Abstract: I need a bigger toolbox. Not a box that goes in my garage under the workbench, but in my classroom. I found another teaching tool to add to my arsenal to aid me in my war against ignorance and agriculture-- illiteracy. Plus it saves me TIME!! Historically, when it came to computers, I was not one of those teachers that readily jumped on the bandwagon ready to cruise the digital highway. If we examined a chart of Adopter Categories, I would have been categorized as a Late Majority border lining a Laggard. I could use a word processing program, but beyond that, I needed a weeklong summer in-service session from the folks at Cal-Poly to convince me this was a good thing. I needed Tim The Tool Man Taylor to shower me with manly grunts to get me excited about using this tool. Techno-tool In this day and age of cyber technology and the Internet, webbased instruction is becoming a popular tool of instructors in higher education. Students can enroll in and participate in a university or college course from home or a distant campus and never step foot in the classroom. Teachers and students can engage in dialogue, exchange papers, participate in small group cooperative activities, conduct assessment, and seek outside resources. All in your flannel pajamas. But how can a secondary agriculture teacher armed with one computer and an Internet connection, with very limited (or no) web page design experience, and a miniscule amount of free time learn such skills to use this technology to his/her benefit? Is this an effective too] for teaching or delivering information? Perhaps this is more of a management tool (different slot, same toolbox) that can save you time in communicating to students, distributing worksheets, quizzes or tests, or getting homework to students who are habitually absent from class. What kinds of activities can an agriculture teacher do with an on-line website that is accomplished in a traditional classroom? How about most of the management duties you are expected to do on a daily or weekly basis? There is such a tool out there, and it is FREE to the user. I have used this site as a graduate student ih a stand-alone course, and as an instructor utilizing it as a teaching tool to supplement two different university courses. Student response to its use as an accessory to a class has been very favorable. What department in Sears carries this too]? You have to go on-line. Go to http://www.blackboard.com. Once you arrive at the site you are presented with choices. You can search for an existing course or create your own. Cruise through the list of courses to see what is out there. Now, let's create our own. Before a student can access the digital classroom, the instructor must perform some classroom preparation. Each class is equipped with similar tools; the look or appearance is up to the instructor. Whether students self-enroll, or enrollment is by the instructor, the availability of the course (starting and ending dates) are determined and controlled by the teacher. User name and passwords may be generated by students (or the instructor) during the initial signup and a one-time access code is all that is needed to be officially enrolled. Of course each student will need an email address to communicate with the instructor. Like the beginning of each day's class, the first item a student entering your digital encounters is Announcements. These may be updated, modified or removed by the instructor. Directing students to specific areas of the digital classroom, a student may click on any of eight folders that align the website page. These folders may contain materials placed by the instructor, course documents (such as a syllabus, course outline, or student data sheet), tools for student use, communication information, and links to other sites. …
Publication Year: 2002
Publication Date: 2002-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot