The proposed project focuses on disseminating information to the members of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) on newly developed multimedia courseware for teaching undergraduates various key aspects of social scientific research in anthropology. The session will feature the on-screen presentation of imaginative, visually engaging, and classroom tested applications of Internet, WEB, and CD-ROM based materials and computer facilitated approaches to the teaching of anthropology.
The materials include interactive multimedia packaged information on (1) ethnographic field research methods; (2) laboratory analysis of human physical diversity in physical anthropology, (3) an analysis of mummified and material culture remains and cultural organization in archaeology; (4) an analysis of ethno-palentological and material culture remains at a specif research project in Africa (Olduvial Gorge); and (5) fireld and laboratory archaeology that focuses on teaching archaeology undergraduates to acquire digital field data, transfer it to the computer, and then manipulate the data to carry out various kinds of analysis in a cummer field school setting.
The materials presented emphasize the learning and/or evaluation of social scientific research methods vby actural "hands-on" applications using computing facilitated instruction.
The five learning packages and teaching approaches mentioned above will be demonstrated at a four hour invited session of the annual national meetings of the AAA in Philadelphia on Decembe 1-6, 1998. The session is titled "Anthropology Courseware: Teaching with Electronic Media." The PI is the organizer of the session.
The PI expects that the session will reach as many as 150 anthropologists in the session audience and through them the session will reach a considerable number more. The dissemination of information on courseware in anthropology is needed because there is little awareness, discussion or knowledge at a given moment about the applications of new media and electronic communications in undergraduate education within the profession. Because of this, undergraduates in anthropology are currently not benefiting from interactive multimedia instruction.
