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Vol.30 No.2, April 1998
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Vol.30 No.2, April 1998 |
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One of our goals while at Apple was to support and strengthen Apple's core K-12 business. A lesson we learned in studying technology use in a local high school was that teachers often have technology in their classrooms, but they do not know how to effectively integrate it into their curricula. Because schools today are just beginning to ramp up on technology development, teachers often need significant help with the logistical, managerial and pedagogical issues associated with technology. Apple had a strong track record of providing just such support to teachers.
In previous research, we had studied a digital photography class at Lincoln High School in San Jose. We were impressed with the way sophisticated technology was being used in a high school classroom to great effect (Nardi and Reilly, 1996a, 1996b) in an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse school. We created a CD-ROM documenting the classroom experience which is now used by Apple marketing and by high school teachers who can order the CD-ROM through Starting Line, an Apple catalog service. The students enjoyed creating digital photos and learned something about both art and computers. For students who do not have computers at home -- 2/3 of the USA nationally -- exposure at school is critical.
But computers need to be effectively integrated into the curriculum to be interesting and useful to students. At Lincoln High, the digital photography class was an art class that happened to use computers. The students were taught about composition, color, lighting, and other general principles of photography. They also learned skills peculiar to digital photography such as manipulating and blending images, but the focus was always on the art. We think this is an excellent model of how to use computers at school.
Many teachers would like to offer digital photography to their students but they don't quite know how to get started, or they may feel isolated being the only one in their school with such an interest. To meet these needs, we designed and implemented an online course in digital photography for high school teachers. We hoped this would be a cost-effective way to reach teachers and give them access to others with shared interests. We hired a high school teacher from San Jose who teaches digital photography and who we had worked with in the past to plan the curriculum and conduct the course. We provided the technical support, and a server.
The demand for the course was overwhelming. We offered the course twice. The first time we had 150 applications and the second time 304 (with little advertising). We could only accommodate 15 students in the first class and 25 in the second class.
From a research point of view, we wanted to learn whether simple tools such as chat and bulletin boards can be used effectively for distance education. What we learned, in a nutshell, was that the simple constellation of online tools we used for the course -- chat, bulletin boards, email, and Web pages -- worked very well to create a community of high school teachers interested in digital photography. The first course was so successful that we conducted another one, taught by two of the students from the first course who volunteered to teach the course without pay (although we gave them some equipment as a gift). Our students did extensive evaluations of their experiences in the course and the responses were very positive.
The development of the course was a natural extension of our research model of working intensively with Apple customers. After we had learned so much about digital photography in the ethnographic work at Lincoln, and recognized the need for education for high school teachers, the CD-ROM became a tool in the next phase of the research. We built the online course on the scaffolding of our in-depth experience in a school as documented in the CD-ROM.
The course ran for eight weeks and involved six assignments which had been adapted from the classroom digital photography course previously taught by the instructor (such as colorizing and manipulation). The chat time (4:00 PM PST) influenced our choice of participants, as we could accommodate teachers on the East Coast of the US and Canada who were willing to either stay late at school or could connect from home, along with teachers on the West Coast who had just completed the school day.
Many online courses use the distance learning model of instruction in which content is delivered to students and they use the Internet to discuss their work and meet with an instructor and other students (Collis, 1996). We took a somewhat different approach. Rather than focus on the instructional aspects of the course and attempt to recreate the classroom experience, we decided to emphasize the differences that an online course can bring to the learning experience, especially the possibility of developing a sense of community in which sharing ideas and enthusiasms with others is the key focus. Initially, we hoped that the online discussions about each student's work would be the key feature which would help form a learning community among the participants. We were skeptical of the whole idea of chat based on personal experiences and even considered using chat only on a limited basis. Much to our surprise, the weekly chat became the central event each week. After the third or fourth week of the course, the students were arriving early and staying late at the chats. By the end of the course, many of the students were so attached to the chats that they asked to use the chat room on their own and continued to meet for several weeks, at which point they wrote a proposal to continue their online course experience by creating their own web pages on the Apple server.
While the chats were a surprising success, the online discussions were a little more hit and miss. Students posted their images to a discussion board and commented on each others' work. At the beginning of the course, posting images to the server was a complex technical issue which involved using ftp software and adding HTML commands to start the discussion about the image. After the first week, the process was streamlined, much to the relief of the participants.
Some student work drew comments from nearly all the participants while others only received a sentence or two from the instructor. Not all students completed all the assignments, and not everyone spent the same amount of time on their work or on their comments.
One issue we tried to address through the assignments and our choice of participants was the balance between a tool emphasis (Adobe Photoshop) and a digital photography emphasis. We deliberately chose applicants who mentioned how they would apply digital photography with their students and avoided applicants who expressed an interest in learning Photoshop. We tried to steer the assignments towards photography and away from just learning the tools. We also attempted to keep the chat sessions focused on content and the application of digital photography in the classroom.
