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In this case study we describe our experience of conducting a Study Skills program for Library Technology students via Edith Cowan's Virtual Campus system using Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). The students involved were from various locations in Australia and were connected via modem and computer to each other and to their tutors. The student response to the program was overwhelmingly positive. The quality of their work improved as did their confidence. In the process we also learnt a great deal about teaching in a CMC environment.
With the introduction of the Virtual Campus and its friendly informal chat sessions, students were able to voice their confusions over requirements, query meanings, ask advice on how to go about preparing for exams and generally bring their study worries to the attention of academic staff. They were also able to chat to each other and confirm that they were not the only ones who found the assignments confusing, the feedback too slow or were feeling inadequate and unable to cope.
In a recent article on distance education and interaction, Alfred Bork (1995) states 'Distance education depends on modern communication tactics' (p.228). Bork goes on to express the need for interaction with peers, with instructors and with learning programs. We decided to capitalise on the capabilities of the Virtual Campus to provide the means for these interactions to take place and to build a Study Skills program that could be offered via telecommunications.
At the same time, the Faculty of Education sent out a call for academics to apply for a place in a Quality Assurance program entitled 'Developing a program to enhance student learning' run by Denise Chalmers, Richard Fuller and Denise Kirkpatrick. Jan Ring applied for a place and was accepted. This course provided a structure and a resource on which to build the Study Skills Program via Virtual Campus.
Responses to the proposal from the students were positive and highlighted their awareness of problems they were facing. Four extracts are given below:
The Virtual Campus is a bit of a challenge! I am interested in the Study Skills group. I am enjoying the studying so far (!), but it's been a very long time since I had to write an essay!I'm a prime candidate for your sessions. I waffle on too much in writing and my notes are always twice as long as the original text!!! Is there any hope?
What a great idea - we certainly could do with all the help we can get!
I'll be there - stress management too?
Materials that students needed for sessions were posted electronically on the Study Skills notice board. These included sample questions that would be worked on during sessions and a list of verbs used in essays extracted with permission from 'Teaching for Learning at University' by Denise Chalmers and Richard Fuller (1996).
Some materials, such as readings and worksheets were sent out by regular mail. To comply with copyright regulations, readings were mailed rather than scanned and mounted electronically. We mailed forms rather than place them on the system for downloading as our students have a variety of computers, word processors and printers which made deciding on a common format difficult. The downloading facility on the Virtual Campus at the time was also plagued with problems. By mailing out materials, we made sure all students received a clean, correctly formatted version of the worksheets. The disadvantage was the delay involved in the postal service as we had to allow at least 7 days for delivery within Australia.
The extract below shows the opening comments of the first study skills session as it appeared on the screen. In this version of Chat (since replaced by IRC) only one line could be entered at a time. If a comment required more than one line then the symbols >> were used to indicate continued on next entry. This makes the conversation somewhat fractured and disjointed. Fortunately we were working with experienced Virtual Campus users who were already familiar with using the system.
| jring: | OK..class .. come to order!!!! ;-) |
| jring: | Lets try and get going as I have no idea how this will work but >> |
| rshillin: | OK i'm with you |
| mneumann: | Excellent |
| jring: | with such willing students it should be a breeze! I'll probably >> |
| wmcfadze: | I'm ready and waiting Jan |
| jring: | have to start with a lot of me talking (typing) OK?? |
| mkendall: | ok |
| ahuges: | ok |
| wmcfadze: | sure |
| jring: | That's the analysis for this one. Any probs before we move on? |
| wmcfadze: | no |
| mkendall: | not yet jan |
| mneumann: | no |
| vamurray: | no only trying to get rid of my two year old |
The use of 'smilies' and other conventions helped to convey the emotions we could not see or hear. The :-) indicating happy, the :-( indicating sad, the winking ;-) indicating 'just kidding' and the lol (laugh out loud) or rofl (roll on floor laughing) were in regular use.
The students made comments to each other as well as directly to their tutor. For example:
| jring: | You'll need the Internet reading I sent you and you'll also need the >> |
| ahuges: | I can hardly read mine Jan it is very feint |
| jring: | sheet with my printing on it. All got them?? |
| mkendall: | Squint a bit Anne!! ;-) |
These sorts of comments occur in on-campus classes all the time between students sitting next to each other. The teacher and other students might not hear the quick whispered interchange but in an on-line chat, every comment has equal weight in the overall interaction. People familiar with the environment are able to sort the cross-conversational comments into their relative place in the interaction and do not find them distracting. People new to the environment are usually hopelessly confused. We became aware that practice with the environment in informal sessions was necessary for both tutors and students before trying to engage in formal instruction.
Several of our activities required the students to form into groups to work through examples and to discuss what they were doing. To accomplish this in a physical classroom, the teacher would divide the groups into different portions of the room and then watch over them all, joining in each group in turn to monitor progress. In the Virtual Campus we assigned the groups to other tutorial rooms where they were totally out of sight. However it was possible to join groups and sit in on their conversations as is shown in the next extract. (The Welcome next to the tutor's name is generated by the system which makes it impossible to sneak up on a group without their knowledge.)
| jring: | Welcome! |
| mkendall: | In paras or points? |
| jring: | I'm lurking, ignore me |
| wmcfadze: | I just put para up |
| wmcfadze: | sure thing Jan ;-) |
| mkendall: | Para 4 - Journalists confuse no. of answers available on Internet >> |
| ahuges: | journalist confuses trivia with facts |
Setting students to work quietly, for example to read a portion of an article, was quite disconcerting. Suddenly all interaction stops and the tutor is faced with a blank screen with no way of watching over the students and nothing else to do. It is only when they re-appear on screen with a chorus of 'finished' and 'ready' comments that the tutor is again actively engaged in the process.
