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Current Projects
Offering graduate courses via video communication is an example of distance learning. This enables students and teachers who may not of otherwise been able to travel once or twice a week to the university to be able to work on finishing their graduate degree. Peer mentoring was an idea developed by a graduate student in the Education department at the University of Kansas. His research question explored the possibility of supporting recent graduates in the teaching field. He pulled together three new teachers (2-3 years experience in the field) who graduated from KU and a professor/mentor from the university to meet via video conferencing once every other week to discuss their teaching experiences, observe one another teaching and receive feed back from each other, all using video conferencing. Peer mentoring allows the post-secondary institution to remain accountable for their graduates and the graduates to maintain a support group beyond their place of employment. The University of Kansas is a research institution. This requires faculty and staff to dedicate a large portion of their time to grant writing and execution. The science department chose to collaborate with three other state institutions, Wichita State, Kansas State and Pittsburgh State to write a grant. All four institutions wanted to find a way to avoid spending a tremendous amount of time and money driving to a central location in order to meet face-to-face. They chose to implement the use of multipoint video conferencing so that all four sites could be seen and heard instantaneously. Data gathering has always been a laborious process in all fields of study. Video conferencing has a built in solution to help with several forms of data collection. The cameras that we use at IVT are capable of taking a still picture at any set increment of time. We then had a program designed that could take those snap shots and organize them into rows and columns for easy viewing. Students and teachers at the University have used this method of data collection to view time on task and other student behaviors. Professors who supervise student teachers at the University of Kansas are required to visit the schools of their interns and observe them in their fields. The School of Education has recently explored the possibility of using video conferencing to do their observations of students in the field. South Park Elementary in the Shawnee Mission school district was the first school to participate in this technique of supervision. The professor at the University was able to sit at her desk and observe her intern without having to drive 45 miles to see it. These sessions may be taped at either location. Video conferencing is an innovative way for the School of Education at the University to cut down on using surrounding school district time and resources. Video conferencing allows entire classrooms of undergraduates to observe one single student or classroom from the University. Both undergraduate and graduate students need to have several field experiences. In the past, each student has been paired with a different teacher, they have to set up a compatible time and make the trip to the school. Video conferencing has the potential to limit the hassle. |
