VISION

Integrating Web Technology into the Classroom

[For starters, an additional 400-600 words would still place this piece well within our publication guidelines and should give you enough leeway to fill out the sections indicated below.]

Faculty members at many colleges and universities throughout the country are quietly integrating Web technology into the classroom. These efforts typically do not receive the same publicity or fanfare as some corporate efforts even though they are sometimes more sophisticated.

[Some more detail concerning the specific angle on Web technology integration in the classroom would be very useful here. If the focus of the piece is intended to be the ways in which Northwestern on the whole and TiLT in particular are assisting in the integration of technology, I would foreground this early on and then use the courses you describe as examples of how the points you elucidate below--see note--concerning "assumptions that may not be obvious"]

One good example is Dr. Morteza Rahimi's use of Web technology in his very technical telecommunications course designed for non-technical students in communications and business at Northwestern University. His course description and the course outline are available to the world on Northwestern's web site (http://mediacom.it.nwu.edu). The web page for his course includes several mathematical problems on a "self-test". The implications are, if you are comfortable with this level of mathematics, you will probably enjoy the course; if you do not understand these problems, you may find the course difficult. After students are enrolled in the course, they have full web access to Dr. Rahimi's lecture notes and slide presentations (PowerPoint), and are included in the class electronic discussion list. Also participating in that electronic discussion list are many graduates of the course who are now gainfully employed in the technology industry. The participation of the alums adds a dose of reality to the discussion, and they probably are also there to track the brighter students in the class for future employment in their companies.

Another faculty member, Professor Mohan Sawney of the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern, also includes many graduates of his course, "Marketing Decisions for Technology Products," in the class electronic discussion list. Another added advantage is, they provide students with live current case studies. Dr. Sawney's course and several other Northwestern University courses can be found at http://www.at.nwu.edu/ltg/training/tilt/example.html.

These examples illustrate several assumptions that may not be obvious.[These points seem to form the philsophical center of the paper. As such, would it help focus the article to place them at an earlier point and then have the specific examples flow from them, rather than vice versa?

1. Northwestern University has a robust Internet presence and an active Intranet.
2. All students in these courses are assumed to have web access over the campus network (most have their own computers).
3. The participating alums have Internet access through their company or a private Internet Service Provider.
4. Northwestern University also has an active program to assist faculty members in using technology in the classroom.

Dr. Rahimi happens to also be the Vice President for Information Technology at Northwestern University. Through a staff of 12 professionals, he actively encourages and supports other Northwestern faculty members in the success deployment of web technology in their courses.

Northwestern University's TiLT (Technology in Learning and Teaching) program is an intensive three and a half day hands-on workshop on the incorporation of interactive multimedia and Internet resources into the higher education curriculum. The fee-based TiLT workshop is available to participants from other organizations in addition to Northwestern University faculty and staff, and details can be found at http://www.at.nwu.edu/ltg/training/tilt or by sending e-mail to tilt@nwu.edu. TiLT is co-sponsored by Academic Technologies and the University Library. Academic Technologies also offers a variety of other support opportunities for faculty and staff at Northwestern University described on their web page.

[A considerable amount of description of this program would be of interest to our readers, I think. The actual nuts and bolts behind how this program purports to achieve the goals of teaching faculty how to use technology would greatly augment the utility of the piece on the whole.]