2000-01 New Technologies in Teaching Cover Form
Please fill out this form completely and attach it at the front of your application.
Submit twelve copies to the Center for Teaching Excellence, McHenry Library.

Section I:

Applicant: James Bierman

Rank or Title: Professor Department:Theater Arts Division:Arts

Campus Address: Theater Arts Center

E-mail Address: lope@cats.ucsc.edu

Campus Phone: —

Home Phone (optional):—

Section II:

Descriptive Title of Project: The Internet Hamlet

Total Support Requested (not to exceed $15,000): $13,357.36

Date for Completion of Project: Spring Quarter, 2002

Courses Affected (Title and Number): Theater Arts 163A

Number of Students Affected: 200 (calculated at 50 per quarter)

Does this application accompany a Course Development proposal?
Yes__X___ No______ (check one)
(When yes, be sure to complete the other application form and submit it with this one.)

Are there acquisitions to the University Library in this proposal?
Yes______ No__X___ (check one)

Applicant’s Signature: ____________________________Date______________
Chair’s Signature (Required): ________________________Date_____________
Dean’s Signature (Required): ________________________ Date___________
For COT and CTE Use Only: Submission Date:____________________________
NES Status:__________________________________
COT Action:____________________ Amount of Award: ____________________ Notes:___________________________________________________________

Section III:

Abstract: New Technologies in Teaching Proposal
Please summarize the key points of your full project description here.

The intent of this project is the creation of a complete internet course on William ShakespeareÕs Hamlet. The course is to be given from a web site which will offer media-rich “lectures” in the form of text, graphics, video clips and sounds, and interactive puzzles, games and quizzes. Students will also submit term papers which will be conventionally evaluated. The course will cover a variety of topics central to Hamlet such as the ethics of revenge, and the role of women in the play. Together, these topics will comprise a 400-year history of the major trends in our thinking about ShakespeareÕs play.

Since the creation of a course offered (almost) entirely over the internet represents a bold experiment, continual assessment during the first year of its offering will enable me to recognize problems that arise and to improve the course.

Section IV:

Budget Detail
Provide your detailed budget here.Attach additional documentation as necessary.

Details: (A more complete budget is attached)

Software $4,741.80
Hardware $4,248.95
Supplies $200.00
Total Materials (with tax & shipping) $10,569.36
Graduate Student Research Assistant $2,788.00
Total Support Requested: $____13,357.36______________________(Not to exceed $15,000)

Section V:

Full Project Description

Please attach your full project proposal behind the cover form. Detailed directions regarding what to include in your proposal can be found at http://catsic.ucsc.edu/CTE/onlinecover.html

Project Description- The Internet Hamlet
James Bierman, Professor of Theater Arts

1.) Nature of the Request: Material support and release time necessary to create a complete course on Shakespeare’s Hamlet which would be offered on an ongoing basis (almost) entirely over the internet. According to the officer of the Registrar, the course would be the first of its kind offered at UCSC. It would be composed of the following ingredients:

1. Weekly readings: Made available through the campus bookstore, the library, and readers.
2.Lectures: The “lectures” would deal with 10 issues which are important to Hamlet such as the ethics of revenge, or the role of women in the play. Together, they will comprise a 400-year history of the major trends in the way we have looked at Shakespeare’s play since its first presentation. These “lectures” will be designed to have the power of a good documentary film. The will be rich in media, including videos of comparative interpretations of given scenes and interviews with important artists, and oral readings of the texts as well as written text and illustrations (which will also be made available in printed form).
3. Quizzes: Weekly quizzes testing the students retention and understanding of the readings and lectures will be offered on line. The quizzes will be designed in such a way that incorrect answers will also be treated as a learning opportunity. They will be evaluated instantly upon electronic submission, and the program will be designed to urge students to review relevant aspects of the materials if they submit an incorrect or incomplete answers to given questions.
4. Puzzles: These are brain twisters designed to engage the students, increase their familiarity with Shakespeare’s text, and with the central concepts of various classical interpretations. There will be a set of puzzles with each week’s materials
5. Games: “Hamlet Chess” is a complex competitive game that students can play against each other. I imagine setting up a tournament in the class.
6. Essays: Students will write term papers which will be evaluated by readers engaged by the Theater Arts Department. (I will also review these essays with an eye toward evaluating the success of the program.)

