VIDEO CALLING APP

This is the report of a project considering the use of videoconferencing in the initial training of languages teachers funded by ESCALATE, the Learning and Teaching Support Network for Education. The particular focus of this project was to identify training needs of education tutors in regard to the use of videoconferencing in teacher training. It also took as its brief the identification of appropriate pedagogical strategies in using this medium.

In the project, three modern languages education tutors look at the use of videoconferencing with their students. Each offers a particular perspective on videoconferencing reflecting a variety of approaches to its use and differing degrees of success. It is apparent that this new medium has huge potential for training but its use entails a steep learning curve, both technically and pedagogically. Following on from the case studies there is a discussion of the implications for training for education tutors, a bibliography, a list of useful websites and a set of recommendations. This report is also available as a set of web pages.

Case Studies

Using videoconferencing in the training of languages teachers

Case Study One

Terry Atkinson, University of Bristol

I decided to try to use videoconferencing in order to learn about the medium and to investigate my own training needs. I decided to use videoconferencing with a group of students on a 30 credit point Master of Education module entitled Information Technology and Language Learning. I then cast around for partners and a purpose. Fortunately, I was contacted by a colleague working in Cadiz, Spain who suggested doing some experimental conferencing so we proceeded to organise things.

I first discovered that although there was videoconferencing equipment in my department, access to it was limited to the specific research projects for which it was purchased. However, the departmental co-ordinator for communications technology did suggest that I contact the university’s unit for support with learning technology. I discovered that the unit has a videoconferencing suite that is available for hire and also provides technical support for using this facility.

After discussion with the learning technology unit, it seemed that my Spanish partners would not be suitable for videoconferencing as they did not have dedicated videoconferencing hardware and software. In preliminary discussion we had hoped to use the Internet for videoconferencing but the technical advice I received was that this would not be adequate for an international videoconference with current hardware specifications, especially the speed of the Internet connections available at both ends. Although these are quite good in both cases the very high bandwidth needed for Internet videoconferencing was not yet available to either partner. This advice proved correct during our actual trial when a video image was received from Spain but quality was poor. To achieve a satisfactory quality videoconference connection at both ends would have required a dedicated video conferencing line at either end. Whilst the videoconferencing suite in the university provided this, the costs would be prohibitive. In addition to hire of the videoconferencing suite, there would be the cost of an international call on the videoconferencing line and there were no funds for this.

Despite this setback, we decided to go ahead using audio conferencing via the telephone and, simultaneously, an Internet link using a program called Netmeeting which enables computer to computer communication for chatting, whiteboarding, file sharing etc. The audio conferencing worked fine via an international telephone call in conjunction with the university’s special audio conferencing kit — this includes a flat microphone and loudspeaker. I have never seen kit like this before. It enables a multi-person conference to proceed smoothly and overcomes such problems as echo and deafening noise generated by a group all laughing at once.

Netmeeting is a software application that I had heard of but had not previously used. It is a component of most PC systems. I found out the following points about Netmeeting:

• Make sure that you have the same version as your partner, the latest version can be downloaded freely from Microsoft’s website. We were using Netmeeting 3.01
• This software enables real time on-line communication between two or more users. You can communicate via the written or spoken word.
• Using speech on Netmeeting is not without problems:
• You need to use headphones to avoid a mind-numbing delayed echo effect.
• Modern computers and fast Internet connections are needed to give reasonable quality.
• Other programs run much slower while you are engaged in an audio or videoconference so that this limits the usefulness of computer conferencing as some of the other features of Netmeeting (see below) work less well.
• To contact your partner(s) on Netmeeting, you need to know an IP address of one of the partners. You can then dial them up using the software. It was handy to have a live telephone link as we stumbled through this process. Depending upon how you access the Internet, your IP address may change each time you log on.
• Netmeeting is an evolving application. Not all facilities work that well. New facilities are being added.
• Netmeeting works best as on-line chat, ie when used as a kind of live email with the capacity to have several people working together at once.
• One advantage of Netmeeting is that it is part of Windows and works on all PC computers. This is very important for teacher trainers who work with students whose final destination is unknown.
• Netmeeting includes a shared whiteboard option. We experimented with using the whiteboard to convey visual information and found:
• The whiteboard works quite well for drawing objects on-screen but requires some artistic skills.
• For communications between speakers of different languages, the whiteboard could be used to draw pictures to overcome communications problems.
• It was very easy to send simple visual information in line drawings, eg maps
• It also has limited text tools but we found the chat better for this.
• Netmeeting allows you to share applications. We tried this with Word. It was possible for one user to open a Word document and begin work in it and then pass control to another partner. We used this with an experimental task as described below. There were some problems in getting it to work fully despite the specialist support of technicians from the unit who had not used this facility themselves.
• Netmeeting allows you to send files to each other, a bit like an email attachment but with the advantage that you are doing this in real time.
• There are probably other features in Netmeeting that could be really useful.

I concluded that Netmeeting has a lot of interesting features but also is quite hard to use. It seemed to me that tutors need some advice on which features are most user-friendly, what they can do with these features and then some case studies or examples of how they could use it. Even the learning technology specialist lacked experience in using such software and there is vast untapped potential here.

Given all of the above, we planned a session that we would run twice with two separate groups of students. We planned five distinct phases as follows:

Phase One

Introductions between my colleague, Enrique Campos, from Spain and the MEd group of six students using the telephone conferencing suite. Enrique would introduce himself and then talk to each of the students in turn as they introduced themselves.

Phase Two

Enrique had sent an email to the group in advance saying that he was bringing a group of Spanish students to England and that he wanted some advice on what to do. The students were able to ask Enrique questions on the telephone to clarify this. They then worked in pairs to write some suggestions in a Word document for the visit with one pair working on the academic programme, another on the sightseeing programme and the third on leisure activities. When completed, these documents were sent to Enrique using Netmeeting. He then read these and commented back with some queries using the telephone link.

Phase Three

Enrique then demonstrated some of the other facilities of Netmeeting to the students including written conferencing and use of the whiteboard. A range of different languages was used in this in order to try out different ideas.

Phase Four

Enrique, the students and I discussed over the telephone conference link the activities that we had done and their relevance / possibilities for language learning.

Phase Five

The discussion was continued over the next three weeks via an email discussion forum that is integral to this particular MEd unit. Extracts from this are included below.