To: Dean Del Crisp

From: Barbara Donovan

Re: Title III Progress Report

Date: March 31^st, 2006

My rationale for my Title III Grant Proposal for a notebook computer was to facilitate my using WEB CT as a learning tool in my classes.

At the beginning of the semester faculty were told that WEB CT might not be fully functional for the spring semester and we warned against relying on it too extensively. For this reason, I chose to use WEBCT in only one class, in a fairly limited manner, and in the class with the fewest students. I have not, however, experienced any problems with WEB CT. Indeed, I have had great success with the tool and look forward to expanding it to other classes.

The class I used WEBCT in was POL 326 European Politics.

AT the beginning of the semester, Cathy Locks held a training session for my students and all were quite excited to be accessing course material in this fashion.

The class has used three different WEB CT applications, Course content, the Discussion Board, the Media Library, and Web Links. I am using the Grade Book.

The course content has allowed me to post class syllabi, schedule, and take home exams for students to access and download. (One particularly nice feature of this application was that it linked automatically specific readings listed in uploaded MS WORD class schedule to items that I had placed (using the same titles) in the Media Library.)

The discussion board has been used for student to post graded weekly reports on news items they come across and student and professor responses to those items. I used to do this over Wesleyan email, but the advantage of WEBCT is that everyone in the class gets a chance to read each others’ items and to respond to those, facilitating discussion of current events outside the classroom.

The Media Library is a great way to assemble a collection of readings (either uploaded or scanned). And the Web Links provide a convenient way to give students access to relevant web links for research.

Finally, the grade book is very useful and easy to use and students can access their grades at any point in the semester.

In short, WEBCT is a great learning tool and I have been very grateful to have been given the opportunity, through the award of a new computer, to use it in my classes.