2.) Background and Rationale: Until about a year ago, I have been skeptical about the much-vaunted capability of the internet in delivering effective academic instruction. I believed that the classroom interaction between a professor and a group of students and among the students themselves is an irreplaceable ingredient in effective instruction, and that teaching geared toward complex and subtle thinking could not be adequately simulated with computer software. More recently, I have come to feel that the internet could provide a place for a kind of instruction which would combine aspects of the old models of classroom teaching with new, untried and potentially persuasive ones. Although many people have talked about such an endeavor, I consider the actual realization of the idea to be a grand and important experiment. I also have a vision of the possibilities of digital instruction which could be quite different from classroom instruction and still enormously engaging. If successful, I envision my course on Hamlet as the first in an anthology of on-line courses on Shakespeare and classical theater.

In the fifteen years since I published my first academic courseware on Aristotle’s Poetics, both the hardware and the software tools for creating interactive multimedia projects have improved immensely. It is now possible to produce media-rich interactive materials for instruction with excellent video and sound inclusions as well as text and graphics. As the tools have improved, I have found myself using digital media in my courses to a greater and greater extent, and have created CD-ROMs, web sites, and interactive games and puzzles for my students as well as for professional publication. Producing a course to be conducted (almost) entirely on the internet, is however, a big step up from my previous work which was designed to be used in the context of a normal classroom course. It also has implications that could be revolutionary and far reaching.

This proposed project will have the joint sponsorship of the Theater Arts Department and of the Shakespeare/Santa Cruz festival and will satisfy the long-standing desire of the Arts Division to link the pedagogical arm of Shakespeare/Santa Cruz with the Theater Arts Department. Since the course will be offered every academic term, it could also have a considerable effect on the Theater Arts Department’s Large Course Initiative. It will also contribute to the Arts Division’s Digital Arts / New Media initiative by putting some of its research into action. In addition to the Theater Arts Dept. and Shakespeare/Santa Cruz, the Arts Division Computing Office and the CATS Instructional Computing office have also volunteered support for this project. In particular, the Arts Division Computing Office has offered to host the course on its video streaming server . thus providing us with a necessary fast internet connection. They will also make a digital camcorder available for our use.

3.) Impact on Teaching and Learning: An on-line course takes the emphasis off the processes of a large class offering (lectures, discussions, etc.) and puts the emphasis on the individual student. Once registered for the course, students will be able to complete the work of the course at their own pace and according to their own schedule. I feel that it is possible to convey the reasons for my enthusiasm for the material without being physically present through something equivalent to a highly articulated and polished documentary film. It is also possible to create an engaging dialectic process through the juxtaposition of diverse materials and through the use of puzzles, games and quizzes which demand student responses. In effect, I expect to combine the presentational quality of the World Wide Web (lectures) with the interactive abilities of the computer itself (discussions). For the most part, the interactive aspects are missing on the web because they demand a significant amount of coding which is both time consuming and arduous. Interaction would be important in the Hamlet course, because it provides us with a direct opportunity to engage students. In this regard, the class will serve as a laboratory for devising effective strategies for involvement.

Since this project constitutes a unique experiment, there will be considerable emphasis on assessing the results. The assessment will take the following forms.

1. Students will be given the standard evaluation forms on line (with only moderate alterations to accommodate the mechanics of the class). Since the evaluations will be included in the course materials, I expect that the return rate will be 100%.
2. We will pay particular attention to the students’ tests and term papers to assure that they are learning the materials and engaging with them thoughtfully and imaginatively.
3. For the first year (or more) of the course, I will meet with the students to discuss their reactions to the course. I will solicit their criticisms of the course and also their suggestions for improving it. In this regard, they will become collaborators in the creation of the course. These meetings will continue until I feel that the course works well on its own.

4. Plan for Continued Funding: Once the course is fully “debugged” it will be offered to students from every UC campus each academic term (including summer) by the Theater Arts Department with the joint sponsorship of Shakespeare/Santa Cruz. If the venture proves to be successful, we would like to create similar courses each year reflecting the offerings of the current Shakespeare/Santa Cruz season. We would also like to invite in “guest lecturers” Shakespeare scholars from UCSC and other institutions who would design units of future courses, while we provide the technical skills and experience to make their vision a reality. In this regard, the program would (in the future) act like the “Author” program created at Stanford University fifteen years ago, except that the material would be limited to the study of Shakespeare’s plays and classical drama.

In addition to seeking both a New Technologies in Teaching Grants and a Course Development Fellowship, I will be seeking support from the Academic Senate Committee on Research and the Arts Division Committee on Research and from the Digital Arts / New Media FRA on the UCSC campus. When, after the first year, the program is open to the entire UC system, I will also seek funding from the UC Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology through their Collaborative Grant program and from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Additional Materials: A rough mock-up illustrating the type of issues under consideration for this project and showing some of the puzzles can be found at http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/bierman/elsinore.

5.) Detailed Budget

Software
(prices from Micro Warehouse, Creation Engine, LLC -academic discounts -, and Apple Computer Co. where applicable)

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