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Abstract A case study of the application of e-mail and video conferencing on a residential interstate primary school visit, with Year 7 students, from a P-12 college. Presenters Jan MacNamara John Paul College Nigel Pressnell John Paul College Summary This paper is concerned
with examining, in the form of a case study, the way in which John Paul
College has developed the use of communication technology to enhance its
annual Year 7 visit to Canberra. In this paper we shall be sharing our reasons for using e-mail and video conferencing on our primary school visit to Canberra; outline the benefits our students derive from the use of such technology; give an insight into the technical and curriculum developments undertaken in order to make such communication successful; and finally indicate the role played by individual team members in bring the project to fruition. Background John Paul College is a co-educational, ecumenical independent school situated at Daisy Hill in Logan City, south of Brisbane. Catering for a school population in excess of 2 300, including students from Childcare to Year 12, and a specialist International College, our students are often referred to as "technologically privileged". The integration of modern technology across all areas of the school curriculum complements the developmental philosophy of curriculum delivery - a philosophy, which recognizes the importance of addressing the personal learning needs of each student as he or she progresses along the developmental continuum. The use of technology is embedded in the everyday experiences of students from their earliest days at John Paul College. Each classroom and staff room is connected to the Local Area Network via a fibre optic backbone, which provides access to the Internet and the John Paul College Intranet. This level of connectivity means that all members of the college have access to e-mail, the World Wide Web and a range of subject specific and theme specific CD Rom products. In addition, modem access from home to a range of software products, enables students to take advantage of learning opportunities after hours. Students from Years 5
to 12 have access to a personal notebook computer to support their
research, thinking and learning. This
valuable and powerful learning aid supports student learning in all
curriculum areas. The mastery of the digital environment is referred to as the
"third literacy" in the John Paul College learning community. Students comfortably
and naturally connect to the Internet using hubs and radio PCMCIA cards;
locate and download text, pictures and video to support their research;
publish their results using Word; present their orals supported by PowerPoint and MicroWorlds;
collate and analyse data using Excel,
e-mail "keypals" and even create their own visual support
material utilizing a combination of the scanner, the digital camera and
the video editing suite. If you were to visit
the College today you would witness the students engaged in a range of
curriculum driven activities utilizing an array of digital tools.
The Preschool students learn the rudiments of Logo
programming through play with the roamer turtle; the Year 2 students are
creating interactive digital books utilizing Kids Pix Studio; the Year 5 students are compiling the highlights of
their camp in PowerPoint
utilizing digital photos and video clips taken at Lesley Dam; Year 7
students are combing the government web sites in an investigation of
Australia's primary industries. In our secondary school
Year 8 students produce interactive multi-media presentations to support
their cross-curricular Integrated Project; Year 9 students create Cyber
Poetry animated gifs; Year 10 students contribute to our Celebration of
Learning web site and Year 11 and Year 12 students undertake a range of
subject specific tasks as increasingly students begin to assemble
electronic portfolios of their examination coursework. What makes the
experience different at John Paul College is that the use of technology is
now so embedded in the everyday fabric of what we do, as teachers and
students, that it has become an "almost" invisible learning
resource. This notion
is underpinned by at every stage of classroom planning through teacher
reference to the college's "Essential Learnings".
Within this framework, the competency of using IT stands alongside
information processing, recalling and remembering, expressing ideas and
information, evaluation, problem solving and independent learning.
We are mindful of "teaching for thinking" and cannot
afford to have ineffective use of IT inhibiting this process. The Support Team Classroom teachers are
innovative users of modern technology across the curriculum and need a
combination of support and professional development to effectively master
the benefits of the digital tools. The support structure
at John Paul College includes a curriculum support team referred to as the
Information and Learning Technology Team and a technical support team, The
Computer & AudioVisual Engineers - known as the CAVE.
The five members of the curriculum support team provide input for
teachers at the planning stage - suggesting software and hardware options
to achieve student outcomes in all curriculum areas.
By working closely with teaching teams at this grass roots level it
is possible to design professional development opportunities to support
the classroom and professional needs of staff.
It also provides the opportunity to encourage the integration and
investigation of new technologies for our students. The CAVE staff ensure
that the infrastructure of the College network reliably delivers
technology to all College members 24 hours a day.
Additionally they have the responsibility of maintaining the
notebook programme for both staff and students.
