The Geography Virtual Department: Building and Linking Geography Curricula Nationally Using the Internet and Worldwide Web

需要资金来举办讲习班和研讨会，以计划和开发教学材料，这些材料将利用因特网和万维网将美国各地的地理系联系起来。该项目的目标是建立高质量的课程材料，包括电子教科书和互动模块：1)跨越整个本科课程；2)进一步开发现有互联网资源的潜力；3)充分利用万维网的超媒体格式。该项目将允许许多大学的地理学家朝着共同的目标努力，并分享开发超媒体课程材料的时间和费用，这些材料很可能成为21世纪高等教育的标志。该项目解决了当代高等教育面临的三个重要挑战：1)为教师提供创建超媒体教学材料和有效使用万维网所需的技能；2)为开发特定学科的教育资源设定目标，以支持“虚拟”系甚至“虚拟”大学的出现；3)帮助万维网从临时和即兴收集的材料转变为有序和系统地开发的教育和研究资源。为了实现这些目标，德克萨斯大学将于1996年、1997年和1998年夏季举办为期两周的研讨会，召集来自全国各地大学的30名教职员工。学员将设定开发新材料的目标，获得超媒体创作的技能，并编写第一个模块。国家地理教育委员会和美国地理学家协会还将在全国会议上举办为期一天的研讨会，以：1)评估和完善材料，2)向更多的专业受众介绍新材料，3)提供实践培训。

Funds are requested to convene workshops and seminars to plan and develop ilstructional materials that will use the Internet and Worldwide Web to interlink the cufficula of geography departments throughout the United States. The goal of the project is to build high quality curriculum materials including "electronic" textbooks and interactive modules that: 1) span the entire undergraduate curriculum, 2) exploit further the potential of existing Internet resources, and 3) take full advantage of the hypermedia format of the Worldwide Web. The project will allow geographers at many universities to work toward common goals and share the time and expense of developing the sorts of hypermedia curriculum materials that are likely to become the hallmark of higher education in the twenty-first century. The project addresses three important challenges facing contemporary higher education: 1) to provide faculty with the skills needed to create hypermedia instructional materials and use the Worldwide Web effectively, 2) to set goals for the development of the discipline-specific educational resources that will support the emergence of "virtual" departments and even "virtual" universities, and 3) to help transform the Worldwide Web from an adhoc and improvised collection of materials into an orderly and systematically developed resource for education and research. To reach these goals, two week workshops will be held at the University of Texas during the summers of 1996, 1997, and 1998 to bring together thirty faculty from universities across the nation. Participants will set goals for the development of new materials, gain skills in hypermedia authoring, and write the first modules. One day seminars will also be held at the national meetings of the National Council for Geographic Education and the Association of American Geographers to: 1) evaluate and refine materials, 2) present the new materials to a larger professional audience, and 3) offer hands-on training.