Date: August 2, 2001

Presenter: David Brooks

Affiliation: UNL - Center for Curriculum and Instruction

This meeting was David Brooks, Ph.D., woh discussed challenging issues in technology as we all strive to keep current with the accelerated changes of information. Dr. Brooks presented research findings and considerations for automatic, repeatable, online testing.

The online testing formats can be used with web delivery of education or training materials. There are very practical applications for this research with many Omaha-based firms that need training aimed at developing high skill levels in their workforce. This method works where the material is not very dynamic, where the skills levels must be high, and where the company can recover development costs. When those trained are widely distributed and must be brought together for training to occur, this method is very competitive with conventional training.

Dr. Brooks teaches graduate courses in technology at UNL in the Center for Curriculum and Instruction. The current research project involves teaching Web-based courses for high school chemistry teachers. There are about 140 teachers in 12 different courses, and a total of nearly 250 enrollments. The teachers are from from all over the US. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation (ESI-9819377).