Not surprisingly they are constantly engaged in research and
development to ensure that we are able to mainstream the delivery of a
range of technologically rich options to our entire student population. In addition, the
College has a close working relationship with Sunrise,
Toshiba and Microsoft to
ensure that our students have a combination of hardware and software
options to support their current and future learning needs. Our team places support
staff in the Primary and Secondary Schools but as a Why
use Video Conferencing in Schools? This
rich communications technology offers new educational possibilities for
students of all ages. Educational
institutions are currently using video conferencing to deliver formal
lessons and for tutoring. In
addition, guest speakers and experts are being "beamed into the
classroom" and schools are able to participate in multi-school
collaborative projects and community events. Telstra's
current advertising plan currently praises the use of teleconferencing in
medicine and education and promotes the benefits to society of utilizing
this "new" telecommunications option. Interactive
video conferencing carries with it many inherent benefits for students. The most obvious is that it is almost like "being
there". The face-to-face
collaboration goes a long way towards building relationships in a way that
other technologies such as e-mail, on-line chat or a telephone call cannot
and supports collaboration between traditionally isolated communities. Video
conferencing, with its multi-faceted presentation of materials, supports
each child's individual learning style to facilitate the achievement of
optimum student outcomes. The
conference can include media such as video and audio clips, graphics,
animations and software applications. Without
doubt the immediacy of the medium highlights student motivation.
There is a certain novelty about sharing experiences with students
from other countries and other cultures without having to leave the
confines of the familiar and comfortable classroom setting. Students
perceive video guest as important "visitors" to the classroom
and willingly engage in research and writing activities in order to be
adequately prepared for discussion and exchange of ideas.
They definitely perceive that their communication, management and
presentation skills are being developed in a meaningful, real-world
context. Video
conferencing obviously increases the students' connections with the
outside world. In many cases,
a combination of time and resources prevents frequent visits off campus.
Video conferencing can be an excursion alternative and provide
students with the opportunity to form tangible relationships with children
who may be "different" from them.
It can be considered as giving access to the expertise of mentors
or other role models. The
use of video conferencing enables students to work in the medium of their
time. Although new to us, most of our students will be expected to
work comfortably in this medium in their adult life. As you can appreciate, video conferencing brings with it a
set of "new skills" which students need to "practice".
In a simple session students would need to have: - ·
an understanding of the set up of
the videoconference ·
maintain eye contact via the
camera ·
show interest in all participants ·
dress appropriately ·
move and gesture slowly and
smoothly ·
maintain appropriate on-camera
positioning ·
utilize a range of multimedia
resources in presentations ·
speak in a strong clear voice. If one looks at the
trends of IT and Internet usage some remarkable statistics are available. In
February 1999, 18% (1.3 million) of all households in Australia had home
Internet access. 3.2 million Australian households use a computer. In
the 12 months prior to 31 December 1999 ISDN, or broadly comparable 64
kbps digital data services, were available to 96% of Australians. In
July 1997 21% of all Australian businesses had Internet access and in the
year to February 1999, 480 000 Australians had made private purchases via
the Internet with an approximate value of 100 million dollars. The
Dept of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts (NOIE
- National Office for the information Economy - July 1999 [Australians
make the] second highest use of the Internet internationally (per head)
with an estimated 500 000 users in Australia.
Australians have the third highest per-capite ownership of personal
computers. Innovate
Australia Department
of Industry, Science and Resources. Given the changing nature of Australian society and the willingness with which we as a nation appear to adopt new ideas and technology, it is only appropriate that we as teachers strive to prepare our students appropriately. It takes no great stretch of the imagination to see the role that video conferencing, digital television, multimedia and the like will play in the lives of our students as they pursue work, leisure and lifelong learning beyond school. The
Canberra Project A component of the Year
7 Social Studies curriculum involves an investigation of the function and
structure of the Federal Government in Australia.
Traditionally, the John Paul College Year 7 group travels to
Canberra to visit Parliament House and to participate in the activities
designed by the Electoral Commission, Parliamentary Education Office, the
Australian Institute of Sport and the Australian War Memorial. As you can appreciate
this is a highlight of the Year 7 calendar.
For most of our students, however, it is their first protracted
time away from home. The
students still seek the reassurance of home and of course are prepared to
"queue" at the phone to keep their parents and siblings updated
on the latest events. Up until three years
ago, one of the activities on the trip was to send a postcard home.
