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Web-enhanced Courses
Definition Web Enhanced Course
Web Enhanced Courses are classes that meet regularly but have a required web component. Web Enhanced courses are the same as traditional classes in the terms of academic quality, credit hours, transferability, and cost. Students may access additional classroom content via the web and email. If you have never had a web-enhanced course before (or an on-line course) you may want to read this article from the Monitor (McAllen), and maybe this one.
A Web Enhanced Course is not an Online course, and also not a Hybrid course, and has a substancial amount of classroom meetings -- often as labs in a General Biology course.
Compared to high school, for many students, college class assignments require a new and different level of responsibility and obligation to their education. In college you are responsible for your own learning, -- it is no longer enough to just be within the four walls of the classroom -- you must learn new things, and you must show your instructor that you have learned!
College is a demanding time, and at times it can become rather overwhelming. However, there are many methods to ease the load. Several aspects of this course are on-line. I have designed a web site called Dr. Nilsson's CyberOffice and "web-enhanced" the course using
to assist and facilitate your learning. I hope you will visit the CyberOffice often, because I believe it will help you succeed in the class.
The number of web-enhanced courses on the Internet is increasing. Web-enhanced courses offer instructions partially on the Internet and partially in the classroom (California State University web-based course information). Web-enhanced courses vary in online activities depending on the instructor and course requirements. In a web-enhanced course you meet like a traditional class with an instructor in a classroom, but will part of the time be able to actively participate in class from home, work, and the nearest campus computer lab, e.g., access course material, receive some instruction, do and submit some assignments, participate in discussions, and ask questions of the instructor, and other students, via e-mail, bulletin boards, and chat-rooms (Monroe Community College web-enhanced course information page).
For more information on web-enhanced courses click on the links. Note the comment on College of DuPage's web-enhanced instruction page about the biology instructor who never again had "to hear the anguished cry, 'But I lost my syllabus!' Any syllabus changes can be communicated in class, but made online so that every student has the latest version". If you are a student in one of my classes you know by now that the syllabus is online...
Monroe Community College web-enhanced course information page
Several aspects of the course can be found on Dr. Nilsson's CyberOffice: You do NOT need a password to access the CyberOffice. .
Other aspects of the course can be found on STC Blackboard: All students at STC have a user ID and a password to access the Blackboard server. I encourage you to use Blackboard for class communication, and if you need to contact me between classes, Blackboard is the safest and most convenient way to reach me. For class discussions the Blackboard Bulletin Board is used for reading comments, class discussions and critical thinking activities that allow interchanging of views -- called Internet Activities, because it is designed to include the use of resources on the Internet.
Your General Biology Professor
