Teaching and Learning > DOCUMENTS
Uses of On-Line Texts and Resources in Philosophy Learning and Teaching
George Macdonald Ross
Index
Report
Internet Assisted Teaching and Learning of Theoretical Modules
Dr Anthony Hatzimoysis, University of Manchester
Points made during discussion:
Using the same electronic forum for notices etc. stimulates use. It works even without compulsion, since students feel they will be left out if they don't participate. At Manchester, students use the internet as a matter of routine for handouts, CEQs etc., and they check their email regularly.
In synchronous seminars, shy students are equally shy. Asynchronous seminars work better for shy students.
Students were presented with five distinct topic-starters, and they could choose which were of most interest to them.
One of the problems with synchronous seminars is that some students can't touch-type. Numbers need to be small - say 2-5 students. Also dyslexia presents more of a problem in synchronous than in asynchronous discussions.
Electronic seminars enable one to focus on discussion skills and philosophical etiquette.
Since everything is stored electronically, this cuts down on the paperwork necessary for QAA and other reviews. It also provides evidence of performance for assessment purposes.
Students use the same Faculty-wide password. Despite the relatively low security, no-one has tried to hack into the system.
How does it affect students' philosophy? It has made face-to-face tutorials more lively, and students have used it for rehearsing drafts of essays.
There was discussion of the pros and cons of having an area of the site for use by students only.
The use of Non-Textual Resources in Philosophy Learning and Teaching
Dr William Johnston, Manchester Metropolitan University
Summary:
The ways in which students interact online with their tutors, with other students and with online resources vary significantly compared with traditional modes of face to face interactivity. One aspect of this is the way in which non-textual resources can be integrated into online learning materials. Such non-textual resources include a variety of interactive devices such as:
- 'Chat', where the principle characteristics are that it occurs in real time and can be one to one or one to many. Whilst this can be an excellent way of ice-breaking with a new group, its effectiveness for serious discussion is limited and in any case with anything over 5 participants, quickly becomes fragmented and diffuse.
- Discussion Boards, where the principle characteristics are that it occurs asynchronously, but, like 'Chat' can be both one to one or one to many. This can be significantly more useful in formal learning and teaching situations but 'lurking' is a familiar problem and any requirement to participate is difficult to sustain.
- E-mail, which shares many of the characteristics of Discussion Boards, but with the enormous advantage of familiarity for most students and easier access since it doesn't require them to log-in to a separate area of the web. For most students, reading their email is the first online activity of the day. Again there are issues about participation, but these can largely be overcome by such devices as including email postings as part of the assessed coursework.
It is crucial that whichever interactive method is employed, that it should be embedded within the course rather than as an adjunct to it. The same applies to the development of online skills - such as searching within texts; using specialist search engines, and interacting with external sites. Use of 'Stop & Think' exercises can be useful in encouraging deep learning as of course, is the web's hypertext ability to point to further resources which are only a click away. In this way it is easy for the tutor to add materials on an ad hoc basis, and students get a real sense of involvement in seeing 'their' suggestions appear on the site.
The online course enables the tutor to oversee student engagement with the course through a wide range of course management tools and makes evaluation of the course through online questionnaires and other means both easy and effective. For the student the advantages are that it enables both synopsis and inter-connectivity to be used to reinforce learning, allowing them at will to recap, recall or link to other associated parts of the materials and giving easy access to additional notes, glossaries and encyclopaedias. There is also an important place for photographs, pictures and diagrams that not only aid learning for many students but add significantly to the overall 'feel' of the online environment, which can too easily become heavily text-based. The role of humour in online materials, as in email and indeed in any low bandwidth situation, is fraught with difficulties, but done sensitively, and strictly limited in extent, can be appreciated by students in lightening an otherwise potentially heavy text-based study session. Points made during discussion:
Chat is useful only as an ice-breaker.
Students are comfortable with email, and they are required to email answers to questions. These count as their attendance mark for each week, and quality is improved if print-outs are posted on the wall at face-to-face tutorials.
The students are trained to use "search", which provides an advantage over hard-copy. They also use search engines such as Hippias, and interact with external sites. An excellent example of an interactive site allowing synchronous discussion is http://www.mylittletony.com.
Materials are punctuated by 'stop and think' commands, with pointers to further resources.
One of the advantages of electronic provision is that new resources can be added, or corrections can be made, at any time. Also, students learn to evaluate materials accessed through the internet, whereas reading lists of hard-copy materials are authorised by the institution.
