates grading and wants to use advanced AI systems for analyzing and grading all kinds of answers to problems.) At this time this site is more like providing course material than offering credit towards a degree.
  • A much more conservative site is the Connected Curriculum Project directed by Frank Wattenberg. Again, this is mostly course material, but it is easy to imagine how much of this material might be used at remote sites, largely obviating the need for meeting regularly in a traditional classroom.
  • At ASU in math we have course material on the WWW, one such site is http://calculus.la.asu.edu. Go via the related-sites page to the Math Archives, which has links to a huge collection of mathematical documents and software.
  • One of the math professors runs his own classes on the Internet -- I'd advise everyone to separate such private business much more clearly from the professional life at the university. Judge yourself.
  • As a final interesting note, take a look at WEB NOTES (unfortunately most forums have restricted access). Many classes use this format to exchange organizational information, provide an electronic forum for discussions, for homework, and for electronic office-hours where the explnantions given are available to all studentsr in the class (the teacher does not have to send similar e-mail over and over again).