Technology's Impact on Education Part I

Who's watching you?

Generic video conferencing camera

Organisational Impact

At the University of the South Pacific where I taught for almost a decade, we had an almost obscene amount of technology particularly for a university placed in a developing region. This was in part probably because it was (and remains) a favoured place for a donor organisations to donate money and expertise towards. Sadly (warning, cynical content to follow) the donors didn't really understand about learning – and sadly most of our academic staff at USP didn't have a real clue either. Take for instance, the hair brained idea of the Japanese aid organisation (JICA), to kit out the university with a new satellite network technology that would span almost all the countries that it represents (11 of the 12 countries, spanning an area that is more than 4 times the area of western Europe). The satellite technology would integrate telephone communications (I could call a colleague from Fiji in Western Samoa and it would 'cost' the same as calling my colleague down the corridor from me), internet and the brand new video conferencing facilities that we had read and heard about or seen on US TV shows.

Given that it was 'free' the USP didn't blink in accepting this generous gift. However, it has since been abandoned principally because it served NO significant advantage to the existing (meagre) mechanisms in either teaching or learning activities. What it did do however, was gobble up enormous quantities of technical time having the technicians trying to implement the scheme. It closed down the existing (audio alone) satellite tutorial studio and replaced it with a studio that had more limitations, for instance we could only have two way talk with two other campuses, whereas the old system could link up to theoretically 6 other stations (certainly more than two). It chewed up time with lecturers desperately trying to utilise the technology to please their departmental and school heads but with a realisation that it didn't work. I can't resist setting the scene here. 

So picture a room with a screen and next to it a camera pointing at myself and 12 students sitting around me. We can see another room in Vanuatu, we have a few students in the Solomon Islands but our bandwidth has been used up by the audio/video feed going both ways. I've got a small joystick that can move the remote camera in Vanuatu and zoom in and out. However, the lag between me trying to move the camera and it actually moving is so bad that one always overshoots and over zooms. In the end I ask the technician in Vanuatu to reset the camera for me and I leave it well alone. I can see a picture in picture of us on our screen. We're just a see of faces only 8 can fit on the screen. Our tutorial starts on time but the technicians have forgotten about the time differences between the two countries so we wait for 20 minutes whilst 3 out of 8 students are rounded up. One of which was super early. She plays with the remote video control and then learns like me that she can't really make use of it, so she asks me to reset the camera at my end for her. Finally we start, here's the conversation as I remember it (I'm using a convention which there are basically three identified in the conversation, myself, Suva - to mean any of the students sitting in the studio with me, and Vanuatu - any of the students sitting in the Vanuatu studio.

Me: Hello, I'm Robin the course writer for PS203, welcome to our first USPNet tutorial. I'm going to quickly ask the other students to introduce themselves.

Suva 1: Hello my name is Clare, I'm studying …

Vanuatu 1: Hello, can you hear me?

Me: Yes we can hello!

Vanuatu 1: We can't see which one is Robin.

Me: Sorry that would be me with my hand up.

Vanuatu 1: OK we still can't see you properly we're going to zoom in …

Vanuatu 2: Don't do that, it takes forever to adjust and reset.

[we can see the Pic in Pic version of ourselves go all over the place. Finally I'm asked if we can reset our camera. We've now come into 35 mins of our 60 minute tutorial].

Me: I'm afraid that you're going to have to just make do with seeing 8 very small faces on the screen. At least there are only three of you. Maybe we can start with you introducing yourself to us?

Vanautu 1: Ok my name is David, I'm studying Economics and Management.

Me: Err David are you part of my course PS203?

Vanuatu 1: I thought this was EC203?

Me: Sorry no, this is a psychology statistics course, you're welcome to stay if you want.

Vanuatu 1: So sorry, no thanks I'll move on.

[and with that David reaches over to the satellite communication microphone and presses the mute button, get's up and leaves]

Me: Alright, maybe we can continue?

[we see Vanuatu 2 speaking but cannot hear her]

Me: Hello, we cannot hear you, I think David put your mute button on, you have to press the red central button.

Vanuatu 2: Hello can you hear me?

Me: Yes, well done, please can you repeat what you said.

Vanuatu 2: Hello my name is Sara, I'm studying psychology and journalism, and this here is my classmate Cassandra.

Vanuatu 3: Hi.

Me: Hello. Look we've currently got less than 20 minutes of the tutorial. Do you mind if we skip the introductions on our end?

Vanuatu 1 & 2: No.

