Screen within a screen – streaming a Skype video call of guest lecturer, Mohamed Nanabhay, editor in chief – Al Jazeera international.
There were many communication streams and Web 2.0 tools used for this course. To a large extent, participants used the forums on the p2pu platform for discussion on assignments, current topics and exchange of useful resources. Another communication stream was the IRC channel during lectures for inclusion of “virtual” participants. Participants also used Google groups’ mailing list for updates and Twitter to follow each other’s news and to share information.
The technologies used for lectures and seminars included UStream’s live streaming and Skype video calls. Since there were so many different technologies that we used in this course, we asked the participants what obstacles regarding technology they encountered during the course and which communication tool they found to be most useful.
Many participants complained about the amount of email they received, which was a lot. They even suspect that it scared off some of their classmates who decided to quit the course. One of the participants mentioned that they had big difficulties with IRC, because they did not know how to use it and found it “scary” at first. Most of them were comfortable with using forums, since they knew how forums function from before. But the structure of the forum bothered some participants. Lena said: “I hate the forums, there is no organization structure there. There should be chapters like Assignments, Updates, Seminars, Projects, Other and so on. I think this is the most important part of the course and wish that it would be better organized, because sometimes messages get lost.”
They were mostly excited about UStream, even though it allows only a one-way stream of communication. “UStream interesting to see and hear the guests and physical classroom. Always passive for me though.” Said Andria. The use of Twitter was not used that much for class communication, but more for personal expressions of opinions and ideas. “For promotion of class and ideas, and for links, Twitter is good.” (Andria)
Some did not have any problems with technology at all: “All the technology tools used are for sure helpful and useful. The idea to record the lectures and the IRC chat is also good.” (Nadhir), while others had difficulties: “Using so many communication tools is a little confusing. It’s easy to miss conversations, mails etc.” (Richard)
Nadhir suggested to use a learning management system (LMS) rather that a content management system (DRUPAL in this case).
The LMS coupled with a unified communication system would will solve the problem of redundancy and offer a better learning experience.
