The syllabi that are linked to this "Welcome Page" are not the kind of full syllabi that college and university instructors usually create for their students. They are primarily daily assignment sheets posted so that students enrolled in my sections of American Civilization History and their parents will have access to information about assignments twenty-fours a day, seven days a week. Students also receive a printed version of the assignment sheet at the beginning of each quarter. Thus, students have no excuse for not knowing what specific assignment is due each day.

These syllabi are, of course, works in progress. I designed them as an outgrowth of my participation in the New Media Classroom project, and I continue to add new features as my experience with teaching with new media increases. At present, there are only a few active links to other Web sites, reference pages or assignments for my class. Several reference pages are accessible only from my general "Student/Faculty Projects" page (www.digitalhistory.com/schools/PembrokeHillSchool/sfproj).

For high school teachers, one of the greatest obstacles to posting a syllabus or assignment sheet on the World Wide Web is obtaining space on a server. I would have had to wait for more than a year and would have been subject to severe limitations of space had I not participated in the Digital History Project sponsored by the Kansas City Star newspaper. Thanks to their generosity, I have been able to post not only student work, but my own syllabi and related assignments on their Web server.

Student response to my electronic syllabi has been cautious and restrained. When confronted with a Web-based assignment, students are compelled to access the specified Web sites from one of my electronic syllabi or my "Student/Faculty Projects" page. For the most part, they have dutifully completed such assignments and they have grudgingly admitted that they have learned valuable new research and computer skills in the process. Nevertheless, they remain skeptical of the overall value of Web-based resources and still regard many of the Web sites to which I have directed them as the exceptions which prove the rule.