For the first time in my life, I had the opportunity to teach in a computer-equipped classroom in Camino 109. During Intersession, 1998, I taught an introductory logic course. This semester, I am teaching Phil. 121: Social Ethics in the same classroom. I wheel in a PC on a cart from the Camino media closet before class, plug it into four different places (power, internet, video, and sound), turn on the overhead projector mounted in the ceiling, turn on the amplifier, pull down the screen, and I’m ready to go.

This has been a very interesting experience for me, and I’ve discovered some of the limitations of computers in the classroom as well as their benefits. I’ve also discovered that their usefulness is directly proportional to the type of course I’m teaching. More on this as we proceed.

During Intersession, I taught my standard Phil. 1: Logic course. The computer-equipped classroom worked very well for this. I set up a small web site for the course with an on-line syllabus and schedule (http://ethics.sandiego.edu/logic/) and used this as my point of reference. At the beginning of each class, I would pull up the schedule on go to htat day’s assignments on the schedule. The first item of business was going over homework assignments, and I had links to the answers for each of the sets of homework assignments. I would simply click on the link, and the answer key would appear on the screen in far more legible form than I could produce with chalk on a board. After the homework, we would have a quiz. I would grade and record the quizzes as they were handed in (only 20 students), which allowed students to have as much time as they needed for the quiz. I handed them back after the last one was graded (usually resulting in no break for me and only a very short break for students who took longer on the quiz). I would pop up the answer key and go through the quiz with them. (If the students had had computers at their desks and if I had the time to set it up, I could have given them the quiz on line, but currently that is more work than it is worth.) After the break, I would present the new material. I began doing this in PowerPoint presentations, which are extraordinarily easy to prepare. After class, I would post that day’s PowerPoint presentation on the schedule so that students could click on it and either view it on-line on the Web or download it to their home computer and view it there. I also did some custom animations for some of the logic, but these were still primitive (an indication of my skill level) and difficult for students to play over the Web since they required a plug-in. I felt that overall I was able to give students a better course because of the computer-equipped classroom. The evaluations indicated that the students felt the same way. Only occasionally did I feel that the computer got in my way in the classroom.

This semester I am teaching an ethics course in the same classroom, and much to my surprise the experience has been a more mixed one. This came as a surprise because one of the main things I have been doing for the past two years is developing a World Wide Web site on ethics (http://ethics.sandiego.edu). This is home turf, as it were, and I expected it to be easier than logic. In fact, I do many of the same things in the ethics course that I did in the logic, with some important additions. I still use the web-based syllabus (http://ethics.sandiego.edu/socialethics/). There are no quizzes or answer keys, but the Web format has alllowed me to do some innovative things. At the beginning of each topic, I give the class a ten minute tour of Web-based resources on that topic. For example, when we began considering right-to-die issues, I could show them Oyez, Oyez, Oyez!, a site where they can hear the oral arguments before the Supreme Court on key cases; they can also read key decisions on-line. I was able to post for them John Stuart Mill’s speech in favor of capital punishment. They could visit sites that contained extensive survey research on American’s attitudes toward euthanasia. They could hear extraordinarily good interviews from Talk of the Nation with key figures in the right-to-die debate, including Timothy Quill, Ira Bylock, Margaret Battin, and others. They could even hear taped interviews with several people immediately prior to their suicides that were assisted by Dr. Kevorkian. I was able to provide them with links to case law, papal encyclicals, superb articles from periodicals such as the Atlantic Monthly and the Boston Review. In addition to all this, I was able to set up a discussion folder for each reading in the course, and students could then participate in an on-line discussion of the readers with other students in class and with students at other institutions. I also invited several authors of the articles we were reading to visit the discussion folder on their particular article, but so far I haven’t gotten any feedback from them. Ideally, I would like to draw them into a discussion of their work with my students.

I have also used PowerPoint presentations in this class and posted them on the Web for later use by the students, and it was at this point that I felt that sometimes the course was being driven by the computer rather than by me. I began to notice things that I had noticed in logic but which seemed to be only peripheral problems. The computer mediated my interactions with my students in several ways, some of them undesirable.

First, there were now two entities at the front of the room—me and my computer. This has been confusing in ethics in a way in which it was not in logic. The attention of the students shifts back between the screen and me—and they seem unsure which one to pay attention to. This has brought into focus for me something very important about the different ways in which classrooms are structured, depending on the nature of the material. In logic, the students and I are united in focussing on a third thing, namely, the particular topic or problem under consideration. In this context, it makes sense for all of us to be looking at the screen together. In ethics, on the other hand, we are essentially engaged in a conversation, and at that point it is appropriate for us to focus on one another. In this situation, the computer often gets in the way. The general rule, I suspect, should be: when the classroom interaction is a conversation, put the computer away. It will only get in the way.

