The following appeared in Volume 98, Number 1 (Fall, 1998) of the APA Newsletters

I have been experimenting with using Internet technology in my classes for the last three years. Most recently, I have authored a large web site for each class. This report describes my efforts for the Fall 1998 semester, which are designed to provide my students with a number of useful online tools and resources and—ideally—to extend the classroom community in time and in (cyber)space.

This page contains the class mission statement, late-breaking news for class members, and links to the other parts of the course web site, including the online syllabus, handouts, class and lecture notes, and the class discussion forum. At the very top of the page are links for students to "jump to this week on the syllabus" and to "jump to this week’s notes." I include the class home page’s url in my printed syllabi and in other information about the course that is made available to students before they register for classes.

This page begins with a list of the course’s required and optional books. I include links to the online bookstore Amazon.Com, which sometimes beats the college bookstore’s prices and is convenient if students want to order books early or if they want to purchase some of the books late in the semester, when the bookstore will have returned unsold copies to their distributor.1 (I earn a small commission for each book sold, a fact that I disclose on the website. Any money I earn goes into the class party fund.)

To complement the book list, I provide the students with two resources for learning more about other relevant texts. This page contains a box for searching Amazon.com’s massive database and contains links to the appropriate section of Course Materials in Philosophy, a collection of online syllabi and other course materials that I edit.¹

The online version of the syllabus can be easily changed if necessary, and I have added links to my reading notes for each week’s reading assignment. I encourage students to review these notes, which I try to write at least one week in advance.

This page contains links to all the handouts I distribute during the semester. If students have lost track of printed handouts, they can read them online or print out a new copy. To help prospective students decide whether they should take the class, I post well in advance handouts on reading and writing philosophy, the course policies, as well as instructions for the writing assignments and a list of performance criteria.

This page contains my notes on each reading assignment. As the term progresses, I also include links to students’ written reflections on the assignments and their summaries of class discussions. Studying these notes motivates students to think longer and more deeply, and the notes can be extremely helpful to students who have been absent from class or who have fallen behind and feel lost. The notes are intended to elicit online discussion: the links on this page point to specific messages in the online discussion forum, which makes it easy for students to publish their own responses.

The online discussion forum is the heart of the class web site. Here is where students can continue class discussions, raise new questions, help each other with the reading and the writing assignments, post ongoing evaluations of the course, and suggest syllabus changes or other suggestions for improving the course. The discussion forum is also useful for the members of the class to get to know each other better—threads on typical first-day-of-class questions ("Why are you interested in philosophy?" "What are your favorite books/novels/courses?") work well to promote a sense of class community.

Both I and my students agree that the discussion forum adds a lot to the course. I notice that students often engage in deep reflections and work cooperatively online. Often students who are shy or unsure in class use the online forum to develop their opinions. Student comments about the forum have been highly favorable, although some who live off campus have found it difficult to visit the college’s computer labs frequently enough.

Discussion forum messages can include web links and pictures, which is convenient for publishing Internet research. When I taught Simone de Beauvoir last year, a student posted a message containing pictures of her and links to an online bibliography that she had discovered on the web.

The discussion forum uses the inexpensive shareware package WebBBS, which is distributed via the world wide web.² The software is easy to use, although unix novices may need technical assistance installing it. To use the software, your web account must support the PERL language and cgi scripts.

I encourage my students to use the Internet to gain new perspectives on the issues we discuss in class. This page contains a selection of links to relevant web sites, including bibliographies and other instructors’ syllabi. I also make extensive use of searches using the Hippias peer-reviewed search engine, which allows students to search only philosophically-significant sites on the web.³ I include an open search box as well as links that run specific searches for the main figures and ideas of the course. Most students enjoy surfing the web, and many are willing to spend extra time to using the web to study philosophy.⁴

I provide students with a wide range of options for contacting me. On this page I provide them with my phone numbers, directions to my office, and several ways to contact my electronically. I use ICQ instant messaging software, which makes it easy for students to send me messages that "pop-up" on my screen instantly or to request an online chat with me.⁵ The ICQ status panel on this page shows students if I am online and allows them to send me instant messages even if they do not use the ICQ software themselves. I have also included a web form where students can send me e-mail even if they have no e-mail client. In the past, I have experimented with IP voice telephony, but I have found that this technology performs erratically on the hardware available to me and my students. This semester I will experiment with a java-based chat room, which I hope will allow me to have a productive "virtual office hour" each week.6

Early in the term, I refer my students to this page, which is part of my personal web site. Here they find external links to guides for students, to handouts on writing, reading, and discussing philosophy, and to some web guides and subject bibliographies. My "Web Bookstore for Students of Philosophy" contains links for purchasing a variety of writing and study guides. I also include information about my teaching interests and teaching philosophy, which helps my class get to know me and can be useful to prospective students.

Visitors are welcome to my class web sites, and I welcome suggestions and reports of other instructors’ experiences. My course web pages for Fall 1998 are:

Critical Thinking:
http://antioch-college.edu/~andrewc/phil206/

Epistemology:
http://antioch-college.edu/~andrewc/phil217/

Environmental Philosophy:
http://antioch-college.edu/~andrewc/phil260/

1. See Amazon.Com’s website at http://www.amazon.com.

2. See the WebBBS homepage at http://awsd.com/scripts/webbbs/.

3. For the Hippias project, see http://hippias.evansville.edu/.

4. Of course, not all students are interested in pursuing deep philosophical reflection all the time. Each of my class web sites includes a collection of "fun links" to sites that are entertaining and have some intellectual interest: articles about philosophy and philosophers, links to online art exhibits, brainteasers, logic puzzles, and word games.

5. The chat room software I use is advertiser-supported freeware. It can be downloaded at http://www.paralogic.com/