WU 8841 Diffusion and Integration of Educational Technology

Synchronous Professional Development

Kalman Mannis

Digitally Delivered Professional Development, Provided synchronously

Definitions to Insure Common Understanding:

Innovation Analysisusing McLuhan’s Tetrad

Enhancement • Fiber Optic telecommunications backbone• Increase in computer processing speed • Greater access to broadband• Fiscal constraints on travel • Globalization pressures• Increase in long distance collaboration

Obsolescence•The need to travel for meetings• The need to be away from home and the workplace to be involved with valuable professional development.• Reliance on third party providers of Professional Development.

Retrieval •Ability to meaningfully interact with experts• Ability to develop collegial contacts and collaborative partners.• Sense of partnership in a community of learners

Reversal•Increased use of 3 dimensional projection for a holographic format for participation.• Better tools /equipment will allow more efficient image and audio transfer, making the format more common and less emerged.

Web Conferencing: Synchronously Delivered

Professional Development

Innovation Bias

• Pro Innovation BiasBusiness success depends on human interaction. You can often get more done with a few minutes meeting face to face than you can in strings of emails or trying to explain things over a telephone. With VIA3 you can meet face to face any time with any of your online contacts. VIA3 (http://www.via3.com/Info/Products/Features/Default.aspx)

Everyone in the meeting sees the same presentation as the presenter, including animations, video clips etc. The presentation is automatically scaled to fit each audience member's screen so everyone sees the entire slide without having to scroll. Small webinars and collaborative presentations show all meeting members video and audio in the meeting. The presenters see the audience video next to the presentation, and can use it with chat message feedback and spoken questions from the audience to pace the presentation similarly to face to face meetings. VIA3 (http://www.via3.com/Info/Products/Features/Presentations.aspx)

Innovation Decision Process

Diffusion Consequences

NeedKnowledge Stage

Distance Professional Development for K-12 Districts provided synchronously:

1.Financial Considerations for providing quality P.D. without the need to send staff away from campus. Thus incurring travel expenses, and time lost to travel.2.Staff’s desire to remain close to home to maintain domestic harmony.3.Ability to encourage staff collaboration internally by providing the P.D. when multiple members can attend. 4.Encouraging collaboration of district team with distant colleagues.5.Provide up to date information to staff on relevant issues and research. 6.Inefficiencies of travel 7.Protection from communicable diseases.8.Fear of Travel long distances following attacks of 9/11 ( Mayrhofer, Back, & Hubschmid, 2004)9.Globalization of experts

Research

Distance Professional Development for K-12 Districts provided synchronously:

1.Emerging Technology’s affective barriers to implementation.2.Authoritative pressures to implement the technology3.Social pressures to accept the use of delivery format for Professional Development.4.Institutional pressure for using the format.5.Research on format successes

Development

Distance Professional Development for K-12 Districts provided synchronously:

1.Fiber Optic Backbone deployment2.Software3.VOIP4.Connectivity/Bandwidth needs5.Implementation samples6.Pros and Cons of the format

Commercialization

Persuasion Stage

Distance Professional Development for K-12 Districts provided synchronously:

1.First Adopters2.Demonstration Locations3.Mass Media advertising4.Innovative advertising – podcast support (GoToMeeting.com)5. Exploitation of format as a financial center.6.Various pricing and delivery models.7.Implementation as a delivery format for higher education and corporate distance training.8.Archiving of meetings9.Increase in collaborative productivity

Diffusion

• Decision Stage – Adoption/RejectionCommunication Channels

– Mass Media (Knowledge Stage)• Lack of centralized advocate

– Interpersonal Channel (Persuasion Stage)• Perceived value• Organizational Resistance• Ease of Use• Affective Barriers

Data on ‘Ease of Use’ Variable to Adoption

Wainhouse Research, 2009

Affective Barriers as a Variable to Adoption

Wainhouse Research, 2009

ConsequencesImplementation Stage

• As a product in the market since the late 1990s (WebEx, the first large scale provider of web conferencing was founded in 1996) implementation was first adopted by corporate and government entities. Web conferencing obsolesced video conferencing equipment by incorporating a web based platform and by placing collaborative tools into the hands of the user (WebEx, 2010).

• Its use was boosted by the terror attacks of September 11 th, especially for European companies and those who were required to travel to and from large metropolitan centers. (Mayrhofer, Back, & Hubschmid, 2004).

• From 2002 – 2007 there was a 40% per annum on use of the products across the business, government, and education sectors. By 2009 the business model was earning nearly one billion dollars per year ((Mayrhofer, Back, & Hubschmid, 2004; Wainhouse, 2009).

• In 2009 access to the internet during airplane flights provided an additional boost to productivity, collaboration and connectivity to members of private and public sectors (Web Conferencing Council, 2009).

