In a UC Berkeley Finnish language class last fall, there were
little more than a handful of students ““ only half of which
attended Berkeley. The other half attended the class hundreds of
miles away at their own school ““ UCLA.
Combining classes across the UC system is becoming a more
promising idea, especially in the face of budget cuts, which have
eliminated many classes from each campus.
This is made possible through the technology of
videoconferencing, where one classroom can be broadcast live to
another classroom.
Students at the receiving end are able to participate as much as
students who are actually there, through “live audio and
video interaction, as if in the classroom. It is
instantaneous,” said Mel Strom, the long distance learning
coordinator at UCLA.
Though this method appears highly unconventional compared to the
basic classroom setting, it is one of the only solutions for
students looking to take classes no longer offered at their home
campus.
This is especially important for the less commonly taught
languages, such as Danish and Finnish, which were both broadcasted
to UCLA from Berkeley last year.
“We are using existing investments in technology for
students to have access to less commonly taught languages “¦
by increasing access and increasing courses taught with only a
minimum change in underlying expenditure,” said Timothy
Tangherlini, a Scandinavian professor at UCLA, and former chair of
the Scandinavian department, “Its different, but that is not
to say it is worse.”
In the fall of 2002, Tangherlini “initiated a pilot
project … with the purpose of offering Scandinavian languages
across the different UC campuses via long distance learning,”
said Sirpa Tuomainen, a professor of Finnish at Berkeley. Tuomainen
began participating in the program in the spring of 2003, and is
still involved.
Though the distance factor cannot completely be solved,
Tuomainen says she is “trying to keep (her) two-site
classroom as communicative and as learner-centered as
possible.”
She uses games, group work, music, and film in hopes that
“students can forget the distance, and feel “˜at
present.'”
Long distance learning forces teachers to rethink their teaching
methods, and causes them to pay more attention to the structure of
their class, Tangherlini says.
Students also must take a different approach to videoconference
classes and are expected to be self-motivated.
Anna Kiiveri, a fourth-year psychology and anthropology student
at UCLA, was the only UCLA student to complete first-year Finnish
via videoconference last year.
“I felt comfortable … the small class … made it very
interactive," Kiiveri said. “But it did take some time to
adjust to.”
Tangherlini noted from his experience that students learning
through video tested as high or higher than students at the home
campus.
But a problem faced with the videoconference classroom is the
inability to physically communicate outside of class.
Most students and professors agree that e-mail has been the best
method of reaching each other outside the classroom.
Kiiveri said she was always able to contact her professor, and
said “I would still feel comfortable e-mailing the professor
for any reason … more than I can say about professors of big
lectures I take on campus.”
Despite the successful adjustment for students and teachers to
the long distance learning program, there still lies a scheduling
difficulty, between the semester and quarter system.
Because Berkeley begins nearly a month before all the other
UC-campuses, students on the quarter system are immediately faced
with that problem of being required to catch up.
The videoconferencing technology is available to students before
school begins on the UCLA campus, but it is hard for many students
to attend.
For the most part, the problem was solved last year by
“videotaping sessions and having them made available to
students at any time,” Strom said.
This is still the current solution, though Strom hopes to create
a calendar that bridges the semester and quarter system.
“This year I’m hoping for some extra classes with
the (teaching assistant) after UCLA starts,” Tuomainen
said.
Apart from the difficulties involved in long distance learning,
Tangherlini and Tuomainen are eager to continue with this teaching
method.
This fall UCLA will be transmitting Czech to UC Santa Barbara,
and will also be sending out another Scandinavian language to UC
Davis and possibly UC San Diego.
The long distance learning program is able to prevent many
classes from being eliminated due to lack of student interest,
Strom said
“By pooling audiences across the system and making an
effective viable class size, we are able to keep language alive and
available to students across the UC-system,” he said.
For more info on Danish and Finnish classes , visit
www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/scandinavian.