Tuesday, February 11, 1997
TECHNOLOGY:
Intercampus discussions are made possible with
teleconferencingBy Jennifer Mukai
Daily Bruin Contributor
"Lights. Camera. Action!"
Professor Robert Edelman stares intently into the three monitors
before him. Around him, six students shift their attention between
watching the monitors along with him, and glancing at the two
television cameras aimed at the small group from just a few feet
away. All are bathed in a hot white light streaming from the dozen
or so lights suspended from a battered framework overhead.
It’s not Hollywood. Nor is it Burbank. It’s not even Melnitz
Hall. The place is actually the Center for Health Sciences, deep in
South Campus. Today’s topic  Russian and Soviet history.
Confused? It’s true that this is no ordinary history class.
Edelman’s seminar is just one of several this quarter which are
taking advantage of the University of California’s Distance
Learning program.
For approximately 12 years, Distance Learning has connected UCLA
classrooms with other campuses within the UC system and beyond, via
a variety of communications media. According to Daytra Hansel, a
teleconferencing and Distance Learning specialist at UCLA, the
program has enabled students to collaborate with other universities
and specialists all over the world in a number of fields, including
public health, Korean economics, English literature, linguistics
and engineering.
This quarter, history and technology collide in Edelman’s class,
whose students are discussing Soviet history and culture with peers
from UC Riverside (UCR) and UC Santa Barbara (UCSB) via two-way,
real-time audio and video teleconferencing. This particular medium
was incorporated into the Distance Learning program about three
years ago, said Hansel, and is only one means by which students and
professors who are miles apart stay in touch with one another.
The telephone, once pivotal to Distance Learning, remains a
significant tool of communication these days, though less so now
with the expansion of the Internet. E-mail, the World Wide Web and
cyber "chat rooms" are serving as a supplement or even as a
replacement for office hours for some Distance Learning classes, as
a solution to the problems that distance and scheduling conflicts
present.
UCLA instructor Lynda Stone said she is taking advantage of
several Distance Learning features for her "Culture, Communication
and Development" child development class. She has set up an e-mail
discussion list, a World Wide Web bulletin board and Web chat.
She also makes conference calls by telephone, and her class
meets five times per quarter in Powell Library’s Distance Learning
studio for discussions with a corresponding class at UC San Diego
(UCSD).
Tracy Tsui, a third-year Chinese studies student who took
Stone’s class last quarter, said she found the interaction with
UCSD students enlightening.
"It’s valuable to be able to talk to others who are in a
different environment," she said, adding that it was an interesting
expansion on the course material to see how the UCSD students
applied theories differently from her UCLA classmates.
Still, said Tsui, the teleconferencing itself took some getting
used to, in terms of learning to create truly fluid interaction.
Sometimes people would get interrupted, or it was simply difficult
to see and hear everyone, she explained.
UCLA Professor Carole Goldberg-Ambrose, who taught a Distance
Learning course on "Indian Law and U.S. Law" to UC Berkeley
students last year, cited some of these same difficulties as very
frustrating. Because UC Berkeley’s camera lacked the capacity to
include the entire room, she said, some of the students there
seemed almost invisible, with no way to make eye contact.
"This leaves some students feeling they can be disengaged,
because nobody can see them," she noted. As a partial solution,
Goldberg-Ambrose said she made an effort to visit the Berkeley
campus three times during the semester, to meet her students there
face to face. "Especially around the time of exams, (students) need
some reassurance as well as information," she said.
Amanda Roraback, a third-year graduate student in Soviet history
and one of Edelman’s pupils this quarter, also said she has had
trouble adapting to teleconferencing sessions. "You can’t have a
comfortable conversation," she said. "I think what needs to happen
is, teachers are going to have to learn a whole different way of
conducting class."
"It’s like having one giant classroom," where students are no
longer limited to a single campus, said Roraback.
The boundaries between campuses are already blurring. Edelman
himself is actually a faculty member of UCSD. UCLA Professor
Stephen Frank stated that "desperation" led Edelman, himself, and a
handful of other colleagues from across the UC system to Distance
Learning as a means of building a stronger program for Russian and
Soviet history.
"We had a few graduate students floating around, and all these
specialists," he explained. "So, the brainstorm was to bring them
all together. And lo and behold, it’s working."
However, while happy with the results of Distance Learning,
Richard Hecht, a professor of religious studies at UCSB, said he
was dissatisfied with the UC Regents’ outlook on the program.
According to Hecht, teleconferencing was presented by the UC
Office of the President many years ago as a possible alternative to
make education more efficient and less costly.
"I think the regents are wrong in looking at (teleconferencing)
as cost-efficient," he said, pointing out that the required studio
equipment and technologies are extremely expensive. "The real power
of this technology is to extend the vision of the University of
California, which is supposed to relate research to the
classroom."
Hecht went on to say that he felt that individual campuses
should not have to absorb the cost of such equipment out of
budget.
"We have to have a policy from the UC Office of the President
which makes teleconferencing a part of the regular budget for every
class, rather than as an add-on," he declared.
Julie Gordon, coordinator of Intercampus Academic Program
Delivery at the UC Office of the President in Oakland, responded by
emphasizing that teleconferencing, along with the Distance Learning
program as a whole, is still very much in experimental stages. At
this point, she said, the Office of the President and the
individual UC campuses are still in the process of assessing the
costs of teleconferencing as instructional media.
"Ultimately," Gordon said, "we will need to incorporate (those
costs) into the instructional budget. If we want to sustain these
new ways of teaching and learning, they will have to be
incorporated into the instructional budget."
Despite the Distance Learning program’s current flaws, Roraback
said she is sure it is the wave of the future. "After this, a
single classroom seems limiting," she said.
Tsui didn’t seem so sure. "I’d love to take Distance Learning
(again) as a supplement, but not as a replacement," she said. In a
more conventional classroom, she explained, "Everyone’s right
there, you just can’t replace that." But, she said later, it all
depends on the attitude of the student.
"It is different, a completely different experience," she mused.
"You’ve gotta give it a chance."
GENEVIEVE LIANG/Daily Bruin
Professor Robert Edelman (lower right) moderates a discussion
during a Russian and Soviet history Distance Learning class between
UCLA, UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara students.