How the Northernmost University uses Elluminate for Blended and Online Learning Associate Professor Mariann Solberg

WHAT is Elluminate Live?

• A collaborative web conference environment allowing synchronous communication and sharing• Audio/video-broadcast • Sharing documents & desktop • Interactive whiteboard • Transfer of control to participants possible • Chat • Recording of sessions

• Realtime classroom teaching online – on your own computer

What could it look like? - Geographical Information Systems in Public Service

Geographical Information Systems in Public Service - Application Sharing

Department of clinical dentistry – guidance of 4.th year students in practice in 12 clinics

WHY webconference for teaching?

• Demography of Northern Norway: • Vast / Sparsely populated / Dispersed settlements

• Points to (partial or full) online education

• Pedagogy • ”Edification” / ”Bildung” – PARTICIPATION

• Practice in three dimensions:• Thinking with / Thinking against / Thinking on your own

(selbsdenken)

• Points to actual interaction between people

10.04.236

Why did we select Elluminate?

• Pedagogy / Functionality: • Needed a tool for oral teaching, especially

language teaching • Needed to balance writing in online studies

• Elluminate - same or better functionality as in other web conference tools

• Fronter picked Elluminate – integrated solution, one entry-URL, one login-procedure

Elluminate Live – integrated in Fronter- asynchronous and synchronous

Diversity of usage

• Social meeting – creating a good learning environment

• Oral dialogue and discussion, spontaneous reflection and spontaneous correction from teacher

• Report on status of work

• Present and share texts, statistics, pictures etc.

• Respond to and evaluate work, teacher to students and between students

• Possible to record sessions

Our approach

• The classroom in Fronter is the teacher’s main point of contact with the students & the very foundation of the course

• Elluminate – utilized for the more advanced learning processes

Challenges of use

1. High threshold for use for average teacher and student

2. Demands on user’s equipment: quality head-set with microphone & web camera

3. Locations with unstable lines

4. Power plugs fall out

5. Sessions must be structured, & plan must be well communicated to students

How to meet the challenges

• (Somewhat) advanced digital competence of teachers & strong motivation an advantage • ”Don’t use it if you don’t mean it”

• Comprehensive courses (technology & pedagogy) for teachers needed

• Close follow-up from technicians needed for the first sessions• ”While believing we would be driving cadilack, we

discovered that we were driving the snow plough…”

When all challenges are met

• Spontaneous social interaction is made possible

• Users tend to forget that they are using the application

• Learners find the way of communicating interesting and fascinating in itself

Why will we continue and expand our use of Elluminate Live? Oral PARTICIPATION in online courses

- Effective form of learning

- Formative for the well edified, well built, well socialized University student

- Decisive for quality and legitimacy of online learning in University education

Plus: all the other various, foreseen – and unforeseen – ways of using it!

Bibliography

Gadamer, Hans Georg: Truth and Method, Crossroad, New York 1989

Kant, Immanuel: Critique of Judgment, trans. Werner Pluhar, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987

“Anthropology” in Anthropology, History, and Education, translated/edited by G. Zoller, R. Louden, M. Gregor and P. Guyer, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007

Rorty, Richard: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1979

Thank You!

Mariann SolbergU-vett, University of Tromsø9012 Tromsø Norway

E-mail: mariann.solberg@uit.noHomepage: http://tinyurl.com/y9zj6n8Twitter: http://twitter.com/msolberg