Yesterday I visited Dalane upper secondary school in Eigersund, a small Town south of Stavanger. We were 5 members of a pilot team trying to find out good ways to use videoconference equippment in education. Our county is in the forefront when it comes to purchasing this relatively expensive gear. Our studies show that 17 of the counties 28 schools own vidconf equippment. The big question is how do we use it effectively. Most schools presently use vidconf for meetings with the central government in the county or between schools, but there is very little pedagogical use. Our school uses vidconf on a regular basis for evening courses where adult students come to school and follow a course sent via vidkonf from another school in the county. This works relatively smoothly however many of the students experience the ‘fly on the wall’ syndrom where they are just observers and not really participating in classroom discusions.
This was the first time our pilot group had met together ‘in real life’. Up to yesterday we had only met via vidconf. So it was good to shake hands properly and share lunch together instead of seperately. We had some good discusions about the use og vidconf in the classroom. There are of course many challenges one of which is the timetable. Trying to make a good timetable for ones school is hard enough let alone making a timetable that encompasses many schools so that they can have ‘english’ via vidconf. at the same time. We realized that maybe this wasn’t the way to go. Maybe we should set up ‘meets’ or webinars that the different schools could subscribe to. One of the schools could host the webinar and those schools that wanted to follow could do so if an when it suited them. These webinars would of course be recorded so that they could be followed asynchronous when time allowed. In this way we could utilize teachers that were spesialists in a given subject or subject area and allow them to ‘reach’ many other students. By sharing their courses they would reduce their preparation and greatly enhance and inspire the students.
In order to achieve this we will have to train teachers and course them in the use of vidconf giving them instruction on how to engage the learner ‘on the other end’. No easy feat. However avoiding the ‘fly on the wall’ is imperative for the learners total learning experience. This is partly technical with the placement of cameras, flat screens etc. But preparation and dry runs are also necessary until the teacher is comfortable with this way of teaching. It must come across as naturally as possible. In this TV age we are all used to the reporter looking straight at us through the cameralens. A teacher must also concentrate on those on the other end. The student in the classroom get the atmosphere just by being there. This is harder to create when one is also on the receiving end of a camera stream. Good audio and use of real time data sharing (eg Go to meeting) are also essential for the whole experience.
This is the reason this pilot group has been established. Not that we have all the answers, but because we have some years of experience behind us in the use of vidconf. Now we just have to bring it to the masses.
