Workshop Trains Faculty To Use Internet Resources In Courses

This week, roughly 45 faculty members and teaching fellows in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will attend a “Web Pedagogies Workshop” designed to teach them how to better integrate the Internet into their courses.

The workshop, sponsored by the Instructional Computing Group (ICG) and the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, is being held in the Science Center. It began on Monday and will come to an end today.

“Our goal is to promote good pedagogical practice in the use of technology in teaching and to stimulate instructional innovation,” Paul Bergen, senior manager of the ICG, wrote in an e-mail.

The main topics that the workshop has covered are Web publishing and the utilization of interactive teaching tools made available by the ICG.

Representatives from the Office of the General Counsel also held a session on intellectual property and copyright issues relating to Internet use.

Those participating in the workshop will be expected to develop extensive plans for how they plan to use their course websites to disseminate course material.

Participants will also be asked to attend presentations and discussions next year to share their experience in teaching with enhanced websites.

Bergen said that the workshop received about 100 applications, but that there were only 35 funded positions for graduate students (each of which will receive a $500 stipend for their participation) and about 10 additional places for faculty participants.

“We were stunned by the level of interest,” he said.

Support for the workshop was granted by the Provost’s Fund for Innovation in Instructional Technology.

—Staff writer Kate L. Rakoczy can be reached at rakoczy@fas.harvard.edu.