Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

3 – Challenges Confronted and Lessons (Un)Learned
The course takes off
The course started on January 7, 2008 at 8:00 A.M. PST
and 4:00 P.M. Ghana Time and 8:00 P.M. in Bangalore,
India, with 35 students at Kwantlen University College,
six students in Ghana, and one student in Bangalore,
India. Initially, we anticipated twice the number of
Kwantlen students taking the course from UGL. This
was not to be, because the University of Ghana was
closed due to the African Cup of Nations Football (Soccer)
Tournament that was held in Ghana in the months
of January and February. Thus, six graduate students
ended up enrolling in the course, instead of about 70
potential undergraduate students.
The course was held in labs equipped with computers,
projectors and screens at both sites—KUC and
UGL. I had two course assistants, Kaelan Wong, a
Kwantlen University College science major, and Sandy
Hirtz of BCcampus. Dr. Darkwah was assisted by Mr.
Patrick Kuti, webmaster for UGL. The lone student in
Bangalore in India—Laura Johnson accessed the course
through a computer terminal.
Division of labour
Dr. Darkwah and I agreed at the planning stage that we
divided the lecture and discussion sessions between us. I
was to lead the lectures and discussions for the month of
January and Dr. Darkwah was to take over in February. I
was to take over in March and April. The lab sessions
were conducted by course assistant Kaelan with assistance
from me and Sandy.
DAY ONE
A virtual interactive classroom was the first of its kind at
Kwantlen University College. Naturally, day one was
filled with anxiety and uncertainty, but also anticipation
and excitement. Neither I nor my students and course
assistants had any idea what to expect. I did my best to
assuage the fears and uncertainties of my students by
assuring them that the course was a steep learning curve
for all of us—instructors, course assistants and students.
Sandy Hirtz is an expert in Elluminate, being the
BCcampus Online Community Producer. Kaelan took
training courses in Elluminate and Moodle during the
Summer. I had gone through my own training a year
ago, but to what to extent the amount of training will
come into play could only be gauged when interacting
with the students. Both programs seemed straightforward
enough. The interface was laid out in a user-friendly
format. Icons were for the most part appropriately assigned.
The first day was devoted to familiarizing students
with the “bells and whistles”—the technological aspects
of the course. This was done superbly by course assistant
Sandy Hirtz of BCCampus. It was decided that it would
be best if there was some way to record each lecture and
have them posted online for student access. This would
allow students to revisit the lecture should there be a
technological failure that day. The first attempt was
made by utilizing a digital video camera to record the
lecture and then uploading it online. This method had
to be abandoned due to the large file size of digitized
two-hour lecture recording. The Moodle server was
unable to host such a large file. Other programs were
looked at as a possibility to record the lecture but in the
end, the built in recording tool in the Elluminate program
was used due to its simplicity and ease of access for
students. Recordings were saved via the Elluminate website
and a link was provided to each recorded lecture.
For the most part, Elluminate showed very little
problems with execution. PowerPoint lectures were
loaded onto the whiteboard in the program and students
from both BC and Ghana can view them on their own
computers. The audio was clear, although there was
some delay when transmitting from Ghana. Due to this
problem, audio output was only limited to one set of
speakers. Multiple speaker outputs from different computers
produced a garbled effect in that each computer
were receiving the audio at different rates. The web
camera was available for use to see students from both
sides of the globe. This, however, was rarely utilized. The
whiteboard was also used when students were asked for
their input during lectures. A blank whiteboard would
be put up and students would type in their ideas so that
everyone can see it. Most students actively participated
during these sessions. During lab sessions, students used
the whiteboard to communicate with their fellow group
members as well as compile their lab work.
There were complaints from a number of students
that the whiteboard was not a very effective method for
placing text. First of all, since its functions mirrored that
of Windows Paint, it is limited in its word processing
capabilities. Students have suggested that it should have
a built in word processor for working on collaborative
lab work. Also, frustration arose when students wanted
to save their lab work and be able to edit it at home. The
whiteboard can only be saved as a whiteboard file and so
it was not compatible with other word editing software.
Also, the file can only be opened in Elluminate.
The only option that students had was to use the
“print screen” function and save an image of their work.
38 Education for a Digital World