William Rainey Harper College

MACROECONOMICS ONLINE!

Orientation

 Home
Orientation
Syllabus
Schedule
Activities Outline
Assignments
Discussion Forum
Review
Textbook Website
Economics Glossary

Where do you start? At first the materials and structure of this course will seem confusing and maybe a bit overwhelming. This orientation will begin the process of learning to navigate through the course. Remember that you can always ask your instructor for help (mhealy@harper.cc.il.us). For those students who missed the on-campus orientation, this web page contains the material that was discussed.

  • Materials
  • Syllabus
  • Web Pages
  • Technical Requirements
  • Getting Started
  • Sample Lesson
    •

    MATERIALS

    1. CD-ROMS: Power of Macroeconomics
    2. Learning Guide for use with Cd-ROMs
    3. Textbook and Study guide
      • Macro-Economics by Campbell R. McConnell and Stanley L. Brue, 14th edition, McGraw Hill, 1999. [http://www.mhhe.com/economics/mcconnell/index1.mhtml]
      • Study Guide to Accompany McConnell and Brue Macro-Economics by Bingham and Walstad, McGraw Hill, 1999.
      • OPTIONAL: DiscoverEcon 3.0 Software Tutorial by Gerald C. Nelson
    4. Class Home Page: http://www.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/eco212i/home.htm

    [top]

    SYLLABUS
    [Go to: http://www.harpercollege.edu/mhealy/eco212i/macsyli.htm]

    [top]

    WEB PAGES
    You may want to take a quick "tour" of the webpoages that you will be visiting offten this semester.

    [top]

    TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

    • System Requirements to View the CD-ROM Lectures
      • 486DX 66 MHz processor or higher (Pentium processor recommended).
      • 8MB of RAM
      • Windows NT or Windows 95
      • SVGA color monitor (set at 1 million colors and 640x80)
      • Double-speed CD-ROM drive
      • WAV-compatible sound card and speakers
    • Software Required to View the CD-ROM Lectures
      • The Power of Economics CD-ROMs uses Microsoft PowerPoint software. Note that you do not need to have PowerPoint software on your computer. A PowerPoint viewer is built right into each CD-ROM.
      • To use the viewer, all you need to do is insert the CD-ROM into your machine and the lectures “boot up.” You then navigate through the lectures in “slide show” mode with both audio and visual slides.
      • Note, however, that if you have PowerPoint for Office 97 or higher, you can access each lecture directly off the CD-ROM by opening the appropriate file in PowerPoint. There are several advantages to doing so.
        1. First, it’s a little easier to navigate through the lectures if you can see the slides in the “slide” or “slide sorter” modes. For example, in some cases, you may not be able to finish a lecture and you may want to resume viewing later at a particular slide. It’s a bit easier to find that slide in the “slide sorter” mode and then click on to go into “slide show” mode.
        2. Second, in the “notes page mode,” you can make notes to accompany each slide. However, in the notes mode, you do not hear the audio track.
        3. Third, if you want to print out the slides, the easiest way to do so is in the “slide sorter” mode. Just select three or six slides per page and you’ll save some paper and see the slides in hard copy.
    • Software Requirements to View Web Pages
      • Internet Connection and Browser (Netscape preferred)
      • Real Audio. If you do not have the Real Audio's Real Player plug-in on your computer you may download it for free.

    [top]

    GETTING STARTED

    • The BEST place to begin to organize your studying is the Class Schedule which will guide you through all the course components week-by-week
    • You should also think of this distance learning class like a normal face-to-face class. In both types of courses there are:
      • lectures (we have two types: online lectures and CD-ROM lectures)
      • class discussions
      • textbook and study guides
      • assignments
      • exams and quizzes
      • instructor office hours

      Just because you are taking this class from home doesn't make it that much diffferent than other classes that you have taken.

    • Read pages 3-5 of the Learning Guide that accompanies your CD-ROMS (The Power of Macroeconomics). these pages will cover the following topics:
      • How to Use this Study Guide with your Multimedia CD-ROM Lectures
      • An Overview of the CD-ROM Lectures
      • A Chapter Map to your Textbook

    [top]

    SAMPLE LESSON

    So let's see how all of this fits together. the place to begin is the Class Schedule. Notice that not all online lectures are accompanied by a CD-ROM lecture.

     

    [top]
    INSTRUCTOR: Mark L. Healy