Report to the Faculty Development Program in Educational Technology USING TECHNOLOGY IN THE CLASSROOM TO SUPPORT PEER-TO-PEER COLLABORATION Judith A. Perrolle Department of Sociology and Anthropology June 19, 2003 PURPOSE The purpose of this project was to investigate technologies in the classroom that provide alternatives to the "overhead projector, power-point graphics" model of lecturing. RESULTS 1. Separate web-surfing. Using wireless internet connections, small groups in the W03 and Sp03 Soc1485 classes were able to work on web based discussion problems during class time. The use of one laptop per group reduced some status distinctions between students who own and do not own laptops. The project could not be done in Soc1285 because there were only two laptops available. 2. Peer-to-peer file exchanges. P2p file sharing for the purposes of writing up the results of group discussions was tried in several ways. In the winter, students set up cross-platform connections among the laptops in the classroom. A secure tile transfer client program for students' laptops reduced some of the insecurities inherent in the Sociology Department's portable wireless network. We set up groups on Blackboard, each with it's own virtual classroom. However we found that Blackboard did not provide good support for Linux machines, non-Microsoft web browsers, and low bandwidth connections. Also the design of Blackboard's file sharing system seemed slow and awkward. Cross-platform instant messaging worked much better. We were unable to try the Collaborative Virtual Workspace software because the students developing it are doing a major redesign as their CCIS senior honors project. In the spring, direct connections among laptops were not possible because we were using the College of Computer Science's secure wireless network. We were able to exchange files via ftp and secure ftp to external servers. Student groups used email and instant messaging. Although these are older technologies, they have the advantage of being cross-platform, universally accessible, and under the end users' control. In both quarters the fact that small groups had class time for collaboration was extremely important. None of the technologies we tried came close to the efficiency and convenience of face-to-face meetings. 3. Electronic talk and chalk. The student support portion of the budget was diverted from reinstalling the Collaborative Virtual Workspace to a "research assistant" to help with video and audio capture in the spring. The tablet proved useless. It was possible to capture snapshots of the blackboard with an inexpensive webcam and Professor Perrolle's Macintosh laptop. These were later copied into smaller, more accessible .html class notes files that students could retrieve from the class website. This would have worked better if we had had a higher contrast whiteboard and if the webcam didn't need to be moved about and refocused periodically. A successful interactive blackboard capture demonstration with closed captioning from the PIVoT Project (http://ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/pivot/) can be seen at http://ncam.wgbh.org/webaccess/movies/yoyocaps.zip - real media format). Audio capture and streaming of two sample classroom lectures was accomplished using the open source icecast software (http://www.icecast.org/) and Apple's free Quicktime Broadcaster (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/products/broadcaster/). A wireless microphone allowed the instructor to roam freely about the room while recording. Due to the limitations of the secure wireless network the test stream was sent to the same laptop that served it. Both technologies made it possible to limit the bandwidth of the stream, as did the administrative software of the CCIS wireless network. Very large .mp3 files were transferred to Professor Perrolle's research desktop machine (not a NUNET computer) for editing and made available (to students in the class only) via secure ftp. Protection for NU internal bandwith was provided by serving the files from an CD-RW drive that could not handle more than 70kbps. The major problem with the lecture recordings was that both the professor and some students felt that recording creates a surveillance situation in the classroom. that interferes with spontaneity and freedom of expression. Some people felt inhibited about the questions they might ask or the comments they would make. The instructor also has concerns about protecting student privacy and confidentially and about the enormous amount of time editing out confidential information takes. Also the resulting audio files are not accessible to the hearing impaired, although the iListen software (purchased from "The thing that will turn out to be necessary" budget item) does permit audio file to text transcriptions. UNANTICIPATED CONSEQUENCES In both courses, students who used wireless in the classroom were invited to submit comments by email after they had received their grade for the course. About 1/4 did. They all agreed independently that being online during class is both useful and distracting. The reported uses were (the nature of the sample does not permit a quantitative measure of amount of time spent on each): 1. reading email 2. browsing sites relevant to group assignments 3. referring to online class materials 4. looking up a point made in lecture so that they could add more information to the discussion. 5. programming homework for another class 6. instant messaging friends 7. playing games What was suprisingly noted by both instructor and students is that attendance improved for those students using laptops. As one student reported: "All in all, I found it very useful to have wireless available in-class. Not only did it facilitate the group discussions, but it also enabled me to supplement my knowledge by being able to, say, pull up a translation of the Code of Hammurabi during our discussion of laws and power. The biggest distractional danger posed was not email, which was more of a sub-conscious side process, but addictive link-browsing of sites like Slashdot. It probably also bears mentioning that in the case of the programming, without the in-class wireless I would not have been in class that day." MENTORING PLAN Prof. Perrolle will continue to help her colleagues in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology with their technology related problems and questions on an informal basis, as she has done since 2000.