In this article, I will discuss the basics of a Web-based economics course which has been used to supplement current classes. In addition, possible enhancements will be considered.
With the development of the World Wide Web, the potential for accessing and delivering educational information has expanded substantially and may have reached a critical turning point. Over the last several decades, it seems that little has changed in classroom technology. The basic tools of the modern teacher include a blackboard and, perhaps, an overhead.
We're all familiar with the layout. Whatever the method, students still rely on the teacher to present and guide them through the material. Given the explosion in knowledge required to succeed in today's world, students and teachers share the goal of covering the maximum amount of material possible during the semester. Often, the majority of this infomation is theoretical, leaving little opportunity for the development of critical thinking skills or the absorption of the material.
Although the overall quality of university education in the United States is extraordinary, the current university system suffers from several critical handicaps. Over the past century, the trend in most industries has been the continuous movement towards more capital intensive production methods. By adding more and better quality capital, labor productivity has improved dramatically, which in turn has helped to lower production costs and keep consumer prices relatively steady (especially when corrected for improvements in quality). In many ways, the technological revolution has left the educational system behind.
Due to the labor intensive nature of education, the cost is very high and continues to increase at a pace that easily doubles or triples the inflation rate and annual income gains for the lower and middle class wage earner. Although the penalty for the lack of a university education continues to grow, the cost has become increasingly prohibitive. If trends continue, many middle-class Americans may find themselves squeezed out of the opportunity for a quality university education. Even today, for the majority of the world's citizens, a university education is beyond their fondest hopes.
According to recent statistics, the U.S. wage gap between a worker with only a high-school education and one who has completed a four-year college program is 75 percent.
The solution to the inefficacy of the modern university education is the incorporation of technology into alternative delivery techniques. By improving the efficiency of educational delivery, costs can be reduced, and the potential audience will be greatly increased. The Web has the potential for changing the educational landscape by allowing instructors and students to expand into areas previously unattainable. Of course, we are only in the first stage of this process, which is to use the Web to assist with or to provide an alternative to the traditional classroom presentation.
The goal of any Web course is to avoid replicating a textbook but still provide students with the content they need to make class time constructive. The hypertext nature of the Web allows the teacher to direct students, not only to essential material, but also to other relevant materials available on the Web. In this way, the Web enables the instructor to customize a course simply by creating a set of links.
This foundation of basic course content simulates that in a textbook, as the instructor acts like an author would, presenting (or at least providing reference to) all of the necessary materials, including graphs and equations. From here, the course designer/instructor adds links to more tangential course elements that the instructor has written or links to other Web sites which contain complementary information.
The Web can be used in many different ways, from providing a simple set of references to a complete compilation of course materials. As an example of the latter use, consider the section in my macroeconomics course that covers exchange rate determination. After presenting the essential theory of exchange rates, I added a document that covers the recent currency collapse of the Mexican peso. From there, I provided links to other relevant sources, including the World Bank's Web site which provides a brief historical background on Mexico, analysis by several experts, and a description of the current economic situation. Scholarly papers with other viewpoints are also linked. This is just the initial foundation; over time, the content of this single topic will expand dramatically as more Web sources are created or discovered.
The most difficult aspect of creating my Web course was the lack of any reference point. At the time, there were no educational courses on the Web to evaluate regarding technique and procedure. Falling back on previous work experience as a programmer and systems analyst, I created the basic directory and Web structure that would easily allow me to build a course and enhance it in the future. The university where I teach provided a Unix account and basic Web URL creation tools, allowing me to focus on course content and delivery.
I decided to create a Web-based course in the Principles of Macroeconomics for two primary reasons. The most important was my experience teaching this course. Teaching a course is an evolutionary process which goes from mimicking what others have done successfully to developing your own signature as your knowledge and confidence in the area expands. I had reached this point in my teaching of macroeconomics and felt comfortable developing a course which would be interesting to the students studying this topic. The second reason macroeconomics was selected was the broad scope of applications of course theory to "real world" events. This is consistent with one of the greatest strengths of the Web in education -- the linkage of theoretical content to current world topics.
The PC software tools used were simple: a word processor to create HTML documents, Corel Draw to create graphs and equations and Netscape (a Web browser) to make sure it fit together before being posted on the Web. Modifications which I hope to implement this spring are an improved equation generating system and an interactive testing system. Although html version 3 should support equations, most Web browsers do not interpret version 3 standards. As a result, equations with any Greek symbols are read into html as gif images.
How responsive are students to this opportunity? The feedback for my course last semester has been very positive. After some students' initial hesitation -- most had no prior Web exposure -- they quickly became accustomed to using the Web as a supplement to the lectures and textbook. The Web proved beneficial to those students who missed class; as most of the class material was available on the Web, they could keep up on their own. The Web has also proven useful for making other pertinent course information readily available. After exams, I posted answers as well as results on the Web.
I hope to expand the audience of my work on the Web in several ways. This spring, the Web course will be offered by the Division of Continuing Education for credit as an alternative to traditional print based distance education. Students with Internet access at any place in the world will be able to receive University of Colorado college credit for the macroeconomics course -- which should be transferrable to their home institution. All necessary course materials will be available on the Web, and students will be able to correspond with the instructor by email. The eventual goal will be to create a full Web-based college curriculum.
Another area under development is to merge the Web content with live delivery using inexpensive Internet media such as Cu-SeeMe. Students in remote locations will be able to reference the Web material and receive a live lecture delivered from Colorado which utilizes both video and two-way audio. Whiteboard transfer can be used as a substitute for the classroom blackboard or overhead.
The third area under development is the creation of interdisciplinary courses. Several of us are developing the outline of a course which merges economics, political science and mass media/journalism. Specialists from each area will combine their expertise to give students an integrated theoretical presentation and point of view on several topics of domestic and international importance. The Web is a natural facilitator of this process. Rather than having students read voluminous details from each discipline individually, the Web can be used to focus the student's attention on the theory and issues critical to understanding the topic being discussed.
WWW address for the principles of macroeconomics web course:
http://stripe.Colorado.EDU/~cewww/courses/economics
Jay Kaplan
Economics Department
University of Colorado, USA.
email: kaplan@spot.Colorado.EDU
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URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/webed.htm
March, 1996
GLOSAS NEWS was orinally posted to the WWW at URL: http://library.fortlewis.edu/~instruct/glosas/cont.htm by Tina Evans Greenwood, Library Instruction Coordinator, Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado 81301, e-mail: greenwood_t@fortlewis.edu, and last updated May 7, 1999. By her permission the whole Website has been archived here at the University of Tennessee server directory of GLOSAS Chair Dr. Takeshi Utsumi from July 10, 2000 by Steve McCarty in Japan.