The discussion on virtual class rooms is interesting. I have a couple
of questions. If these are stale, pardon my lagging behind. I am still
new to the list and the idea of virtual class rooms.
1. University education not only imparts knowledge but also
socializes. We pick up not just friendships but also behavior patterns
that are likely to last a life time. Now, is not the virtual class room
inimical to those purposes? Or is it that the very purpose of
university education is changing and we are playing a diminishing role
as socializers (I don't think academics played a serious socializing
role in the latter half of this century. However, universities did
provide the environment). If our purpose is changing, then are there
alternative institutions springing up to take up the slack? Are the
students ready for such a change in other spheres?
2. Virtual discussions are all right but should we not also
consider the student talent level? I do expect some brickbats for
commenting that not all students are equal but if we are asking the
students to discuss with us the problems, we expect the students to be
talented enough to grasp most of the materials on their own and engage
in advanced discussion for insights with us.
This poses two problems in my mind. With the exception of 10% of the
student body or 10% of the universities all over the world, I doubt if
we have such high calibre students in all universities. And I doubt if
academics in all univerisities (most, in fact) have the capability to
offer insights beyond the textbook, even if the students measure up.
I might sound like a prejudiced character but even if there is a grain
of truth in what I think, then virtual class rooms may be a success in
only those universities where the students are extremely bright and the
faculty match the students. Else, it will be a distance learning program
through television, with the same old boring lecture- in fact, if
distance learning program reputations are anything to go by,
substandard.
This is a hypothesis. I welcome my colleagues to update me on the
developments and refute my thinking. I realize that I made some strong
statements and I welcome strong comments. Again , these might be stale
issues for many of you. But let me share with you an exchange in a
recent management conference. We had this session on ethics and later on
I was talking to one of the presenters. I asked her, "How do you cope
with some of the awkward ethical questions especially with regard to
multinationals ? The students see the direct contradiction between our
promotion of business and our preaching of ethics !" Her response was:
" Nothing much! My students are not that analytical anyway." I don't
think she has an attitude problem; nor was she jesting. She stated a
fact.
Rao Kowtha, Singapore.
N. Rao Kowtha
Department of Organisational Behavior
Faculty of Business Administration
National University of Singapore
10 Kent Ridge Crescent
Singapore 119260, Singapore
Tel: (65) 8743049
Fax: (65) 775 5571
-----Original Message-----
From: Charlie Wankel [SMTP:
cx@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Friday, October 03, 1997 5:30 PM
To:
MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
Subject: Holding classes with visually enhanced Chat
In the Thursday, October 2, 1997 online version of the Chronicle
of Higher
Education which should shortly be revisited in the hard paper
version
there was an article on the use of a "the Palace" type chat room
by
Georgia Institute of Technology in its composition courses
entitled "Universities
Use Cartoon Chat Rooms for Serious Learning" by Kelly McCollum.
"Professors look like comic book characters while they're
lecturing.
Students' disembodied heads float around the classroom. Is
this a
cartoon horror movie or just creative pedagogy? Actually,
it's a
novel on-line teaching environment that students in some
freshman
composition courses at the Georgia Institute of Technology
are
trying out this semester."
"Called TechLINC,
<http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/techlinc/>
the system is a network of on-line chat and
meeting rooms where students and professors can hold
discussions, find course materials, and work together on
writing
assignments."
"Holding class in a chat room is nothing new. Many professors
have
set up text-based on-line classrooms as part of
distance-education
programs, or to see whether students communicate differently
using electronic text, or just to offer additional office
hours. But
Richard Grusin, chairman of Georgia Tech's School of
Literature,
Communication, and Culture, says the TechLINC system is
"more
visual and graphic."
The students are represented by still photographs that they move
around a cartoon university building which different "rooms"
that
students and faculty and move through and watch the chat of
various
participants typed for all in "the room" to read.
Dr. Grusin said that "At some point this will be happening
with
real-time video and audio," he says. "We're trying to figure
out,
when this happens, what do you do? What are the pedagogical
uses?"
......
" Syracuse University is also using the Palace this fall, in two
distance-education courses in information-resources
management.
The more than 60 students who take the courses never meet in
a
classroom. Instead, they hold discussions and collaborate on
writing assignments in Palace rooms."
It is my understanding that the Chronicle of Higher Education's
electronic
form <http://chronicle.com/> comes out before its hard paper
form.
Subscribers to the Chronicle in hard form get full text access
while others
get only abstracts.
At the Georgia Institute of Technology site I found the
statement:
VISITORS: For information on how
you can be given a tour through the
actual TechLINC site, please visit the
ACCESS section of our website.
Cybercollegially,
Charlie Wankel
mg-ed-dv
netmaster