New Voices and New Visions – Summer 2008 Infrastructure for Creating a Cyberclassroom Jennifer Teig von Hoffman Boston University

How Did We Create Cyberclass? The people were far more important than the technology Connections among people led to… Working together over led to… Developing a proposal for distributed project, to implement two classroom courses

What Was Class Infrastructure? Project meetings and many, many class sessions on Access Grid Distributed VR on tiled stereo wall for class projects lists, including students Web sites of various kinds

The Access Grid (AG) A set of software applications, for collaborating across high-performance computer networks Developed by Argonne National Laboratory Much of what I’ll say would apply to any videoconferencing situation, not just AG

Year 1: UNM and BU Cyberclass Three times a week, we used AG between UNM and BU Pictured: Class on audio basics, using physical demonstrations

We Watched, and Learned

Year 2: Virtual Visits Walatowa High Charter School had virtual visits with BU and UNM over the course of the year

Gotta Sweat the Small Stuff Small technical details can make or break any AG meeting –Camera adjustments, lighting, microphone placement, software adjustments Many things that should be easy may not be –Case in point: Sharing media

Can You Hear Me? Audio problems far more disruptive than video problems! We ensure that each person has access to a microphone –This may mean moving the microphone, or moving the person Audio problems can be intermittent, so if problems arise pause to fix

Video Quality Matters Think about how different it would feel to talk with each of the people pictured here –Both are me Camera placement and lighting are essential!

Sharing Applications This is still harder than it should be During classes, we used VNC to show PowerPoint slides, and for software demonstrations Sometimes when no software easily supported what we needed to do, we’d point a camera at the screen

Got Trouble? Text Chat Helps We tried not to let technical issues disrupt classes –AG operators discuss problems amongst themselves through text chat –Today’s workshop organizers also have each others’ cell phone numbers

Complementary Teaching “The guest lectures, the artists helped us incorporate into the VR world and the help from the BU people, sometimes you wish they were here but it’s an AG, it’s not perfect. That’s why we had teachers here. It’s been complementary; the tag team (teachers) help each other.” –[comment from UNM student]

No Other ClassNo Other Class “It worked good over the AG…It was good working with the team. No other class would have brought us together. “ –[comment from UNM student] UNM Class Project

Helping Newcomers Use the AG Using video conferencing takes some getting used to –A little orientation helps – don’t jump right into instruction It’s hard to remember to use the microphone, make sure you’re on camera, etc

Face Time Still Matters We needed both AG and travel to really make this project work “Glenn coming from BU [was one of the highlights of the class]. It’s okay to see them over the screen. But we got the full effect when saw him in person and picked his brain.” –[comment from UNM student]

Face Time During the Project

Questions?