Often however, we actually arrived home before the postcards.
We decided therefore to take the notebook computers and modem with
us so that the students could take advantage of the speed of e-mail.
They would not only send mail but to receive it as well.
In this way, students would have the opportunity to engage in a
meaningful real-life use of telecommunications. In our first foray into
the use of e-mail during 1997, we only had a handful of students who could
take advantage of the opportunity as not all parents had personal or
business access to e-mail. We
did however, send bulletins to school each day, which summarised the
events of the tour and parents could check the noticeboard for the latest
news. These bulletins also
included personal messages from the students. Interestingly enough,
in those days, it was difficult to get a direct line out of the
accommodation so that the modem would work.
On our first year of e-mailing, we could not use the modem at our
motel in Canberra. The
manager had the night porter drive a teacher to a number of Canberra
apartments owned by "out of town" politicians until we found a
dedicated phone line so that the mail could be sent. It was a lot of fun,
but things have definitely changed now.
On our most recent trip an amazing 80% of students had personal
e-mail access at home and the majority of the remaining students were able
to contact parents at their workplace e-mail address.
For the handful of students who did not have access, we provided
access through the school library and parents could call in to drop a line
to their children. In relation to the
direct line, we have found that accommodation nowadays has conference
facilities, and e-mail is the norm rather than the exception. During August 1998, Jan
MacNamara attended the ACEC conference in South Australia.
As a component of the conference she visited the facilities, which
support Distance Education in South Australia, and was fascinated by their
use of video conferencing to personalise the learning of students on
remote stations. Of course, a
team of people who were passionate about their work made it all look so
easy. All one required was a piece of software, which was available
in the Microsoft suite, a
camera, a microphone and a phone line!
Inspired, a camera was brought from Harvey
Norman for about $150 and first tentative steps were made down the
path of experimenting with video conferencing. In September of last
year, Nigel Pressnell was packaging video segments of our Speech Night
ceremony to transmit over the Internet so that the parents of our overseas
students could view the segments. During
the course of this work we began to talk about extending the
telecommunication options of our Year 7 students on the Canberra Tour.
Our idea was to set up a conference in Parliament House that
included our students as guests of our local member Mr David Jull MP (the
Canberra connection) and our Senior Administration Team (the Brisbane
connection). Nigel and the CAVE team
began work whilst Jan sought the support from those parties involved with
the visit including the Sergeant at Arms in Parliament House. The response from
Parliament House was encouraging given that it is no small favour to
arrange a conference that included Mr. David Jull (MP), 138 students, 10
staff, two computers (we wanted a backup of course), data projector and
screen and a phone line. Once approval had been
granted, the technical planning began and it was at this point we became
indebted to the video conference liaison officer in Parliament House.
He spoke with Nigel Pressnell and our CAVE staff on a number of
occasions. A number of
options were proposed. These
ranged from the extremes of using government equipment in the Parliament
House video conferencing room, to using our equipment in Mr. Jull's
office. The final outcome was
that a new STD line was installed on our behalf in the hospitality room
and it was agreed that security clearance would be granted for John Paul
College equipment to be brought into the hospitality area. The
Software and Hardware The technical issues
relating to implementing communication between Canberra and the College
can be split into three parts. These
three parts can respectively be associated with the college's computers
and peripherals; the software employed; and the available network
architecture. Firstly, let us focus
on the technical issues relating to computers and peripherals.
The backbone of the college's notebook programme is its Toshiba
notebook computers. Each year
the college purchases, on behalf of its parent body and staff, a standard
model of Toshiba notebook.
In the 1999 academic year the model selected was the 2510 CDS.
The reasons for selecting this particular model are beyond the
scope of this paper, however it is worth briefly reviewing the
specifications of this machine. The
2510 CDS was designed with the educational market in mind.
From the college's perspective, its appeal lies in its robust case,
floating screen mounting, 266 MHz Pentium
processor, 4 GB hard drive, and 32 Mb RAM.
Of particular benefit is its USB (Universal Serial Bus) port.
This has been standard on Toshiba models within John Paul College
since the 440 CD model.
