Dick Larson
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"Interactive Learning Environments and Virtual Classrooms"
Draft Outline of White Paper to
Joel Moses, Dean, School of Engineering, M.I.T.
To be submitted by the EECS Department
Sept. 22, 1994
I. Statement of the Domain of Interest, Concern and Opportunity
A. Brief definitions of Multimedia, Hypermedia, WWW, Internet, etc.
B. Emerging trends in the educational use of these technologies
C. Urgency for establishing an "M.I.T. plan of action," based on a shared
vision of the future.
1. Plan should build toward a 20 year vision.
2. Must have action items in three time frames: short term (i.e., "now"), mid
range (i.e., 6 months to 2 years) and long range.
D. Consensus view that whatever the "M.I.T. plan" becomes, it should focus on
facilitation of use of the new technologies by individual faculty, staff and
students. No need for a new centralized bureaucracy, but focus on local
empowerment to the ultimate users and developers of educational materials.
E. Shared view that the new technologies can not only help us in doing better
what we do now, but also can facilitate our movement into new educational and
research domains.
F. The "M.I.T. Plan" will be a rolling one, evolving with our experiences and
with the emergence of increasingly more powerful technologies.
G. Plan should seek to identify alternative research enterprises that also
focus on the new technologies, as only when the faculty's research is coupled
with the technology will M.I.T. become a leader in the field.
H. To the extent possible, the EECS-focused efforts should learn and build
from complementary programs currently underway elsewhere on campus, including
in the Humanities Department, the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the
School of Architecture and Planning.
I. Ultimately, the "M.I.T. Plan" should state a position on the extent of use
of "off-the-shelf" multimedia and hypermedia products, including third-party
software, vs. the development of new M.I.T.-created products. It was a
consensus at the Sept. 19 retreat that to the extent possible, off the shelf
products should be used. This is primarily due to the fact that large
companies are expending considerable resources in developing and perfecting
these products and that M.I.T., when considering duplicating these efforts,
does not likely have a competitive advantage or a substantive need.
II. Proposed Short Term Actions of the EECS Department (There is a consensus
from the Sept. 19 workshop that some immediate important steps should be taken.
These are listed here, ready for your additions, deletions and/or
modifications.)
A. Take steps now to educate our faculty in currently existing technologies
that can improve the operation and perhaps style of faculty teaching and
student learning in their subjects.
1. Have Mosaic operating live for the rest of the academic year in the Greir
Room on Mondays during and after EECS faculty lunches.
2. Schedule a half day IAP program for EECS faculty to teach them the basics
of the WWW and its potential use in teaching EECS subjects and in supporting
research.
3. Give faculty access to the skeleton of the 6.046 CD-ROM, so they can EASILY
begin conversion of their own texts, notes, etc., to multimedia form.
B. Take steps now to provide facilitation tools so that our faculty can easily
take advantage of and use the new networking technologies.
1.Afford every lecturer an EASY way to have an on-line bulletin board for his
subject, where students can post questions, and faculty/TAs can provide
answers. This action might fruitfully build from Hal Abelson's current
educational use of Internet.
2. Continuing 1 above, afford every lecturer an EASY way to put the syllabus,
subject organization handout, and as many problem sets, etc., as they want on
line. This material might be on the WWW, and so serve an external audience as
well as an MIT audience. At least, however, it should permit students and
faculty here--even if not involved in a particular subject--to learn much more
about what is in that subject than can be gleaned from the catalog.
3. Standardize EECS WWW presence, supporting an EECS subject WWW template.
4. Afford every lecturer an EASY way to make videos and
have them shown on the MIT cable.
C. Coordinate our efforts with other related on-going and committed efforts.
1. Encourage all faculty who have lectured in 34-101 or otherwise use
audio/visual/video/computer aids in class to interact with the EECS Committee
(Penfield is chair) which is planning the audio/visual renovation of Edgerton
Hall. The Department has received a major donation for this project. It
cannot afford to squander the current opportunity.
2. Others??
D. Get our students involved.
1. Encourage our students to explore/use and provide
feedback on the CD-ROM version of the 6.046 text.
2. With Hal Abelson's permission, seek feedback from students currently taking
his subject on Computers, Law and Ethics, especially on issues pertaining to
use of the WWW, bulletin boards, etc. in teaching the subject; start to build a
knowledge base for future initiatives.
3. Hold a half day IAP meeting with students, combining a tutorial on Mosaic
with open ended discussion with students to learn of their interests, concerns
and alternative visions.
