Web-Related Exercise 1

E-mail your answers to Questions 1 through 5 to Jeanne.

All five questions are based on the Burbules and Callister article. You are expected to help each other, both in accessing the paper and in finding the answers. But you are expected to e-mail your own answer. HELP, I'M LOST!! Click on HELP for help.

1. Burbules and Callister discuss several ways that higher education has misunderstood high tech. The first of these is:

   1. That high tech can't be relied on to work well - machines are often broken.
   2. Poor schools often have less access to the needed equipment.
   3. People tend to expect that high tech is the answer to all our educational problems.
   4. High tech is really just a marketing ploy.
   5. None of the above.

2. Burbules and Callister call the second misunderstanding of high tech the "computer as tool" perspective. By that they mean:

   1. That people have "too much faith in the technology itself."
   2. That the computer is a neutral tool.
   3. That people, not the computer, are the problem.
   4. That new technologies bring unintended problems along with the intended solutions.
   5. That it is a sign of progress that students no longer need to know math to do statistics.

3. Burbules and Callister speak of a post-technocratic approach to high tech. What do they mean by that?

   1. That in just the way that the head of the coin goes with the tail, "bad" outcomes from high tech will go with the "good" outcomes.
   2. That there are in fact discoverable answers to the use of high tech.
   3. That we must weigh the cost of the "good" effects against the "bad" effects.
   4. That people like Foucault are wrong to be afraid of high tech.
   5. That good measurement of indeterminate consequences will solve the dilemma of high tech.

4. Define in 15 words or less "panacea."

5. Define in 15 words or less "excoriate."

E-mail your answer to Jeanne.
HELP, I'M LOST
BACK to Statistics Site Home Page.

Web Exercise 2 - Search Engines

• The Activity

  LINK to Search Activity. Then look for the links to bring you back to the exercise. Remember that you could use a bookmark for this page so you can get back, if you're lost, or use the Netscape BACK button to return to this exercise page. Navigate safely. HELP, I'm Lost. Click on HELP for help.

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• The Exercise

  1. How many categories did you find on this initial search?
  2. How many sites did you find on this initial search?
  3. What would you have to do to answer a question like: "Name one of the sites the search found? (Trust me, you can't do this without going further." What's the next step?

  Clue: Scroll to the bottom of the first search page and you will see NEXT 20 SEARCHES. Click there, and then see what happens. Play a little. Remember that you can always use the browser's BACK button to get back to previous screens. And FORWARD to go forward to screens you've already visited. E-mail your answers to questions 1 through 3 to Jeanne.

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  HELP, I'M LOST
  BACK to Statistics Site Home Page.
  

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  Web-Related Exercise 3

  • The Activity - Searching Publisher's Information on Books

    LINK to activity: the search example itself. Then look for the links to bring you back to the exercise. Remember that you could use a bookmark for this page so you can get back, if you're lost, or use the Netscape BACK button to return to this exercise page. Navigate safely.

  • The Exercise

    1. Did you try to go directly to the publisher's information on the book?

    2. Did you type in the author's name and do the search?

    3. Did you have to go through the list of titles or did you get directly to the information after your initial search?

    4. Explain in 25 words or less how these searches illustrate Burbules and Calister's "Risky Promises." HELP, I'M LOST. I don't remember "Risky Promises."

    5. And now for some sleuthing. Now in 25 words or less tell me who the author is? "Just the facts," please. It is good to be laconic.

    6. Then just for fun, define "laconic" in 25 words or less.

  Now, isn't this fun?

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  Web-Related Exercise 4

  • The Activity - Evaluating Web Sites

    LINK to activity: Web sites to evaluate. Then look for the links to bring you back to the exercise. Remember that you could use a bookmark for this page so you can get back, if you're lost, or use the Netscape BACK button to return to this exercise page. Navigate safely.

  • The Exercise

    1. Textbooks as sources of classroom information may create less stress than the Web as source because:

       1. You can readily find the textbook.
       2. You don't need to consider so much information when texts are assigned.
       3. You can rest assured that the instructor will accept the information in the text as valid.
       4. You can be sure the information in the text is valid.
       5. All of the above.

    2. In what year was the Hatcher on Critical Thinking and Formal Logic article written?

    3. The date of the Hatcher article:

       1. Warns us that we must consider what has been written or discovered on this issue in the last ten years.
       2. Tells us the article is worthless because its reasoning is outdated..
       3. Is irrelevant.
       4. Tells us that Hatcher has probably retired, and is thus not current on this issue.
       5. Reminds us that textbooks are a safer source of knowledge because they are kept up to date.

    4. Do the URLs to which we provided links give you enough information on Hatcher to establish his academic or scholarly authority?

       1. Yes. He is the Director of a Center for Critical Thinking.
       2. No. His credentials, as given on the linked site, are old and not clearly established.
       3. No. He does not have a Ph.D.
       4. Yes. Hatcher uses appropriate academic style and makes sophisticated scholarly arguments.
       5. No. There should be an active link to Baker University.

    5. Would the Christopher Newport University links we gave to the Hatcher article on critical thinking be adequate to complete an academic assignment on Web site evaluation such as Dr. Nelson provides? Lost the site to Dr. Nelson's assinment? That's understandable. LINK to Dr. Nelson's Web assignment.

       1. No, even though the quality of the arguments would fit an academic assignment.
       2. No, The two links given do not comprise a site, as Dr. Nelson describes it.
       3. No, because we cannot ascertain Hatcher's credentials from these links. .
       4. No, even though this is an academic, not a commercial site. <;i>No, for all of the above reasons.

Web-Related Exercise 5

Web Sources for Statistics

• The Activity - Turning Web Sites into Sources

  LINK to activity: Web sites as sources. Then look for the links to bring you back to the exercise. Remember that you could use a bookmark for this page so you can get back, if you're lost, or use the Netscape BACK button to return to this exercise page. Navigate safely.

• The Exercise

  Now let's turn the World War II posters into a statistical exercise. What can we count?

  • Number of women and men portrayed? Gender?
  • Types of persuasion
    • Appeal to duty, responsibility
    • Appeal to fear
    • Appeal to talent, bravery, hard work
    • Appeal to future happiness
    • Other

    Go to the National Archives Posters of World War II Exhibit and count. This is a good example of unobtrusive data. These are the kind of data that are everywhere, all around you. Learn to see simple counting as effective data. Learn how impressive counting can be.

    Do a frequency distribution of the appeals you can see in these posters. Then offer an interpretation of what you found. Then, for a conclusion, suggest whether these are appeals that would work today, what might be different, how the government might capitalize on those differences.

    Jeanne your interpretation and your conclusions in less than 100 words.

    E-mail Jeanne at: jcurran@csudh.edu
    HELP, I'M LOST
    BACK to Statistics Site Home Page.

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