Second, I began to feel locked into an agenda that was determined by the slides that I had prepared. Once again, this had not been a problem in logic, where the material to be covered was already laid out, step by step. However, in ethics I had always structured the class in such a way that I could respond to student questions and pursue issues they had brought up. (This was all the easier because, in a couple of classes, I had written the book we were using. Consequently, they already had, in clear and easily accessible format, much of the material I wanted to convey to them.) My experience with PowerPoint in this context was mixed. It solved the problem of legibility on the chalkboard, but I felt locked into my presentation. PowerPoint assisted the clarity of my presentation itself, but it curtailed my responsiveness to the students’ direct question and structured not only what I had to say, but also when I said it. In the PowerPoint presentation, the slides were ordered in a logical manner, but in the classroom I have often worked in the day’s material in response to questions.

Third, there is a subtle but important change that occurs to the space within which teaching occurs. It becomes noisier from the sound of the computer and projector. Often, the room has to be darker so that the projected image can be seen clearly by the students. The amount of information displayed also decreases, even though its legibility and orderliness increase. Previously, I was able to put information on the board and keep it there while I put additional information on other parts of the board. I would often have a couple panels of information on the board that remained throughout the class period, while other portions of the board changed several times as I moved through the material. Using PowerPoint slides, I find I am largely confined to whatever information fits on a single slide.

Some of these difficulties could be reduced, if not eliminated. The noise level on computers and projectors has been steadily decreasing in recent years. I could have an index of slides open and call up whatever is appropriate in response to student questions. But even this involves turning away from the students, looking down to the keyboard, selecting a slide, checking to see that it has come up correctly, and then turning back to the students. Not ideal, but tolerable. I could use handouts for the constant information I would like to have before them throughout the class and then use the projector for changing information.

Yet I must say that, even if I am able to minimize many of these issues, I still find myself with a very cautious attitude toward the use of computers in courses where there is an important focus on the interaction between the student and the professor and in courses where it is important to shape the course of that day’s lecture at least partially in response to student comments and questions. I feel that I am delivering a richer content to them in the classroom because it is computer equipped, and I feel that I will be able to do this with increasing effectiveness as both the technology and my level of skill increase. However, I am aware that in certain kinds of courses, we must be very careful that the computer does not force our classroom activity into narrow channels and impoverish the classroom interaction between students and professor. My own inclination in some types of courses is to use computer-assisted presentations at the beginning of the class period, but gradually to move away from them and toward a more open and flexible dialogue with the students as the class period progresses. At that point, I move increasingly to the old-fashioned chalkboard. We need to make sure that computers serve us, not vice versa.

For the first time in my life, I had the opportunity to teach in a computer-equipped classroom in Camino 109. During Intersession, 1998, I taught an introductory logic course. This semester, I am teaching Phil. 121: Social Ethics in the same classroom. I wheel in a PC on a cart from the Camino media closet before class, plug it into four different places (power, internet, video, and sound), turn on the overhead projector mounted in the ceiling, turn on the amplifier, pull down the screen, and I’m ready to go.

This has been a very interesting experience for me, and I’ve discovered some of the limitations of computers in the classroom as well as their benefits. I’ve also discovered that their usefulness is directly proportional to the type of course I’m teaching. More on this as we proceed.

During Intersession, I taught my standard Phil. 1: Logic course. The computer-equipped classroom worked very well for this. I set up a small web site for the course with an on-line syllabus and schedule (http://ethics.sandiego.edu/logic/) and used this as my point of reference. At the beginning of each class, I would pull up the schedule on go to htat day’s assignments on the schedule. The first item of business was going over homework assignments, and I had links to the answers for each of the sets of homework assignments. I would simply click on the link, and the answer key would appear on the screen in far more legible form than I could produce with chalk on a board. After the homework, we would have a quiz. I would grade and record the quizzes as they were handed in (only 20 students), which allowed students to have as much time as they needed for the quiz. I handed them back after the last one was graded (usually resulting in no break for me and only a very short break for students who took longer on the quiz). I would pop up the answer key and go through the quiz with them. (If the students had had computers at their desks and if I had the time to set it up, I could have given them the quiz on line, but currently that is more work than it is worth.) After the break, I would present the new material. I began doing this in PowerPoint presentations, which are extraordinarily easy to prepare. After class, I would post that day’s PowerPoint presentation on the schedule so that students could click on it and either view it on-line on the Web or download it to their home computer and view it there. I also did some custom animations for some of the logic, but these were still primitive (an indication of my skill level) and difficult for students to play over the Web since they required a plug-in. I felt that overall I was able to give students a better course because of the computer-equipped classroom. The evaluations indicated that the students felt the same way. Only occasionally did I feel that the computer got in my way in the classroom.