The USB port enables users to connect a range of peripheral devices
to the notebook, which range from scanners to zip drive. Its significance for video conferencing is that there are
ranges of video cameras available in the market place with USB plugs and
indeed this has become a common standard. As
in most things, at John Paul College we tend to standardise around a
single platform. In this
instance our preferred model of video camera is the Kodak
300 series. We made use
of two Kodak 323 cameras, one
taken with the students to Canberra and the other left at John Paul
College. The Kodak
323 is relatively inexpensive with an educational price of around
$254. When
purchasing a video camera one needs to be conscious of the amount of
ambient light likely to be available at the venue in which the
videoconference is to be held. The
Kodak 323presents a sensible
compromise between cost and performance.
There are cameras available that are more effective than the Kodak 320 in lower light levels but a premium is to be paid for this
increased efficiency. As our
intention is to combine the use of video conferencing with the portable
nature of our computer hardware the physical size of the camera was a
valid consideration in terms of purchasing criteria.
There is little point in having a portable computer if your video
camera is difficult to attach or bulky to transport. For
the audience of 138 students
to be able to actively engage with the processes of conferencing from
Parliament House to the college they needed to be able to see the pictures
being transmitted as well as hearing the exchange between contributors.
Use was made of the notebook's speaker jack plug to feed a small
pair of desktop speakers at Parliament House and in the college library a
small public address system was provided.
Epson EMP 5100 data
projectors were used to project the image at an appropriate size for the
audience. In reality this
meant that the picture being viewed was about the size of a generous
television screen but that it was surrounded by a large amount of
redundant screen resulting from the inactive part of the open NetMeeting
window. The
microphones were inexpensive stick type costing around $10.
A radio microphone was used in the college's Library to save having
to reposition the microphone during the call. Secondly, let us review
the technical issues regarding software.
The client software selected to facilitate electronic communication
centred on Pegasus e-mail and NetMeeting.
Pegasus e-mail has been
used across the institution for a number of years and therefore its use on
the Canberra visit was a natural choice as it is now an application
embedded in administrative and curriculum use.
The use of video conferencing was however a new departure and
careful thought was made as to which software to exploit.
In the final instance the decision was ultimately based on
financial reasoning given our ambition for usage of video conferencing on
an ultimately wide scale amongst the student body.
Whilst many institutions can afford to buy dedicated video
conferencing software on a limited scale, when larger numbers factors the
sum, cost becomes prohibitive. NetMeeting,
as a standard windows component, seemed the ideal tool in the earlier
stages of development to enable us to undertake trials, without additional
financial outlay. It,
therefore, gave us the potential to involve the maximum number of users. NetMeeting,
for those unfamiliar with it, is essentially a
communication tool that combines text chat, whiteboard, and audio video
signal exchange with other facilities that include file transfer and
application sharing. Within
the context of what we set out to achieve, it is the video conferencing
component of the program that interested us the most.
This notwithstanding, the whiteboard and chat facilities
demonstrated themselves to be valuable components of the application
especially in assisting to establish links from Parliament House. The
electronic whiteboard feature allows the user to create diagrams visible
to all parties involved in the call.
One can include text or add illustrations, which can be manipulated
by those, connected on-line. The
chat component of the program allows users to exchange written
communication in the form of short sentences.
These appear within a window and the name of the contributor
appears alongside their comment. Finally, the third area
of technical issues relate to the college's network.
Until recently the college network operated using Netware
4.11.
However we are presently concluding the process of changing to NT
4. The
network is firewall protected using Boarder
Manager, a separate Novell
product. In our early
experience, it was herein that the greatest technical difficulty was to be
found. NetMeeting would
not operate through the firewall and this presented problems, as we would
not be able to allow student access to NetMeeting
with the firewall deactivated. This
did not prevent NetMeeting from
working satisfactorily across our network within the institution as it
operated inside the firewall. A
solution in the short term was therefore to configure dial up networking
on the notebooks to be used for video conferencing so that dial up access
could be made via a telephone rather than from LAN to LAN. When
a call is made using NetMeeting
connection is established via an ILS (NetMeeting
Server) that keeps a directory listing of those users who log onto it. A good starting place recommended via colleagues on the
QSITE-Community was the ILS at Aussie SchoolHouse. Later we set up our own on the NT server at John Paul
College. Those available
through Microsoft are unsuitable for students.
As an alternative one can use NetMeeting
IP address to IP address but the process of setting up the meeting becomes
protracted. The
Visit We arrived in Canberra
on the Monday morning and the plan was to set up a test run from the motel
on the Monday afternoon. We
would like to say that it all went smoothly but of course it did not.