ConsequencesConfirmation Stage

• Adoption of the evolving tool is still a factor across the private and public sectors. Major barriers are affective and ease-of-use obstacles (Wainhouse, 2009).

• White papers by the Web Conferencing Council (2010), discuss the pros and cons of the top 10 (according to their rubric) web conferencing providers. A quick analysis of the topics covered refer back to ease of use, customer service, and security as key distinctions between companies. This level of discussion would indicate that the tool has reached a level of integration into the business and public cultures. They are at the point of minor difference. The pressure appears to be driven by Increasing Return (Thornburg, 2008), where competing companies are vying with each other for predominance.

Web Conferencing Council’s 2009Ranking of top 10 Web Conferencing

Companies (pg 8).

Commercialization/Implementation

Sample Case Studies• USTREAM• ELLUMINATE• GOTOMEETING• WEBEX• VIA3

USTREAMNeed

Ustream was founded in the summer of 2006 by John Ham, Brad Hunstable, and Dr.

Gyula Feher as way to help overseas soldiers connect more efficiently with their families.(Ustream, 2010)

Research

The founders noticed an opportunity for revolutionizing communication. Soldiers were limited by the phone or instant messenger to connect with family and friends back home. They could only talk with one person at a time. John and Brad wanted to find a way to allow soldiers to connect with all of their loved ones at the same time. The goal was to create a way for them to stream with family members in cities all over the U.S. and the world.

Development2003 Ham and Hunstable worked with Dr. Gyula Feher on a photo sharing site developed by Dr. Feher. In 2006 the trio used Dr. Feher’s work as the base of their video streaming venture. Beta testing was done in privately in 2006 then publically in 2007.

CommercializationUSTREAM has a multilayered interaction approach with both free and pay per use offerings. With the expansion of 3G networking USTREAM has downloadable apps for Android and iPhone.

DiffusionWith little mass media except international technology awards, this company relied/relies heavily on interpersonal communication streams for diffusion. The company is often mentioned in technology related podcasts (this week in tech, Leo Laporte, tech chicks, etc.) and has been used by politicians (Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Obama), entertainers, news production companies, and countless military personnel stationed oversees.

ConsequencesFor the tech savvy this is a site that is well used and could be considered emerged. For the early and late majority this format is still emerging. While the site has an ease of use that supersedes most web conferencing tools this site does not have many of their collaboration functions. Because of this the tool does have a niche use for education as a tool for distance classroom interactions . Thus making it a tool for global citizen development, a standard set forth by ISTE in their technology standards.

CITRIX – Go To MeetingNeed

This program originated in 1989 as a by product of the increased use of the internet for information delivery. The founders wanted to create a system that would help unfetter IT workers from their offices. This idea evolved into what is commonly viewed to be cloud computing.

Research

The platform has evolved to develop a collaboration format that would be both cost effective and useful. The idea was to allow companies to reach new markets and new clients. This was done initially with mainframe computing, then moved to distributed computing in the early 2000s.

Development

Platform has been kept current with the change from mainframe to distributed computing to cloud computing. The idea is to free the employee, sales staff, or IT professionals from the office.

Commercialization

GoToMeeting has used both Mass Media and personal communication channels. This company uses radio, t.v., cable, and internet based advertising. They also heavily sponsor podcasts targeting the more educated oriented programs (quickanddirtytips.com, universetoday.com)

Diffusion

More than 230,000 organizations worldwide use gotomeeting.com .

Citrix partners with over 10,000 companies worldwide in more than 100 countries. Founded in 1989, annual revenue in 2009 was $1.61 billion. (Citrix, 2010)

Consequences

Citrix is spending research and development time and money to focus on developing a platform that will augment and support the virtual workplace. With the infusion of capital from Citrix, the gotomeeting product will likely remain a leader in the web conferencing industry.

WEBEXNeedOrginating in 1996 as an outgrowth of the founders work in collaboration software. The founders and their technical staff developed the platform that was to become webex in 1995 and distributed it for the first time in 1996. They did this as an outgrowth of the growing popularization of the internet and their background in collaboration software.

Research

Background on collaborative software (non-internet based) was the industry that the founders come from. They segued their research and development background into a web-based, on –demand product targeting companies with less then 100 employees.

Development

In 1995 the company developed a web-based platform for collaborative software. This was distributed starting in 1996. In 2005 WebEx expanded and started targeting medium and large companies.

By its 2007 acquisition by CISCO Systems WebEx was a leader in the web conferencing industry.

Commercialization

WebEx uses a combination of mass media and interpersonal communication channels. Its advertising includes internet advertising, and the sponsorship of innovative outlets like podcasts and corporate sponsorships.

DiffusionIn 2009 over 7 million monthly users, 35,000+ unique customers.

Purchased by CISCO Systems in 2007 and integrated into CISCO business services programs. Targets include Education, Financial sector, Healthcare, High Tech, and Manufacturing.

