Transcript Benefit of WWW-based seminar as a part of information

Benefit of WWW-based
seminar as a part of
information management
and information systems
development course
Pekka Makkonen
University of Jyväskylä
FINLAND
Course
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An undergraduate course for the firstyear majors: Information management
and information systems development
Themes
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(1) managing information resources,
(2) building information systems, and
(3) organizational applications
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Why web-based seminar?
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increased amount of information systems
education as well as students at universities->
impossibility to organize conventional seminars
Need for more flexibility because of
heterogeneity of the students
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Adult education
technical infrastructure has been improved (for
example high-speed broadband connections to
the student village)
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How?
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Web CT and its presentations feature
Working in small groups (3 to 5 students)
with feasibility study which dealt with one
typical information system (stock control,
sales order processing, etc.)
Presentations were put in each group’s
separate workspace on the web
Other groups commented on the outcomes
Control groups to compare the value (not in
this paper)
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Was web-based seminar
successful?
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First evaluations
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Questionnaires (at the beginning and the end)
The process of the coursework and seminar
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Course work generally
Motivation
Authoring
Reading outcomes of other groups and participating in
seminar
How the students of the experimental group experienced
the Web CT tool
Comparing main phases of web-based coursework
Evaluating effect of age, gender, size of group and
faculty
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What we got
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Web-based seminar worked well
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coursework generally
authoring
seminar (reading others’ work and commenting on
them)
Web-based seminar is suitable for older
students
The students who studied IT and IS as minor
benefited more from web-based seminar
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Personal thoughts
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Prefer HTML format
Avoid use of subfolders
Think about differences of browsers
As a teacher do not use all the features of a
learning environment: think about your pedagogical
design first. For example, the Web CT includes
a lot of features: only some of them may be
suitable for one course. This means that as
a teacher you should choose the features used
from the perspective of your own pedagogical view.
Blended learning
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Research continues
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Comparing experimental group to
control group
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We ran another course on the same topic
without a web-based seminar
These results will be published
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