Current systems are unlikely to be SENDA-compliant. However, there could be serious problems if institutions move to entirely new systems. For example, it is almost impossible to incorporate existing materials into WebCT, and new systems may be unsuitable for the requirements of philosophy teaching. Future systems based on XML will be beyond the capacity of most teaching staff. Either there will have to be heavy investment in staff development, or staff will lose direct control over the format of their teaching materials. At MMU, computing students are paid to be IT mentors for academic staff.
Teaching the History of Philosophy using Electronic Texts
Dr Pauline Phemister, University of Liverpool
Summary:
The module covered the philosophy of the seventeenth century rationalists on the topic of unity. It was offered to third year students and examined entirely by coursework. Students were expected to undertake independent research, using electronic versions of the standard current translations. The texts were provided by the Intelex Corporation and available to students in two versions: a CD-ROM available on the University's own server and direct access to the Intelex web pages. Neither version was particularly user-friendly. For instance, the dark screen on the web version was off-putting and lacked the useful concordance of the CD-ROM version, but it allowed more complex searches.
It was thought that the three elements of (i) theme-based investigation, (ii) coursework assessment and (iii) electronic text-searching facilities would complement and augment each other. The main hope was that the module would encourage students to undertake independent research. The main worry was that the electronic format would prove inaccessible to the students and, more specifically, that they would not get a clear sense either of the identities and the differences among the three philosophers studied, nor a clear sense of their different texts.
Students' reactions were gathered from one mid-semester and one end-of-semester questionnaire. These confirmed that the module had encouraged independent research. Students reported being more active in their learning. This was surely aided by the text-searching facilities and the coursework-only assessment which together led students to approach the texts with questions they needed to answer and allowed them to actively manipulate the texts in new ways. Directing students in this was demanding of staff time. Students also required initial training in the use of the system. Students became more comfortable using the electronic texts as the semester progressed, but they still preferred the more familiar (and portable) format of books. Students continued to use the library copies as well as the electronic versions, recognising the unique merits of each. Printing costs were high for those wanting paper copies of their search results.
Students did get a clear sense of the different philosophers' views. The electronic texts helped them in this by facilitating comparisons among the philosophers on the same topic. However, students' awarenesses of the different texts came primarily from lectures and secondary reading. Generally, those students who benefited most from the electronic texts were those who had some prior knowledge of the Rationalists. Students found searching for secondary literature frustrating when they identified foreign language material or items that the library did not stock. The students themselves wanted the electronic texts to include secondary literature, but I suspect this would discourage them from finding material from other sources.
Several technical hitches had to be overcome, most of which were access problems. Room lighting and layout were found not to be ideal and while the on-screen access to the texts was helpful during lectures, it tended to impede discussion when used in seminars.
In conclusion, electronic texts will not replace traditional teaching methods and tools, but are nevertheless a welcome and valuable addition, obviously developing computer literacy, but more importantly encouraging active and self-directed learning.
Points made during discussion:
Since the module was thematically organised, students were forced to use the search facility. This was an aid to getting the students to learn independently. However, it is time-consuming to devise systems which encourage independent learning.
There were some problems with the electronic texts used: on-screen, it was not obvious which text was being read; there was little sense of chronological order; and students couldn't discuss the texts on-line.
If students were to get maximum value from the resource, it was important that they had questions to go to the text with.
How can Reading Historical Texts On-line be Made More User-friendly than Reading in Hard Copy?
Mr George MacDonald Ross, Director, PRS Subject Centre
Summary:
1. Readability
There is no point making historical texts available on-line unless the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The main disadvantage is the perceived difficulty of reading on-screen. Two problems are difficult to overcome in the short term:
- poor screen resolution;
- unpleasant working conditions in computer clusters, and the expense of alternatives.
However, reading is a skill, and different skills are required for reading in different media - in late antiquity, people used to reading scrolls may have had difficulty handling a codex. Similarly, a new generation of students may be more familiar with reading on-screen, and quite unused to reading through a whole book. I have written a somewhat facetious little document for the benefit of such students, called FAQs about how to read a book (http://www.philosophy.leeds.ac.uk/GMR/bookfaqs.html). This document does not go into the more fundamental question of how to deep-read a difficult text, which may underlie some student complaints about reading on-screen - their problem may not be reading on-screen, but reading a difficult text.
