Peder Saether Symposium (March 9-10, 2000)
Dr. Gunnar Backman Presentation
Dr. Gunnar Backman, Managing Director, The Swedish Learning Lab, Uppsala University, Sweden
Quality at High Speed?
I would like to start with mentioning that the Swedish Learning Lab is the name of a collaboration in Sweden between three different institutions for higher education, that is, Uppsala University, the Royal Technical Institute in Stockholm, the KTH, and also the Karalinska Institute, which is a medical school. So there’s three Swedish partners in this collaboration.
We are currently involved in a joint venture with Stanford University, which includes a high speed link for collaboration in the educational field. In the beginning, establishing the link, which is called the Sweden-Silicon Valley Link, was a technical challenge. Today, the link has become an ingredient in a much larger undertaking, and that is, the collaboration between the Stanford Learning Lab and the Swedish Lab, in what is called Volenberg Global Learning Network, which is focusing on a few important elements in educational development.
The rapid expansion of IT presents an ongoing challenge for educational institutions, in their teaching, research, and community roles. There is a demand from students, from new categories of students, from corporate partners, and from other segments of society for more flexible forms of higher education. The increasing presence of advanced IT environments in society will create pressure on academic institutions to upgrade their educational environments. Global competition requires universities to be able to provide the best courses with the best teachers, therefore, universities need to collaborate. Work environments are increasingly global, distributed, collaborative, and universities need to prepare students for that working life. But more important, to provide the best education in terms of learning, we have to explore which learning modes, what work methods, and what learning environments contribute to better learning outcomes. That is what the Learning Lab is focused on.
Some educational institutions have begun rising to today’s challenges, with several common issues emerging. Despite these common issues, there are currently few systematic attempts to coordinate developments across educational institutions. The Stanford Learning Lab and the Swedish Learning Lab collaboration is an initiative in that direction, and the foci in the Sweden-Stanford partnership and the implementation of advanced, IT-based learning in academics environments, including features as the high-speed connectivity are, we want to develop IT-supported education, with student engagements and responsibilities and focus which lead to improved learning outcomes. We explore for specific areas of study whether certain advanced IT tools are preferable, depending on core structures and educational content. We explore whether proposed collaborative learning and IT-supported learning settings promote individual engagement and emotional satisfaction. We explore whether IT-supported learning environments, if they impact the development of teacher’s professionalism, including motivation and willingness to implement new approaches to teaching. And we explore whether excellence in learning is reinforced by collaborative work in globally distributed teams, comparative activities in local teams. And also, we explore whether IT-supported learning offers students high quality educational activities in an individualized way, without an increase in cost. Implementation takes place within the framework of regular academic activity and courses, and is subject to rigorous assessment of the learning outcomes.
The backbone of the link consists of a T1 link between Stanford and KTH in Stockholm. And the T1 link is a 1-1/2 megabit link. We cannot use the Internet, since Internet does not guarantee bandwidth. Instead, we have a connection which consists of a defined area which we can call the private Internet. On the applications side, we use the Embolin for video conferencing and cooperative work, and video stream there’s some video multicast tools, and a Web-based framework for course material, including chat tools and Web boards, etc. The system offers synchronous video conferencing, which can include document sharing, and Web board, and chat, etc. It is a point-to-point connection, which gives the partners continuous on-line service and unlimited access. The system is used primarily for academic work, but it also can be used for administrative work.
Benefits. In the shared courses between the Sweden institutions and Stanford, the system is used primarily for student collaboration. It gives the students the opportunity to view each other’s sites, which gives a sense of presence and proximity. It gives them the chance to communicate ideas, to discuss common areas of interest for common problems, and it gives them an opportunity to share knowledge, experience, documents, and designs and so forth. But also, they learn to cope with new challenges and cultural difference, time difference, and language problems, etc. And it gives them access to assets that are not available otherwise. Experience so far shows that this environment adds opportunity, excitement, and a social dimension which is very appreciated. Students acknowledge that the collaboration is more challenging, but also more inspiring and rewarding than the regular course format, and that the international partnership adds valuable perspective to their education.
In the high speed learning environment, there are two areas that we should focus on: the technical and functional issues, but also the pedagogical and methodological issues. Let’s start with the first one. The communication system has to maintain a high level of technical stability and offer full dependability.
Future solutions will have to be robust to gain confidence from teaching colleagues. Our technical teams are now testing new analytical tools which will help them to determine functional status and locate problems in the system. They also undertake comparative performance testing of the link versus new generation Internet connectivity. The next step is to determine which technology offers the highest dependability. Broad implementation requires simple solutions. The current systems require high operational competence. And for most non-experienced users, the system requires technical support at both ends of the line. To build a scaleable system, however, we need to develop user-friendly interfaces, and low-barrier self-instructive operation menus. Technicians don’t do this, but the average professor does, and the next student does. Also, at this time all extensions of the link connect through the same two nodes. In the future, we want to run independent multi-point connections, and among other things, this requires standard protocols.
Pedagogical/methodological issues. Well, what do we use the bandwidth for? If we look at transmission data in any video conference, we will find that the large part of that data transferred is the live image. Now, if we scrutinize image data, however, we will find that probably 75% of that image is not live at all. The main part of that image is just table surface or background, with very little or no critical information. Most technicians are simply absorbed by the technology, and they are completely unaware what they really use the transmission capacity for. To use the bandwidth wisely, I think we need to set up development teams consisting of different competencies, such as content providers, designers, pedagogues, to mention a few. But we also need to become aware, what is the critical area, the information to has to go live? Is it speech, people’s faces, live board drawings, or live text editing? And so forth. We need to have a higher awareness of what we are transmitting, and that the information that goes through the cable has high information density. We also need to look into the characteristics of the wired dialogue. How should we articulate ideas, and how do we communicate the message effectively in this environment? Even a tiny bit of sound delay disrupts the normal voice signals. We should invite speakers on the other side to comment. It is very hard to feel other people’s reaction to what you say over the cable. You cannot hear the other side when you speak yourself, you cannot hear interruptions, which means that it can be very hard to know when the other party wants to come in. The normal interplay in the conversation is simply not there.
We have to study the learning outcomes in these environments, and I will give a few examples of things that we should study. We have to explore for what purpose, and what activities, and what academic content the virtual collaborative environment is preferable. We have to study if the high performance environment reinforces learning in a way which can be assessed. What is the methodology for live white board sessions, for example, or for the mixture of features in those? We have to study for what size groups the environment is effective as a learning environment. And we have to study all students are equally active in this environment, or if the medium favors students with a certain background or personality. We have to study if the virtual environment invites students to become active, engaged, more involved, and to take more responsibility for their own learning development. Are teachers comfortable with the technology, do they favor a virtual environment, and does it make teachers more engaged in professional development and new approaches to learning? There are many more questions like this.
To be able to learn efficiently in a high speed environment, you first have to learn the properties of the medium and to master the medium. We need to learn how to implement this technology to set the expectations right. We have a long way to go, we’ve got a lot of work to do. Quality in communication and collaboration, and the learning outcomes cannot be taken for granted.
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