We experienced problems at the Canberra end in that we were
receiving the picture but could not get any audio. This should have been
really simple to fix because we could just phone Brisbane and "walk
and talk" through the problems until they were resolved.
Unfortunately, the conference room in the motel only had one phone
line and we were using it with our modem.
To compound problems we not get a reliable service on any of the
three mobile phones available as with poor reception the calls kept
dropping out. We resorted to using
chat within NetMeeting, and after two hours of painstaking persistence
everything worked. We were
set for the next day. On the Tuesday, Year 7
made their grand entrance to Parliament House.
We set up the notebooks and camera and of course the problems of
yesterday reappeared. The
solution was in redialling. No
settings were changed, we just kept dialling until eventually had both
audio and video links. The conference involved
Mr. David Jull MP, our College Principal, Mr. Cec Munns, and student
speakers. Our students were abuzz with excitement; it really brought
the power of the medium home to them.
From an IT Coordinator's perspective this was important as we were
not only trying to inspire the students, we were trying to capture the
excitement of the media for our staff.
At the conclusion of
the conference the students immediately wanted to "try it
again". They now are
looking forward to their opportunity to set up their personal conferencing
groups with students from around the world. Where
to from here? The
students and staff are now "experimenting" with the set up and
management of video conferencing in the classroom setting.
Currently, we are developing a show and tell opportunity for our
students in Year 7 and in Year 3 based on one class from each year level. The children will participate in a whole class video
conference where small groups of students will present formal sessions on
our culture, our country, our wildlife and our games.
A topic per week will be chosen and the children will be guided
through the conferencing process with the teacher as the facilitator of
interaction. This
will lead naturally to the Term 4 focus where students will work
collaboratively with identified groups from remote locations. In this
instance, the students will act as the facilitators and the teacher will
become the "guide on the side". Our
Year 6 theme next term focuses on an understanding and appreciation of
different cultures from around the world and this will provide the perfect
opportunity for students to interact with other members of the global
community. Already,
some of our students have suggested that we adopt overseas countries
during the Olympics - we can host visitors to Australia and share some of
our heritage and culture as well as monitor and support athletes from the
adopted schools' country. Within the Secondary
School at John Paul College we are fortunate in having a thriving exchange
programme. Each year significant numbers of students visit sister
schools from Canada, UK, Germany, Japan and New Zealand. Similarly, students from our sister schools visit us.
We hope to be able to strengthen the bond between students in
foreign countries through the use of video conferencing.
Video conferencing might allow past exchange students to maintain
contact with their host families or current exchange students to keep in
touch with their family back home. Video conferencing will
benefit our language students who shortly will be able to converse with
native speakers abroad and from an administrative point of view we believe
that video conferencing will be used to interview potential job applicants
from interstate. Now
that the infrastructure is in place, the emphasis will move towards
finding appropriate conferencing opportunities, which support teacher
identified student outcomes. Although
students perceive the medium as "fun", activities and learning
experiences will be carefully structured to ensure that the focus is on
the information processing and communication skills that the students are
currently developing. We are
not in the business of promoting a technology driven curriculum.
Rather, we develop a curriculum, which is supported by a media rich
environment, which naturally calls on the benefits of computer technology. Conclusion "From
small beginnings, great things grow."
The
Canberra video conference was an opportunity to test our capabilities with
the new medium and to demonstrate to staff and students the possibilities
of "face to face communications" with distant users. The
experience has sparked enthusiasm in the group.
In choosing a combination of readily available software and
hardware with a manageable cost, it is now possible for increasing numbers
of teachers and students to participate in this educationally rewarding
interaction. Support
is readily available from the QSITE Bulletin Board and a host of Internet
sites ranging from educators sharing their experiences, to software and
hardware suppliers giving detailed step-by-step guides for beginners.
In addition, educational networks such as CuSeeme
and Knowledge Network offer
structured video conferencing opportunities for educators. We
have not always enjoyed immediate success with the conferencing attempts. It does not always work the first time. The lines do drop
out, the video is sometimes unavailable, the audio may break up - but
persistence is rewarded. Remember
- "If you never go, you'll never ever know!" |
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17 June, 2000 |
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It
was particularly noticeable that video conferencing allows the audience
and speaker to see each other's reactions and read each other's body
language.