New Directions in International Learning
Professors Kathryn Sikkink (Political Science) and Allen Isaacman (History, Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change), in collaboration with Karen Brown Thompson (Coordinator, Institute for Global Studies), used ITV and web technology to link graduate seminars at the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Stanford University. The project was intended not merely to deliver lecture content to distant learners, but to make possible a seminar-style dialogue among students, faculty members, and guest speakers on several different campuses. Web resources, including personal profiles and a synchronous chat room, were used to create a sense of familiarity among seminar participants and to enable students to work collaboratively on seminar presentations.
Q. Please describe the instructional problem you were attempting to address. Who was the intended audience? What solutions had been tried in the past? What did you hope to improve?
A. This project had several purposes:
- to enhance the intellectual community among faculty and students at MacArthur Consortium universities;
- to provide dialogue with activists and scholars on the different campuses which would not otherwise be possible;
- and to enable graduate students and faculty members to forge intellectually fruitful connections with their peers at other institutions.
tel strategy
Q. What technology enhanced learning (TEL) strategies did you adopt to complete this project? Was the content presented differently to your students than in past (non-TEL) applications?
A. The project team used interactive television (ITV) technology to link coordinated seminars at each of three universities, with the hope of getting beyond the usual lecture-format ITV course by developing lively dialogue among all participants. They also created a central website that contained a common syllabus, links to readings and outside organizations. To foster a sense of community, students wrote biographies of their peers at other campuses and posted them on the seminar website. Students also used a synchronous chat room to coordinate their seminar presentations and to catch up with parts of the seminar discussion which they'd missed.
project team
Q. How many people worked on the project? What were their roles? Did you work with any central support units?
A. Kathryn Sikkink, and Allen Isaacman, and Karen Brown Thompson used in-house ITV resources provided by University Media Resources staff, including Lyn Weiler, Billie Strand, and Tom McRoberts; UMR also coordinated efforts with ITV staff at Stanford and Wisconsin. The team also hired a graduate student for one semester who acted as webmaster, and used a WebCT site to provide chat capabilities.
instructional outcome
Q. What was the instructional outcome of your project? Did you achieve your goals? Why or why not? Do you intend to make any revisions to your project?
A. Since this was the second time the team offered this course, they attempted to build on evaluation feedback received after the first, pilot version—and in several ways Sikkink, Isaacman, and Thompson believe they succeeded. The seminar was fun: even reluctant faculty members were drawn into coordinated distance education, and the discussion was often lively and spontaneous. Participants found it valuable to have access to activists and scholars on other campuses with whom they would not otherwise have been able to converse. Finally, graduate students and faculty became acquainted with colleagues at other campuses, many of whom they later met face-to-face, and in this way the seminar helped to create a sense of intellectual community among the institutions involved.
The seminar was not perfect, however. The physical setup of the ITV rooms was designed for lecture-format classes, not seminars, and the ITV technology only enabled participants to see one distant site at a time. Furthermore, discussion in the seminar could be stilted; it took some time for participants to become comfortable with the setup. At times seminar participants at one university began a debate among themselves, and it was difficult for those on other campuses to break in. The instructional team implemented a set of rules for rotation among the three sites, which helped to coordinate discussion and address this problem. Finally, the chat room was not as useful as Sikkink, Isaacman, and Thompson had hoped; people often experienced technical difficulties when trying to log in.
advice
Q. Do you have any planning, design, or development advice for other instructional multimedia developers contemplating a project like yours?
A. If students or faculty have not had ITV experience, provide plenty of information on how the technology works. Implement a system of alternation between sites if more than two sites are involved and discussion is desired. Walk students through use of chat spaces or other web-based components of course. Work with ITV staff in advance to find ways to enhance discussion prospects (e.g., room setup). Give students explicit leadership opportunities to offset any reticence encouraged by the technology (e.g., assign roles such as discussion leader, interviewer, etc.).
