Mike Palmquist

Relating communication training to workplace requirements: the perspective of new engineers

Extended interviews with recent engineering hires by a major electronics manufacturing firm reveal substantial differences in communication training among engineering programs. Despite differences in educational background and current position, however, these engineers identify the same set of key communication skills that they believe should be developed in undergraduate electrical engineering programs. These skills, which relate to the ability to communicate well in face-to-face and small group settings, to use electronic mail effectively, and to identify audiences and address them appropriately, can be taught without adding courses to the engineering curriculum, provided course content and evaluation of student work emphasize the importance of these skills. >

Network Support for Writing Across the Curriculum: Developing an Online Writing Center

Recent advances in computer and computer-network technologies make it possible to consider an alternative to the indirect, top-down pedagogy used in most writing-across-the-curriculum (WAC) programs (e.g., a pedagogy that views faculty as the primary audience for WAC-related training). Drawing on the results of a 4-year effort to establish a campus-wide, computer-supported writing environment, we suggest that computer networks and specifically designed instructional software (e.g., multimedia instructional materials and interactive writing exercises) can provide the basis for a network-supported, writing-center-based WAC program. Our discussion focuses on development of network communication tools and hypermedia courseware to support WAC.

Rethinking Instructional Metaphors for Web-Based Writing Environments

Since the early 1980s, writing theorists and instructional designers have envisioned digital “writing environments” that would support writing processes. This work has informed the development of word-processing tools now used routinely by writers. Conspicuously missing from the design of these environments, however — at least from a teacher’s perspective — is attention to instruction. Their designers seem to have assumed that writers would bring sufficient knowledge and experience to the composing process to write their documents. In this essay, I argue that an ideal writing environment would provide student writers with immediate access during composing to relevant instructional materials and feedback tools. I review the design of earlier digital writing environments, develop a theoretical framework that supports the integration of instruction into writing environments, describe Colorado State University’s Web-based instructional writing environment, discuss current and planned research on the environment, and consider implications for future development of such environments.

Enhancing electrical engineering students' communication skills-the baseline findings

In 1993, we initiated a five-year project to enhance the communication skills of electrical engineering students. For our 1994 presentation, we report selected findings of our initial surveys of electrical engineering students, and then we highlight the communication activities of recent graduates. Finally, we briefly describe the process that we will use in developing the products-hypertext applications, tutorials, and online help-for the Online Writing Center.<<ETX>>

Students as WWW surfers-a brief look at students and the WWW

More and more academic administrators are encouraging faculty to put their courses on the World Wide Web (WWW), and yet few studies have explored students access to and uses of the WWW. We report on selected data from a 1996 survey study of student use of the WWW and selected data from an assessment of student use of WWW based multimedia. In 1996, only 10% of the 544 students studied reported having 28800 baud or faster modems and in the 1997 study only 31% of the 250 students reported having 28800 baud or faster modems. Ninety-two percent of the students who owned a computer (n=147) used it to access the WWW compared to 72% of the 1996 students who owned a computer (n=128). Personal uses followed by academic uses were the leading uses of the WWW.

Adapting to The Classroom Setting: New Research on Teachers Moving Between Traditional And Computer Classrooms

Following a brief review of key results from an earlier study of teachers who taught the same course in both a computer classroom and a traditional classroom, we discuss the results of a follow-up study of teachers who continue to move between these instructional settings and consider how our results have led us to reshape our teaching-training program. We argue that teacher training should be seen as a critical element shaping the complex interplay among teachers‘ knowledge, experiences, and perceptions as they move among classroom settings.