This page presents information related to the first class session of J. B. Owens's fall 2002
upper-division undergraduate and graduate course, History 360/560, The Spanish
Empire. This course is part of the core curriculum in comparative and world history of the
Department of History, Idaho State University. The sole purpose of this page is to provide an
orientation to the reading assignments and class session for those students enrolled in History
360/560. See the source page for the complete Dublin Core standard metadata.
You may return to the course
main page or to the reading assignments and lecture
topics page.
Course Introduction: Access, Interaction, Collaboration
In this course I make heavy use of computer-mediated teaching and learning because the
processes involved make "The Spanish Empire" a much more effective vehicle for realizing the
Department of History's objectives
for student intellectual growth within a major program stressing comparative and world history.
Computer-mediated communications enable greater student access, interaction, and
collaboration.
Only a few years ago, if a student were assigned to write a paper on a subject, he or she went
to the library to discover the limited resources available there and shaped the project
accordingly. Now ACCESS to information and people has so expanded and the sources of
information are so interlinked that students can deal with a wider range of problems and really
experience the active, nonlinear, extended thought so characteristic of serious intellectual
work. However, to take advantage of information availability, students need an
INFORMATION SEARCH DESIGN. They must learn to ask questions with sufficient precision
to reveal what information they need and to evaluate the quality of the information they obtain.
Computer-mediated communications also permit greatly amplified asynchronous and real-time
INTERACTION, and "The Spanish Empire" is designed to enhance these possibilities.
Although not as well developed as the other possibilities, computer-mediated education
provides much greater opportunities for COLLABORATION, and at Idaho State University,
there is a tremendous need for common, collaborative ACADEMIC experiences to provide a
necessary basis for life-long learning.
All contents copyright © 1995-2002.
J. B. Owens
All rights reserved.
Revised: 31 August 2002
URL: http://www.isu.edu/~owenjack/spemp/readver5.01.html