The environment also forces both tutor and students to make their points as succinctly as possible. When you see yourself speaking in paragraphs, you tend to feel enormously boring and automatically look for the best and simplest explanation. There is no place for verbosity in a text based environment. Speaking in text is also time consuming and as it is entered in haste, the typing and spelling is less than perfect. Regular Virtual Campus users are experts at deciphering typographical errors and newcomers are advised not to bother with time consuming deletes and edits.
The most disturbing aspect for us as teachers in this environment was the feeling of utter inadequacy and exhaustion at the end of each session. We attributed it to the lack of body-language feedback and the restrictions of working with text. All our usual methods of evaluating our instructional performance were missing as were our usual tools of trade, our voices and physical expression through gesture and movement. We always felt we had done a terrible job. If it had not been for the positive feedback from the students we would not have persisted. For once, we were reliant on their assessment of us.
This is excellent, I'm getting heaps out of it.The students enjoyed working in a class situation and being able to do group-work which is not normally possible for isolated students. Our sessions had students from various parts of Queensland, NSW and Victoria and a tutor located in Perth working together in the same tutorial.I'm so proud of myself, I went back over all my readings and now have great summaries to work with
Students appreciated the ability to capture sessions to a text file for later review. This gave them the chance to work in the session without the worry of taking notes to read through later. Not all students could attend every session so a full transcript was posted to the Study Skills bulletin board for reading or capturing at a later time. The transcript files also gave us the chance to review our own strategies and to consider ways in which we could improve our delivery and instruction.
A positive experience for everyone was the ability to receive and give feedback. External students have very little opportunity to be told instantly that what they are doing is great or whether they are missing a point. In this mode, the students were given immediate feedback both from us and from each other. Praise between students was often given in the form of good natured teasing. The extract below illustrates all these aspects (rfuller is the tutor, fmarsden is an external Religious Education student who joined the LibTechs for Study Skills, hence the tease about being a non library technician).
| rfuller: | you have to construct it for yourself, Fiona's is really good... |
| rfuller: | Val and Nicole are a bit general. you should be more precise. |
| mneumann: | Fi, you're dismissed!! |
| mkendall: | <for a non LT>!! ;-) |
| fmarsden: | };-] (that's my halo!) |
| ltunney: | read-only disc cannot be changed where as write-once and erasable>ca |
| ltunney: | can be. |
| rfuller: | good one Lorraine |
A major difficulty for the students was working from home in the evening with all the attendant distractions. The two extracts below illustrate this problem (vb stands for 'Virtual Baby').
| jring: | You keep doing that same process as you work thru the article. I've |
| jring: | only done the next para. I want you guys now to do the next >> |
| wmcfadze: | !!#! vb's crying |
| wmcfadze: | sounds like journo is bag of hot air! |
| mkendall: | Sorry - see what u mean Wendy - (Amy is now practising flute 6 ft |
| mkendall: | away from me!! :-( |
Despite the problems the students regularly attended sessions and made sure they read the transcripts of any they missed. All of our students passed their units and all are still in the course with the exception of mkendall (Marg). Marg has since graduated with flying colours and is now tutoring her own group of first years on the Virtual Campus.
Despite the negatives, everyone was agreed that we should try this method again.
The final word belongs to one of the students, who on being asked what she perceived as being the greatest benefit of the program replied:
It gives a sense of 'belonging' to the uni and a feeling that externals are important also.
Chalmers, D. & Fuller, R. (1996). Teaching for Learning at University: Theories and Practice. London: Kogan Page.
Ring, J. and Watson, A.C. (1995). The Virtual Campus, ECU's developmental path. In Beattie, K., McNaught, C. and Wills, S. (Eds), Interactive Multimedia in University Education. Amsterdam : Elsevier.
Wilson, V. (1995). The Virtual Campus: Encouraging the acquisition of information seeking skills with distance education students. In Booker, D. (Ed), The Learning Link: Information Literacy in Practice. Adelaide: Auslib Press.
| Authors: Jan Ring, Department of Library and Information Science, Edith Cowan University. Email: j.ring@cowan.edu.au
Vicky Wilson, Department of Library and Information Science, Edith Cowan University. Email: v.wilson@cowan.edu.au Assoc Prof Richard Fuller, Department of Teaching and Curriculum Studies, Edith Cowan University. Email: r.fuller@cowan.edu.au Please cite as: Ring, J., Wilson, V. and Fuller, R. (1996). Teaching study skills via telecommunications. Different Approaches: Theory and Practice in Higher Education. Proceedings HERDSA Conference 1996. Perth, Western Australia, 8-12 July. http://www.herdsa.org.au/confs/1996/ring.html |