The
University of
Plymouth
is a regional university based on six campuses, distributed across a wide rural
area of South West England. From
1996 onwards the university initiated a strategy to develop and implement
inter-campus communications using videoconferencing (VC) technologies. This
symposium draws on the experiences of over 7 years, during which a number of
in-house initiatives and research projects have identified and addressed
operational, technical, pedagogical and psychological issues to enhance
videoconferencing practice. Through
various iterations of hardware and software implementation, technical and
academic research teams explored an extensive range of VC environments,
experimenting with a variety of lighting and camera formats, telemetry,
backgrounds, presentational techniques, audio systems,
multi-point
conferencing
, dedicated environments and software configurations. VC
was integrated into several national and international satellite TV education
projects, notably EuroNet, WIRE Media Space, RATIO and the Royal College of
Surgeons MRCS TV training programme.
As an integrated solution, the use of VC in postgraduate and undergraduate teacher
training has also been established with successful outcomes. Over
1000 students took part in the studies related to VC in teaching and learning,
during which several new measurement instruments were developed.
This symposium will be delivered in three presentations. The
first presentation will discuss the operational and technical issues that were
addressed to propagate and encourage the use of videoconferencing amongst
academic and support staff. The second presentation will focus on the use of VC
in a specific teaching and learning context, where distributed students engaged
in course work at a distance from their tutors. The third presentation will
explore a number of pedagogical and psychological issues that have been
identified as key areas of challenge in the use of videoconferencing. Key
constructs to be explored during the session will include telepresence, social
presence, interactive classroom, distance learner support, transactional
distance and equivalency theory. Throughout
the symposium, the presenters will offer examples of successful videoconference
practice including the use of
multi-point
conferencing
, visual collaboration and application sharing. There
will be ample time for delegates to discuss these issues and to ask questions.