Tri-University Conference
Developing a 12-Hour Women's Studies Program
Through Distance Learning

Technology Tools for Teaching Online
Course Notes from Erika Giesen

In Microsoft Word from the Microsoft Office Package: Document Sharing

The document sharing feature enables a whole class or groups within a class have access over the web to a document. This enables whomever the instructor chooses to modify, add, or change a document. Setting up a common server through a college/university to enable document sharing for Microsoft Office extensions between a class is a standard thing. If you decide this is useful for your course, you can contact someone in the computing center who will set this up for you. Each
student in the class will need a user name and password so they can access common documents and can post their own.

To use:

• The person creating the original document should go under "file" and choose "save as HTML."
• For the file name, enter the web server address that your administrator gives you.
• In using document sharing, these tools can be useful to a class when the whole class or groups are working on one or only a few documents.

In using the multiple drafts feature, you can configure your computer to save previous versions of a certain document. This can be useful if you accidentally deleted something or want some wording you used previously, etc.

To use:

• Under "file" go to "versions", click "save versions on close" (this will let you put in comments about each draft, and you can have two different versions open at the same time).
• OR, under "tools" choose "options" and "save" and click "always create backup copy" (this also has optional password protection).

In enabling the "track changes" feature you will see how a document has been changed, who changed it, and when the document was changed. The original text is not deleted, but remains (through automatic underlining and a different color) visibly changed next to the newest text.

To use:

     Under "tools" choose "track changes" and decide which options suit you.

Comments

This feature highlights a word or a section of text. When you roll your cursor over this highlight and leave it there, a comment like a cartoon balloon that you have inserted appears on the screen until you move your cursor again. This feature is a useful way to make comments on students’ writing when conducting an on-line class. A teacher could download the student’s paper and make comments about how to re-write the sentence, ask clarification questions, or mention things to think about. In addition, when a group or the whole class is working on a document, the comments feature can be used rather than inserting text into the actual document. The inserted comment can be textual or audio.

To use:
 

• Put your cursor where you want the comment or highlight text where you want the comment
• Under "insert" choose "comment."
• Type in or record the comment and click "close."
• To edit or delete a comment, put your cursor on the highlighted text where the comment is and click the right side of your mouse. Choose "delete" or "edit."

This feature allows all those who have access to a document to have a discussion, which is logged at the bottom of the screen. This is more advanced than the comments feature as it keeps an easy, running log of everyone's comments.

To use:

• Under "tools" choose "web discussion."
• Choose the options that suit you.

Possible Assignments Using Document Sharing and Corresponding Features
 

• The class could draft a policy for consensual sexual relations, using the suggestions in articles as examples. Each person should post a suggestion and/or a comment on someone else's suggestion. Students should feel free to use or modify the suggestions in the text, and use the discussion feature to respond to each other's comments. This could be done in groups or with the whole class together.
• Any presentation that students are working on together can be modified/added to through this feature, eliminating the scheduling conflicts that arise in coordinating large groups of people.
• Students and the teacher could work on creating a cooperative final exam together, giving students practice thinking of exam questions and allowing for everyone to clarify questions, etc.

Web Board is a program that hosts on-line discussions and real time chats. To set it up through a college or university, contact someone in your computing center to create a new port for you to enable communication for your class through Web Board. Although slower and not as fancy as NetMeeting (described below), Web Board is useful if many of your students have slow modems.

Conferences

The "conferences" feature keeps various discussions a class might have in different files. It customizes for each user as each time a student enters Web Board it informs them of new postings. Students and the instructor can post text to add to a discussion, or can attach a file, which can be graphic or audio, etc.

This could be used as a discussion forum for students to discuss various issues or articles, etc.

Chat

The "chat" feature is a real time chat where postings are listed along with the name of the user to be seen by everyone who is in the chat "room." Next to the name of each user are symbols for "page" and "whisper." Paging informs the person you've paged that they have been paged and gets their attention. (An instructor could use this to get a student's attention.) Whispering sends a message to whomever you've "whispered" to, and only to them. The instructor can save a chat to disc in order to log a discussion and to keep track of who has contributed, etc.

This could be in place of students being in a physical classroom or it could be used in place of office hours for the instructor. Students could also hold on-line study sessions together here.

In Internet Explorer: NetMeeting

NetMeeting is a program that comes with the Internet Explorer package. Each person who registers with NetMeeting is connected with every other person who is registered with NetMeeting - it is a global meeting place. A class could all register and agree to a common time to all log on to NetMeeting. The instructor "calls" the students to chat and work together. This program hosts chat rooms similar to those on Web Board, although with more features. (Like Web Board on steroids.)

