Beyond IM, , and Texting: Real-time Global Interactions without Leaving Home Barb Mann, Assistant Director for Public Services Julie Arnold, Course Manager for UCSP 611 University of Maryland University College

What We Have Done Used Adobe Acrobat Connect to provide one-on-one and group synchronous sessions with Doctor of Management students in Taiwan Used Adobe Acrobat Connect and Wimba to provide synchronous lecture/discussions with UCSP 611students Used Adobe Acrobat Connect and Wimba to provide specialized resource instruction to UMUC students and faculty

“Nuts and Bolts” for DM Sessions One-on-one sessions  Determine learning outcomes  Determine schedule of one-hour time slots for librarians and allow students to “sign up” for an hour  Provide web-based digital learning materials and an assignment rubric for students to enhance learning and as pre-work  Librarian spends one hour (sometimes longer) going over research process with student based on their research topic Group sessions:  Determine learning outcomes  Create content in collaboration with faculty  Send hand-outs of content ahead of time so that the students can follow along  Work out technical logistics

DM Taiwan students

“Nuts and Bolts” for UCSP 611 Sessions Select day/time based on time zones Post announcement of session as well as technical logistics Determine learning outcomes Create content Record session and post in the WebTycho classroom Provide assessment

Assessment Surveys  Comments on Course Evaluations  Zoomerang surveys for students in the course – whether they attended live session or not Debriefings (faculty and librarians) Anecdotal  Comments received from participants Project Comparisons  Compare UCSP 611 project grades with sections that did not receive synchronous sessions

DM-Assessment (highlights)

DM-Assessment – anecdotal comments It's helpful. Thanks for the considerate arrangement. Thanks to my librarian. He has been very helpful. The potential to use technology tools in interactive learning.

UCSP 611 Assessment-Adobe Connect

UCSP 611 Assessment-Benefits “Taking a class in an online environment, you do not necessarily get interaction with your instructor or your class. This gives everyone a chance to get together, ask questions, and get some personal/devoted one-on-one time with the instructor. We get the benefit of learning from the instructor, as well as from questions from other students.” “I strongly feel the online/live discussions were very helpful. It helps see what the other students are thinking and questioning. Plus it gives more details about the assignment than what is just listed on paper. I can't emphasize enough how helpful this was.”

UCSP 611 Assessment-Drawbacks “I really don't see any drawbacks to the online discussion other than the standard challenge of making free time to attend the live session. This is sometimes complicated in different time zones when some people may still be at work.” “It requires that computer hardware and internet connections be in excellent working condition.”

UCSP 611 Assessment-Additional Comments “I think this live chat was excellent because the instructor responded to everyone's question in a decent order and I would definitely agree to have these kind of live chats for all classes since most of the classes are online. Also, I could ask questions to problems if my classes were all online instead of face-to-face. I really appreciate this live chat because it really helped.” “I would like to see these become available for other classes and then posted, so if you are unable to attend the live session you can still view it at a later time.”

Challenges Technical issues Working with faculty Language barriers Time zone differences Cultural differences