Kicking the Tires

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Kicking the Tires

• Experimenting with Distance Education
  Technologies at the University of Michigan School
  of Information

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Lija BentleyVlad Wielbut
lija_at_umich.edu

• wlodek_at_umich.edu

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School of Information

• http//www.si.umich.edu/

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Alliance for Community Technology

• http//www.communitytechnology.org/

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Act 1 Winter 1998

• Course first-year, master-level, required
• Lecturers Maurita Holland and Thomas Finholt
• Enrolled students 65
• Main rationale to accommodate 5 commuting
  students

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Tools used

• Placeware Auditorium 1.2
• WebBoard 2.0
• Web site
• E-mail

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Challenges

• Hybrid environment
• separate but equal?
• logistical nightmare
• Bandwidth problems
• Sound

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The classroom setup
microphones
slides
mixing board
capture
black box
floor
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Remote students

• Were variably engaged with lecture
• Had diminished opportunities for face time
• Had concerns about visibility
• Attended office hours normally
• Could not easily contribute to in-class
  discussions

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Classroom students

• Had a slightly better sense of what happened
  during lecture
• Approved of the experiment
• Disliked the disruptive effect of the technology
  in the classroom

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Faculty members

• Felt the remote students were invisible
• Were dissatisfied with turnout to office hours
• Agreed that microphones were bothersome
• Could not easily involve remote students in the
  lecture

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Major results and analysis

• Hybrid environment negatively affects the
  professor-student relationship
• Participating students report overall
  satisfaction with the experiment

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Conjecture

• Totally distributed environment would not have
  this negative effect
• closer to original intent of software
• would allow other benefits to be more fully
  realized

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Act 2 Winter 1999

• Course advanced, master-level, elective
• Lecturer Derrick L. Cogburn
• Enrolled students 7 from SI, 10 from Wits, 18
  from AU
• Main rationale to deliver a course via the
  Internet while giving students the chance to
  practice international collaboration

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Tools used

• Placeware Conference Center 3.0
• WebBoard 3.5
• DocuShare 1.5
• Web site (VSC)
• Lotus ScreenCam
• RealMedia G2
• E-mail

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Training movie
Recorded session
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Challenges

• Technological gaps
• Bandwidth problems
• Time zones
• Cultural differences

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Research team

• Derrick Cogburn (CSIR)
• Daniel Atkins (SI)
• Mary Mulvihill (AU)
• Vlad Wielbut (SI)

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Dos and Donts

• Learn to sleep fast
• Win lottery
• Test, test, test!
• Get help
• Become a control freak
• Never put all your eggs in one basket
• Hire someone from Eastern Europe

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Dos and Donts (contd.)

• Raise the bar
• Keep crybabies out

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URLs

• http//www.communitytechnology.org/
• http//www.communitytechnology.org/placeware/
• http//www.communitytechnology.org/courses/globali
  zation
• http//docushare.si.umich.edu/
• http//www.netopia.geocities.com/vladwiel