Developing online educational materials for "computer applications" undergraduate courses

Midstate College and Bradley University (both in Peoria, IL, USA) are involved into two National Science Foundation (NSF) projects on Advanced Technological Education (project # DUE-9950029) and Online Undergraduate Education in Information Technology (IT) Area (project # DUE-0196015). The overall goal of both projects is accelerating the rate of production of highly skilled IT technicians and technologists. The methods to be employed to reach this goal include but are not limited to: (1) active re-education of teachers of high schools and faculty of 2-year/community colleges in IT area through multiple faculty development workshops on: (a) information systems and services; (b) networking systems; (c) programming and software development; and (d) interactive multimedia systems; and (2) design, development and active use of innovative online educational materials (OEM) that can be delivered into the workplace and home at any time. Web-based teaching and learning technologies will be based on "active learning" paradigm of education and Web-based instructional tool of the 3rd generation-the INTERLABS Web-lecturing tool