This semester I am teaching an ethics course in the same classroom, and much to my surprise the experience has been a more mixed one. This came as a surprise because one of the main things I have been doing for the past two years is developing a World Wide Web site on ethics (http://ethics.sandiego.edu). This is home turf, as it were, and I expected it to be easier than logic. In fact, I do many of the same things in the ethics course that I did in the logic, with some important additions. I still use the web-based syllabus (http://ethics.sandiego.edu/socialethics/). There are no quizzes or answer keys, but the Web format has alllowed me to do some innovative things. At the beginning of each topic, I give the class a ten minute tour of Web-based resources on that topic. For example, when we began considering right-to-die issues, I could show them Oyez, Oyez, Oyez!, a site where they can hear the oral arguments before the Supreme Court on key cases; they can also read key decisions on-line. I was able to post for them John Stuart Mill’s speech in favor of capital punishment. They could visit sites that contained extensive survey research on American’s attitudes toward euthanasia. They could hear extraordinarily good interviews from Talk of the Nation with key figures in the right-to-die debate, including Timothy Quill, Ira Bylock, Margaret Battin, and others. They could even hear taped interviews with several people immediately prior to their suicides that were assisted by Dr. Kevorkian. I was able to provide them with links to case law, papal encyclicals, superb articles from periodicals such as the Atlantic Monthly and the Boston Review. In addition to all this, I was able to set up a discussion folder for each reading in the course, and students could then participate in an on-line discussion of the readers with other students in class and with students at other institutions. I also invited several authors of the articles we were reading to visit the discussion folder on their particular article, but so far I haven’t gotten any feedback from them. Ideally, I would like to draw them into a discussion of their work with my students.

I have also used PowerPoint presentations in this class and posted them on the Web for later use by the students, and it was at this point that I felt that sometimes the course was being driven by the computer rather than by me. I began to notice things that I had noticed in logic but which seemed to be only peripheral problems. The computer mediated my interactions with my students in several ways, some of them undesirable.

First, there were now two entities at the front of the room—me and my computer. This has been confusing in ethics in a way in which it was not in logic. The attention of the students shifts back between the screen and me—and they seem unsure which one to pay attention to. This has brought into focus for me something very important about the different ways in which classrooms are structured, depending on the nature of the material. In logic, the students and I are united in focussing on a third thing, namely, the particular topic or problem under consideration. In this context, it makes sense for all of us to be looking at the screen together. In ethics, on the other hand, we are essentially engaged in a conversation, and at that point it is appropriate for us to focus on one another. In this situation, the computer often gets in the way. The general rule, I suspect, should be: when the classroom interaction is a conversation, put the computer away. It will only get in the way.

Second, I began to feel locked into an agenda that was determined by the slides that I had prepared. Once again, this had not been a problem in logic, where the material to be covered was already laid out, step by step. However, in ethics I had always structured the class in such a way that I could respond to student questions and pursue issues they had brought up. (This was all the easier because, in a couple of classes, I had written the book we were using. Consequently, they already had, in clear and easily accessible format, much of the material I wanted to convey to them.) My experience with PowerPoint in this context was mixed. It solved the problem of legibility on the chalkboard, but I felt locked into my presentation. PowerPoint assisted the clarity of my presentation itself, but it curtailed my responsiveness to the students’ direct question and structured not only what I had to say, but also when I said it. In the PowerPoint presentation, the slides were ordered in a logical manner, but in the classroom I have often worked in the day’s material in response to questions.

Third, there is a subtle but important change that occurs to the space within which teaching occurs. It becomes noisier from the sound of the computer and projector. Often, the room has to be darker so that the projected image can be seen clearly by the students. The amount of information displayed also decreases, even though its legibility and orderliness increase. Previously, I was able to put information on the board and keep it there while I put additional information on other parts of the board. I would often have a couple panels of information on the board that remained throughout the class period, while other portions of the board changed several times as I moved through the material. Using PowerPoint slides, I find I am largely confined to whatever information fits on a single slide.

Some of these difficulties could be reduced, if not eliminated. The noise level on computers and projectors has been steadily decreasing in recent years. I could have an index of slides open and call up whatever is appropriate in response to student questions. But even this involves turning away from the students, looking down to the keyboard, selecting a slide, checking to see that it has come up correctly, and then turning back to the students. Not ideal, but tolerable. I could use handouts for the constant information I would like to have before them throughout the class and then use the projector for changing information.

Yet I must say that, even if I am able to minimize many of these issues, I still find myself with a very cautious attitude toward the use of computers in courses where there is an important focus on the interaction between the student and the professor and in courses where it is important to shape the course of that day’s lecture at least partially in response to student comments and questions. I feel that I am delivering a richer content to them in the classroom because it is computer equipped, and I feel that I will be able to do this with increasing effectiveness as both the technology and my level of skill increase. However, I am aware that in certain kinds of courses, we must be very careful that the computer does not force our classroom activity into narrow channels and impoverish the classroom interaction between students and professor. My own inclination in some types of courses is to use computer-assisted presentations at the beginning of the class period, but gradually to move away from them and toward a more open and flexible dialogue with the students as the class period progresses. At that point, I move increasingly to the old-fashioned chalkboard. We need to make sure that computers serve us, not vice versa.