>From farishg Wed May 15 12:26:20 0600 1996 remote from cc4.adams.edu
Date: Wed, 15 May 1996 12:26:20 -0600 (MDT)
From: Guy Farish <farishg at cc4.adams.edu>
To: plant-ed at net.bio.net
Subject: Seminar
Message-ID: <Pine.SV4.3.91.960515121718.10951C-100000 at cc4.adams.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: from cc4.adams.edu by cc4.adams.edu; Wed, 15 May 1996 12:26 MDT
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Length: 1309
David,
I just finished my second time at teaching such a seminar course. Most
of my students did not use the web extensively, but a couple of them
did. One was a very good student who used it to find information on his
topic, and also used a variety of more traditional sources (some of which
he may have found through the web). Another student, not nearly as
strong academically, got all of her information from web pages. I warned
her midway through the semester that she needed to use the library as
well, but apparently that was too much like work, and she didn't do it.
While she found a lot of valuable information, much of it lacked depth or
rigor commonly found in refereed journals.
I think that is the greatest danger of this type of research. It seems
like playing, and thus might be more fun. But I think students are wowed
by the graphics and slick presentation, and don't get at the content that
they need. It's also hard to cite, and for those without web access it's
hard to get to the same information to follow up.
Just some thoughts based on my experience. If it can be used in
conjunction with other resources, I think it's great, but some pitfalls
exist.
Guy Farish
Biology Department
Adams State College
Alamosa, CO 81102
(719) 589-7969 FAX (719) 589-7242