Whether or not students are used to reading on-screen, they need to be taught how to maximise legibility. All the following recommendations can be controlled by the reader, whatever defaults are set by web author (and it is important that the reader should have control, since many readers suffer from a wide variety of reading difficulties, which cannot be catered for by a one-size-fits-all hard-copy document):
- lines are usually far too long (in hard-copy as well as on screen) - reduce to about 40 characters by narrowing the browser window;
- we are used to reading in portrait, whereas VDUs are landscape - halving the width of the window (as above) will turn it into portrait, and also create room to run a word-processor simultaneously for taking notes;
- use a legible font such as Georgia (Microsoft's recommendation), and avoid small font sizes (the default font size can also be enlarged by the reader);
- reduce glare with a pastel background, but make sure that there is still a good contrast with the text colour (including links and visited links);
- avoid textured or graphic backgrounds like the plague;
- read screen-by-screen using Page Down, rather than scrolling and losing your place - this is more like reading a codex.
These recommendations are not by themselves sufficient for compliance with the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act, but they should substantially improve the legibility of on-screen texts for the large majority of students, and make them more readable than many hard-copy texts.
2. Copyright
Even if texts are more readable on-line than in hard copy, the advantage may be outweighed by copyright considerations. Options are:
- use editions which are out of copyright (in effect this means 19th-century editions, which raises questions as to whether the course is up to date);
- bite the bullet, and pay for copyright permissions (which will be expensive, and will not include the right to amend the text or create links to it);
- bite another bullet, and create your own editions or translations (this is very time-consuming, but it has the advantage that you can do what you like with your own materials; it should also be borne in mind that most lecturers give students far too much to read - and it is a good rule of thumb that if you haven't the time to write it, they won't have the time to read it).
3. Providing other advantages
There is no point in putting courses on line unless there are advantages to the students which are impossible, less convenient, or uneconomic by other means. It is positively immoral to use the internet merely as a means for distributing texts and/or course handouts, when it costs students more in time and money to print the material, than it would cost the department to photocopy it (this is known as 'shovelware' in the trade).
Examples of ways in which value can be added are the following:
- running a text side-by-side with a word-processor in which notes can be written, and into which quotations can be copied and pasted;
- using a split screen, so that a text and running commentary can be read together;
- providing internal links to cross-references;
- providing external links to other relevant documents or websites;
- giving easy access to background notes, glossaries, or other relevant information;
- affording the opportunity to email the tutor about problems;
- establishing electronic discussion groups, so that students can help each other outside formal contact hours (with or without input from the tutor);
- encouraging deep reading by setting multiple choice questions at crucial points;
- evaluating the course through an electronic course evaluation questionnaire;
- logging student attendance through time spent on line.
Points made during discussion:
As the standards for the technologies involved in the presentation of web-based materials are implemented more rigorously concerns about accessability will become unavoidable. If, as seems likely, XML becomes the basic stardard means of providing cross-platform storage of materials, be they texts or other media, hard questions will have to be asked about the stardardisation of texts such as Kant's first Critique where paragraph and section breaks are not always obvious. Further issues need to be addressed concerning the use of tables and forms in texts and materials since they are discouraged for webpage presentation and finding standards that are workable may prove difficult.
Plenary Discussion
Dr David Mossley, Information Officer, PRS Subject Centre
In a short closing session the following themes were noted from the day:
- The time constraints on academic staff and the demands that preparation of on-line involves.
- The increasing standardisation of on-line materials and the move to centralised services that will require specialised input from academics at the level of content rather than implementation of technologies. XML stardards may take the possibility of 'home made' individual webpages out of the hands of academics altogether.
Clearly there is a chance that these two trends will run together to the resolution of time pressures. However, it is also clear that academics need to be fully aware of what is being implemented on their behalf to ensure that the materials placed on the web are of the quality they need and that they are in a form that most closely matches scholarly use.
It was noted that philosophy is a text orientated discipline and that sometimes reading on screen or in snippets may not be appropriate - Descartes Meditations, for example, needs to be read through in toto before analysis of it can begin. Students need to spend time with a text to really get a feel for its style and content and this may not be possible with on-line materials. A proper understanding of how the web should and could be used needs to be reached in order to inform policies for best and effective use in learning and teaching.
Other suggestions were that the PRS Subject Centre should more fully investigate the role of part-time teachers in philosophy and their use of web based materials in teaching, since there are many innovations in on-line course delivery being generated by tutors and lecturers with very limited contact time with students. [The PRS Subject Centre is currently involved in a long-term project to do this with the Higher Education Academy and HESDA, the HE Staff Development Agency.]
This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.