Me: OK, well we've had three weeks of doing the course, are there any questions up to now?

Suva 2: Yes, I'd like to ask can I have an extension on my first assignment?

Me: Ok look it's probably best that we speak about this outside of the tutorial …

Vanuatu 2: Hello, we didn't get that last question.

Me: It's nothing sorry - any other questions?

Suva 3: Can you explain a bit more about how to interpret a frequency distribution graph?

Me: Thank you for that excellent question. Look I thought this question might come up so I've prepared a series of slides which we can beam across to you from the computer doing Powerpoint here. I'll just switch the view over.

[we can see that your Pic in Pic screen has gone suspiciously blue]

Me: Hello can you see the slides that I've prepared?

Vanuatu 2: Hello we cannot see you any more but we can still hear you.

Me: That's fine you're not supposed to see us anymore you're supposed to see a computer screen with a diagram on it of a frequency distribution. Can you see that?

Vanuatu 1: Hello, you're not on the screen any more, is that normal?

Me: Yes, that's normal, you're not supposed to see us anymore, can you see the frequency distribution graph?

Suva 1: Perhaps we should flick back to us again so they can see that it's supposed to change.

Me: Good idea, hang on I'm switching back to the view with us in it again. OK see it.

Vanuatu 3: Ok we're waiting.

Me: OK great, so now that you can see us I'll switch back to the graph again.

Vanuatu 1: Ok.

Me: Ok so when you look at the graph …

Vanuatu 2: OK we just saw your faces come back on the screen again.

Me: Great, has it gone again.

Vanuatu 2: Yes, it's gone again.

Me: What do you see now?

Vanuatu 3: We saw you again.

Me: and now what do you see?

Vanuatu 3: Now we don't see you.

Me: Do you see anything else?

Vanuatu 2: We can see a blue screen.

Me: Is there anything on the blue screen?

Vanuatu 2: No.

Me: OK standby there's a technical hitch.

[a technician comes in, sees the situation at our end and then goes back to his control room to phone the counterpart in Vanuatu. We shortly see another man come into the Vanuatu studio and then everything goes blank after he clearly fiddles with the camera. Our technician reboots the system. We've got less then 10 minutes to go]

Me: sorry about this. OK you should now see us again. I'm going to have one last try on this, I'm changing over now to the graph, can you see it?

Vanuatu 2: Yes, thanks it's on the screen. We cannot see it very well because the writing is too small.

Me: That's funny we can see it very clearly at our end, anyone else find it hard to read at our end?

Suva 4: It's pretty clear at our end, but maybe the picture is less clear at their end.

Me: Is the picture quite fuzzy?

Vanuatu 2: Yes, even when we see you, everyone is fuzzy, especially if you move around.

Me: OK let me try something here, I'm going to change the font size to be more legible. Is this ok?

Vanuatu 2&3: Yes we can read it now. Thank you.

Me: I've just been told that we've only got 3 minutes left of the tutorial and there's another one booked straight after this. Please write to me on email. I'll send out this graphic in a Word document for you to open up and read on your email. Is that OK?

Suva 5: Can I just ask, can you give us any hints as to what will come up on the open book exam?

Me: Yes but not today, that's still over 9 weeks away and you'll see a full description in your notes.

Vanuatu 2: Hello, I don't think I got those notes, I'd like very much to know what to expect in the exam.

Me: You're saying that you haven't received the intro-pack with all the course details and assignments on it?

Vanuatu 3: None of us have, we thought today you were going to tell us about it.

Vanuatu 2: Ah here comes the rest of our class.

[we see lots of shuffling as a further four students join our existing two ni-Vanuatu students]

Me: Hello

Suva 2, 4, 6, 7: Hello

Vanuatu 4, 5, 6, 7: Hello.

Me: Look I'm sorry about …

And the screen goes blue. The technician tells us that the feed has gone down on a timer because they have to set up the next feed to Samoa which is due to start in 5 minutes. Could we vacate the room asap. We convene in the hall outside whilst the next tutorial traipses past us. I wish the frightened looking lecturer my most sincere 'best of luck'.

Sadly this wasn't an isolated experience (ie practice did not make things easier), and I learnt that it was best to make optimal use of the time by never touching the camera controls, never introducing ourselves (because we were not seen except as a fuzzy moving head) and always trying to focus on very very practical matters such as if they had their notes, feedback, instructions, course book, inter-library loans etc. In other words I never tried 'teaching in these sessions again.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.