Students enjoyed most of the assignments, but were particularly enthusiastic about the last one, which involved collaborating via the Internet on a collage with another participant in the course. Here, the students shared images via email, discussed their plans using email and chat, and produced either a single image or variations based on the same set of images.
ACOTNet, the Web-based education environment that was used as the vehicle for the course, includes a regular password-protected Web site that contains course content (syllabus, resources, chat transcripts, links to other Web sites).
The server environment includes the following hardware components and software applications:
In addition to the ACOTNet server environment, we also used and tested two external servers supporting live chats:
One of the most exciting tools that was used in the course was the RoundTable conference server. Though it was only introduced to the course participants at the end of the first course, they immediately recognized the potential of such a tool for real collaboration over the Web. RoundTable was used as the main chat environment for the second course. Another major improvement for the second course will be an easier way to submit/download graphical images to the ACOTNet server and embed them into posted messages on Web Crossing's discussion board from within a Web browser.
Each participant filled out an extensive evaluation form which covered all aspects of the course, including the assignments, software, and suggestions for revising the course. While many participants mentioned the technical problems they encountered with the chat and discussion software, those who completed the course were generally excited about the experience. As one wrote,
Participation in the course has been a wonderful experience. It has given me ideas for curricula, information about technology, a renewed sensitivity to a student perspective of learning, and enthusiasm for online education. Though I have repeatedly felt guilty about the time I have used on course work, rather than on fulfilling other responsibilities, I have treasured the experience...Being part of this research has made me, I hope, a better teacher.
Another responded,
It was a truly stimulating and invigorating class, one I'm sure will take a long time to forget and by the way I printed out darn near everything we did, for future reference, so if you lost anything and want a copy, call me.
One instructor described how this course changed his view of the Internet:
I really enjoyed the prospect of exploring distance learning and expanding (firsthand) the possibilities and the potential to reach beyond the classroom. A lot has been written about the isolation of the classroom teacher and how the Internet can provide solutions. Until this course, my experience with the net had still been pretty much a one way street. The ability to converse, cooperate, and collaborate with peers in an on-going dialogue about all aspects of my subject area was a tremendous inspiration and motivation. I think technology educators can feel particularly isolated by the nature of their interest and passion for the exploration of how technology can enhance and contribute to the delivery of education. This course has reinforced by belief that I am not alone in the experimentation, research, and development of new applications of technology for the pure joy of learning. I can only think of the word, "synergistic" to describe the enjoyment from this experience.
The final assignment, which involved collaborating via the Web with at least one other student in the course, was mentioned as a particularly stimulating and challenging in several evaluations.
I enjoyed the collaboration assignment, despite technical difficulties, because of its potential in community building. It has the most potential for synergizing the creative abilities of multiple individuals. I believe in a world where our children will learn more and become more because of this synergy. Besides, it was fun...
While participants enjoyed the collaborative project and the way it helped them get to know others in the course, it was the last assignment, so the value of the community building that took place was short-lived. In the second course, we have incorporated some suggestions to speed up the process of participants getting to know one another. These include requiring a personal web page as the first assignment (optional in the first course and done by only one student), structuring the way students comment on other students' work so that everyone's work will be reviewed each week, and splitting the class into smaller groups for two chats per week. The collaborative assignment remains the final assignment and perhaps in the next revision of the course we can incorporate an additional collaborative project.
Collis, B. (1996). Tele-learning in a Digital World. London: Thomson Computer Press.
Nardi, B. and Reilly, B. (1996a). Interactive Ethnography: Beyond Being There. Innovation 15, 2.
Nardi, B. and Reilly, B. (1996b). Digital Photography at Lincoln High: An Interactive Ethnography. (on CD-ROM).
Bonnie A. Nardi is an anthropologist, formerly in the Advanced Technology Group at Apple Computer. She is the author of A Small Matter of Programming: Perspectives on End User Computing (MIT Press, 1993) and the editor of Context and Consciousness: Activity Theory and Human-Computer Interaction (MIT Press, 1996).
Brian Reilly worked with the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow project as a developer and researcher over the past nine years, where he was involved in several projects and studies related to the use of multimedia in schools.
Reinhold Steinbeck's background is in international and cross-cultural education where he worked for 10 years before coming to Apple Computer in 1996. He was a member of the Advanced Technology Group at Apple until it was dissolved in November 1997, and was the manager of the ACOTNet Research and Development Project, the Web-based learning environment for the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow Program (ACOT). Before joining ACOT, he spent five years as curriculum developer and project manager with the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) at Stanford University. His undergraduate work in international business and technology includes degrees from the University of Reutlingen, Germany, and from Middlesex University, London. He also holds an advanced degree in International and Multicultural Education from the University of San Francisco.
Bonnie Nardi: nardi@best.com
Brian Reilly: ReillyB123@aol.com
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Vol.30 No.2, April 1998 |
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