ConsequencesAs a leader in an industry still developing, WebEx was aided by its 2007 sale to CISCO Systems. Through the incorporation into CISCO the platform moves into a multinational information systems corporation. This should boost both continued research and development as well as market access.

VIA3NeedVIACK Corporation was formed in 1999 in San Jose, CA. They currently are headquartered in Scottsdale, AZ with a satellite office in Redmond, WA. According to their mission statement VIACK developed VIA3 ‘’o meet the need for a complete, fully secure, and affordable online collaboration service.”

Their idea appears to be making available a product that provides a conduit for secure internet based collaborative that simulates a natural work environment. By doing this they can assist clients to with bottom line savings and increased productivity.

ResearchThis company emphasizes its time spent learning how people interact , They used their research to create a format that encourages collaboration by incorporating multi directional audio and video feeds. Their stated goal is to have a product that mimics a natural working style even if the interaction is over large distances and web-augmented.

DevelopmentVIA3 is developed to be easy to use and intuitive in the implementation. This while being secure. The sites also allows for private archiving conferences for later access.

Of the many programs this one has the most to offer at a competitive price point (Web Conferencing Council, 2009).

CommercializationThere is no mass media involvement by VIACK. They appear to be heavily invested in interpersonal communication channels.

DiffusionThis company maintains a user friendly website, but does very little mass media advertisting. Even though it was incorporated in 1999 it is not mentioned in the webconferencing link on wikipedia, nor does it come up in the first two pages of web confereing tools searches. The product is good but may en d up stuttering as the industry goes through mergers.

ConsequencesVIA3 along with its competitors are still evolving and developing new products to entice the public and private sector to use their tools. VIACK notes in its mission statement that it is constantly looking to meet the changing needs of its customers by adding and upgrading its various conferencing and collaborative tools.

Discussion

• Gartner's Hype Cycle • There are five distinct categories that occur in the emergence of any new

technology: • Technology trigger. A breakthrough, public demonstration, product launch

or other event that generates significant press and industry interest. • Peak of inflated expectations. a phase of overenthusiasm and unrealistic

projections during which a flurry of publicized activity by technology leaders results in some successes but more failures as the technology is pushed to its limits. The only enterprises making money at this stage are conference organizers and magazine publishers.

• Trough of disillusionment. The point at which the technology becomes unfashionable and the press abandons the topic, because the technology did not live up to its overinflated expectations.

• Slope of enlightenment. Focused experimentation and solid hard work by an increasingly diverse range of organizations lead to a true understanding of the technology's applicability, risks and benefits. Commercial off-the-shelf methodologies and tools become available to ease the development process.

• Plateau of productivity. The real-world benefits of the technology are demonstrated and accepted. Tools and methodologies are increasingly stable as they enter their second and third generation. The final height of the plateau varies according to whether the technology is broadly applicable or only benefits a niche market.

• The Gartner Hype Cycle places technologies and the strategies they enable into a natural and recurring life cycle.

Comparison of Case Study Companies

References• Citrix Brochure. (2010). Corporate Brochure. Retrieved from:

http://www.citrix.com/site/resources/dynamic/mediaResources/CitrixBrochure.pdf• Citrix About. (2010). The virtual computing revolution. Retrieved from: http://www.citrix.com/lang/English/aboutCitrix.asp• Coleman, D. and Young, J. (2004). Critical Factors for Adoption of Collaborative Technologies . Retrieved from:

http://collaborate.com/white_papers/mem/white_papers/new_CriticalFactorsforAdoptionofCollaborativeTechnologies082404.pdf• Mayrhofer, D., Back, A., and Hubschmid, R. (2004). Web-Conferencing software tools: A comprehensive market survey. St.

Gallen, Switzerland: Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik.• Nilsson, A. and Greenburg, A. (2009). Ease of use in web-conferencing: Why it matters. Duxbury, MA: Wainhouse Research.

Retrieved from: http://www.wrplatinum.com/Downloads/9854.aspx• Think of it. (2004). Conferencing on the web. Available: http://www.thinkofit.com/webconf/index.htm 8 January 2004].• Thornburg, D. (2008) Red queens, butterflys, and strange attractors: Imperfect lenses into emergent technologies.

Retrieved from: //sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/courses/14936/crs-wueduc8812-3730077/red_queens,_butterflys,_ and strange_attractors.pdf

• USTREAM. (2010). About USTREAM. Retrieved from: www.ustream.com/about • Web Conferencing (2010). Wikipedia: Webconferencing Companies. Retrieved from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_conferencing• Web Conferencing Council. (2010). Top 10 web conferencing vendors for 2009. Retrieved from:

http://webconferencingcouncil.com/Whitepapers/Web%20Conferencing%20Council%20Top%2010%20Web%20Conferencing%20Vendors%202009.pdf

• WebEx. (2010). Company Overview. Retrieved from: http://www.webex.com.au/companyinfo/company-overview.html