English 168.7

FT 98

Papers #7 and #8

Paper #7 (5 pp., in electronic [.rtf] and hardcopy form) will be due Tuesday, December 1 in class. It should come back to you Thursday, Dec. 3. Please take note of the plans for Paper #8 (below).


For Paper #7 your texts are:

Reach and support a conclusion about the impact that wide adoption of the Murphy model would have on higher education, using your own experience and expectations as a college student as the basis for judgment. What would your educational experience to date be like if, instead of being organized around "The Carnegie Model" discussed by Murphy, it were delivered to you as "Virtual Time Computer-Mediated Distance Learning" as Murphy describes it?

1. In other words, what would your educational experience - the one you're in the middle of now and the one you contemplate for your later years in college - be like if delivered CHIEFLY through online media? Would it change a little or a lot? What advantages and what disadvantages would the new model bring? For what subjects is computer-mediated learning particularly well- or particularly ill-suited? What policies would you recommend to guide a university like Cornell as it picks its way into this rather disorienting future?

2. Murphy, of course, is talking about "distance" instruction to be offered to off-site students and not directly about on-site instruction on college campuses. But you can tell that he thinks his instructional model a strong competitor for the latter purpose as well. And Noble's article makes it clear that comparable online schemes have made great headway at US and Canadian universities. Indeed, some are afoot even at Cornell. (Noble certainly gives you an opening for stating your views when he reports "Student Reactions" late in his article; regardless of your thinking about this complex issue - and I suspect that your judgment may be complex and mixed - there's a natural springboard here.) You should feel free to discuss any experience you have of computer-mediated learning as well as real-time, face-to-fact courses you are taking, including this one.

3. Yet another reminder: in this as in other essays, be sure you make specific reference to all your sources of information, ideas, and words, online or print-based. The assignment for Essay #1 gives a model for listing an online source in a Works Cited list; much more information is available online in Diana Hacker's (yes, that's her name) Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age at http://www.bedfordbooks.com/rd/index.html.


Paper #8

This will be a revision of your #5, #6, or #7 (your choice), due Friday, Dec. 11. Please remember the guidelines given for revision in the assignment for Paper #4, online at http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/Courses/engl168.7/168FT98asst4.html . (If you get #7 in on time, you can expect to get it back at the next course meeting.)

Do not hesitate to schedule a final conference with me in the weeks of Nov. 30 or Dec. 7 to review your work so far or to plan the final paper.

For now, thanks for your cooperation and fine work in a somewhat experimental course in a rather turbulent semester.

sd


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