E. Get EECS Administrative Operations Committed
1. Effective immediately, send all Departmental memos, announcements and other
mass mailings only by EMail. For those EECS faculty not using EMail or not
having access, follow School of Architecture and Planning and provide whatever
assistance is required to hook up everyone.
2. Examine other possible short term steps to make EECS the "nearly totally
paperless department."
F. Maintain electronic communication among the participants of the Sept. 19
meeting; add to this "affinity group" as appropriate.
III. Mid range initiatives. (6 months to 2 years). (Implementation of many of
the ideas below will require support from the top of the M.I.T. administration
and will involve potentially complex issues requiring broader M.I.T. faculty
approval. A designated champion may be required to lead this effort and the
even more involved follow-on long term effort.)
A. Distance learning by electronic taking of current campus-based subjects.
1. Find a mechanism so that students can officially take an M.I.T. subject,
with faculty permission, over Internet and can receive some type of credit.
This may simply be an electronic version of the Special Student status, perhaps
with a modified tuition requirement.
2. Identify first set of subjects to qualify for electronic registration.
3. Identify markets for these subjects and mechanisms for reaching those
markets.
4. Appoint an individual or group to operationalize this initiative.
B. Explore establishing reciprocal agreements with other universities, in
which each school's students may electronically cross register among an agreed
set of subjects taught in the respective schools.
C. Explore the potential desire of smaller schools to have one or more M.I.T.
EECS subjects to be taught electronically to their own students, with local
faculty being the local professors. Related operational issues, including
allowed class sizes, enforcing prerequisites, tuition, etc., must be resolved.
D. Building from these experiences, explore the potential for granting degrees
to students who are distant from the Cambridge campus during the majority of
their program; that is, most subjects would be taken via the WWW. Perhaps a
degree marked "MIT.EU," for "M.I.T., electronic university," would be
appropriate. Such a program most likely would involve resolving issues of
M.I.T.-wide concern. In the mean time, prior to M.I.T.-wide agreement, Course
VI-A students would be a natural first set of students to participate.
E. In light of the new technologies, re-examine the portfolio of teaching
assistance skills and duties needed by the typical EECS faculty member.
Perhaps one or more "TA's" in a subject should be "Technology Assistants."
F. Locate and encourage current campus-based research activities pertaining to
hypermedia, multimedia and related electronic educational leveraging
technologies. Identify new areas for research, within both the traditional
realm of technology (e.g., networking protocols, data compression, efficient
data access algorithms, etc.) and the nontraditional realm of doing research on
the new educational processes spawned by the technologies. Example:
Electronically trace each student's use of the WWW during a semester subject
and compare and contrast the performance and learning style of each student as
a function of style and frequency of WWW use. Use results to enter new pages
and data on the WWW and to alter design of subject(s).
IV. Longer term initiatives (time frame greater than 2 years)
A. EECS-specific initiatives: Focus initially on the Common Core
1. Content--Review the concepts (modules) within the four common core
subjects. Develop the best way to package these
into four (or three or five) subjects. Perhaps some concepts will be dropped,
perhaps others will be added. A major goal, however, will be to better mix EE
and CS topics within each subject, leading to better linkages between the
subjects, and a higher degree of engagement for all of our students (VI-1,
VI-2, and VI-3) in all of these subjects.
2. Technology-Examine ways in which new technology (including multimedia, but
not exclusively so) provides the
means for achieving the common core's intellectual goals listed under content.
In particular, developing a coherent simulation tool capable of handling
everything in the common core is an approach to be pursued. While it is
unlikely that this will be achievable with existing third-party software, and
while it is
quite difficult to develop sufficiently user-friendly
pedagogical software interfaces, it is nonetheless an area in which a
technological development can provide a major enhancement tool for common core
education.
3. Style-The fundamental long-term goal in common-core style is to enhance
student-student and student-staff interactions.
Suggestions include universal use of computer communications (perhaps the WWW)
for answers to stock questions in the common core. Also, means for students to
send anonymous e-mail feedback to the instructional staff should be provided.
B. Broader initiatives: Identify all possible educational markets and what
(if anything) we wish to contribute to each of them, leveraging the new
technologies.
1. K-12
2. Our alumni though continuing education, both within their campus-based
departmental specialty and outside that specialty as their career grows and
evolves (e.g., from EE or CS to management). Explore concept and feasibility
of the lifetime EMO (Educational Maintenance Plan).
3. Non alumni post graduate professionals who may wish to take one or more
M.I.T. subjects via long distance.
4. Our current campus-based students, both undergraduates and graduates.
5. Pre degree students elsewhere, either registered at other schools or not
currently at other schools.
C. Create a vision statement that guides M.I.T. more broadly as an institution
into this new realm of teaching, learning and research.