One of these is a shared "white board" that each person can draw on or add to.

Showing a video is also possible - an instructor needs to convert a videotape to data (equipment to do that is available at FCII) and then it can be played over NetMeeting.

If the instructor or students have a webcam, they can record themselves and broadcast it.

Possible Assignments Using NetMeeting:
 

• Assuming that the instructor and all students have webcams, a teacher could do a lesson on the difference between sex and gender. The teacher could initiate a discussion/brainstorming session about what students think the differences are by drawing two bodies. Each student could be required to draw something on either body, but one is representing what biological sex is, and the other what gender is.
• In the discussion area, students could be writing their comments to what others are drawing.
• For a lesson on the wage gap and welfare, students could get into different groups and each group could come up with a budget for a single mother who makes minimum wage with two kids. In groups students could collectively use the white board to come with how they would delegate the money that their hypothetical family had. After a certain amount of time, the teacher could "call" all the groups back together and they could share their budgets and have a discussion.

Assuming many people have not had experience with MOOs, here is the UA's "Old Pueblo MOO's" description of itself:

"What is the MOO?

You are probably familiar with a variety of computer programs already, such as word processing or email programs. The MOO is also a program, and yet it is quite different from many of the programs you might already be familiar with. Suppose the next time you went into Wordperfect, Word, or any other word processing program, you could actually transport your body into the program. You could then walk around on the page, on your document, and physically create and move letters and words around. You would also see when the text got bigger and changed color, not as someone outside looking at a screen, but inside, as you walk around your paper.

And suppose your paper were 20 pages long. As you wandered through it, you might get lost, for its difficult to see all 20 pages when you’re inside the paper, right? You can probably only see the few sentences that are immediately around you. But lets stop there for now. Here you are, physically in your word processing program, wandering around your paper. And as you are there you can add and delete words, images, pages, whatever. If this idea is beginning to make any sense at all, then you are beginning to grasp the concept of the MOO. A MOO is a computer program that invites you inside it. Although your physical body
is sitting somewhere looking at a screen, your virtual body, or character, is in the program, wandering
around within it.

The important things to notice and remember is that this program creates a small world which is made up of text and images. Entirely. When you enter a MOO, you are entering a world of text.  Instead of seeing a physical wall, you see the word ‘wall.’ And instead of seeing a picture of the beautiful Tucson mountains, you will see ‘a picture of the beautiful Tucson mountains.’

Everything is based in text—words—language.  And if you get dizzy or confused, the first thing you should do, as you would anywhere you might get lost or confused, is to stop and look around (see the section below titled Movement, Look Button/Command).  Stop and type ‘look.’ You will then be able to ‘see’ (read) where you are.

The MOO is a fascinating program because, unlike Wordperfect or Internet Explorer, the MOO is a program which is created by its users. You are not able to get inside most word processing programs and change them aside from some individual user preferences. But in the MOO, there are many things you can create and change, which actually changes the shape, look, and environment of the MOO. It is different from other programs because it is created by its members, or community. Without you, and all of the other characters who work and play in the MOO, the MOO would be literally be an empty place. OldPuebloMOO was created for educational activities at the University of Arizona. It is primarily used for classes, group collaboration, and study groups, although the possibilities are limitless.  It is set up very similar to the University of Arizona campus, but also contains some of the places which are unique to Tucson, such as the Rialto Theater and the Congress Hotel. As you enter this virtual  space, you’ll see a drawing representing
the various buildings which are here.

This is your MOO, just like the University of Arizona campus is your campus. You can work and play in the MOO similarly to how you work and play on campus—going to the places you want, creating spaces of your own for you and your friends where you can work together, hang out, join group gatherings, etc.  Think of the MOO as an extension of the University of Arizona campus, and you’ll see once you are inside that in many ways it is very similar to our physicalcampus." (http://oldpueblomoo.arizona.edu/what_is_the_moo.htm)

An Instructor Handbook on using the MOO in class is available at:

     http://oldpueblomoo.arizona.edu/insthand.html

The MOO is an interesting place to explore multiplicative identity in a postmodern sense. In my explorations on the MOO I was able to take on a name and hence a persona that is not how I interact outside of this setting. Although my time spent on the MOO was too brief to expound upon, I nonetheless saw the potential for students to explore alternate personas and to play with who they are, which oftentimes can carry over into "RW", the "real world."