I hope I'm not too late to the party, my mail acted up and... well you've all heard those tales I'm sure. I was first struck by Greg Smith of Georgia State <[log in to unmask]> who asked, >Is this simply a transitional moment when students still are trying to treat electronic texts more >like paper ones, or is there a more lasting need which is more difficult to achieve with electronic >texts? I've just left a position with a big University where I aided professors into the new age by helping them understand the delivery of lectures, notes, interactive labs, media, and other doo-dads over this new fangled thing called the web. The most brilliant of my cohorts began a practice of putting all his lecture notes in a pile of stapled hand-outs by the door of his classes and letting the students focus entirely on the presentation without fear they would have to make extensive notes. Although everything on the page was available from his class web site logs of visitors reported very few ever took enough time on the pages to actually read it off the screens. Peter Warren's suggestion seemed immediately appropriate. >Why don't you print out your computer screens and provide your students with >paper copies, if that's what they want? You may receive faster feedback, too. Feedback indeed. Those who will take the time to "preview the lecture" from a website usually respond and participate because that's just the kinds of students they are. Then Leo Enticknap wrote, >But all this does point to the main disadvantage of multimedia compared to >conventional books - you need machines to read any of it. This point was made to me hundreds of times and it's very true. Of course, some in the History and Classics department quickly remind others how limited access to books had been at the early part of this century. None-the-less this problem will require a solution. Our University experimented with mandating laptop computers be given to first-year Engineering students to be used for the duration of their stay. Pharmacy and Pharmacology also looked into doing this. Pharmacists are a very wired lot. >Others with far more expertise than my own feeble experiments can (I >hope) comment on how far-fetched my thinking is! Don Larsson's experiments have probably shown him much of what my Professors experienced. Much hard work in the first couple of years and then smooth sailing as they adjusted their practice of teaching to fit the media they were using. And then there are always those for whom portability is the big issue. >Have any of you looked into using an e-book, such as the Rocket e-book? I'm not a big believer in hardware solving what I consider to be human software problems. Much of what is said about books as a tactile encoding and a physical interaction with learning is easily proven. The "colouring" habit of current students to "chunk" their highlights is just a recent mechanism which is adapted from margin notes and lecture notes. There are some students for whom, whatever the reason, these technologies are suited. The E-Journal revolution will not really take hold until these young people get tenure. I've watched a wide range of students engage their "electronic delivery options" in a variety of ways. From copying long-hand from the screen, to printing an entire year's thread from a discussion group. The best know how to grab the parts which have meaning and to thread them together into their own knowledge construction processes. The ability to "clip" and paste from the web is very "enabling" and those who learn to use it do very well. In the area of distance delivery we always encountered the limited capacity of the wire and the antique nature of early computer installations. It was far easier to ship them CD-ROMs and let them share the contents in advance. As well, if I'm permitted this last observation, with one professor delivering daily electronic lecture to groups of students in various video-supported classrooms the only way to show them the subtle colour and fine lines of the nervous system he arranged for delivery of a CD-ROM of his video clips before the lessons and let the students have time to review them on their own after the class was over. Even fibre-optic cable did not deliver the image quality he needed. I think a peer reviewed electronic version is about the only thing worth including in Screen-L's discussions. Considering the capability of future DVD-ROM and high-speed cable connections we might soon be arguing about whether Don Larsson chose the best clip from his "electronic review" of Armaggedon or if Jeremy Butler's recent CD-ROM retrospective on Kubrick included the right storyboards from The Shining. I look forward to seeing people refer others to the McLuhan CD-ROM or the DVD Video version of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Dave Trautman Media Specialist ...formerly with the University of Alberta In the electric age we wear all mankind as our skin." ‹ Marshall McLuhan