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Subjects with a visual or hands-on element cannot be taught by text alone.
Teaching art history, anthropology and archeology benefits when the piece or art or historic site can be accessed. However, most University instructors don't have the option of bringing the Mona Lisa into their classroom or transporting students to the ruins of ancient Rome for a dig.
These situations are where "real-time" computer technology can add depth to classroom instruction, providing computer images worth more than a thousand words of text.
"Real-time" technologies are Internet software packages that allow simultaneous interaction. A common example of such technology is known as "chat rooms," where a group of people access the same web site and type messages, with every member of the group able to see all the messages.
An even more useful real-time technology is called a "whiteboard." This allows multiple users to access not only each others' text messages, but images as well. That means an instructor can put an image on the whiteboard, and everyone in the group can see the image and comment via e-mail. The whiteboard allows the image and the messages to appear simultaneously.
Take the case of Gary David Camp, a graduate student in anthropology.
"Let's say in my general anthropology class I put a three-dimensional image of an ancient burial crypt on the whiteboard," Camp said. "First we look at a top view of the crypt with dozens of artifacts in it. Then we take a side view and see different layers of strata in the crypt.
"And the whiteboard has chat capabilities, so as this is happening someone can write a request for a close-up of some detail or post a question about what we're looking at."
"Individual members of a group of students can interact with this from their different terminals as they are looking at it," Camp added.
While the visual technologies have more glitzy appeal, it's the comparatively old-fashioned chat feature that does the most for Camp's classes.
John Crumbliss, a student in Camp's Introduction to the Politics and Culture of the American South, admitted that he was initially skeptical about the "format and content" of the online discussion parts of the class.
However, he added, he soon realized they enhanced the class as a learning experience.
"The time and opportunity to fully develop thoughts outside of class, and then to proffer them in an informal forum is one of the most pleasurable academic experiences I have had," Crumbliss said.
In addition to using whiteboards as a forum for study groups, Camp also uses them as a medium for online office hours -- which attract far more students than the conventional kind.
Camp said that when he first held online office hours last summer for his General Anthropology class, he had "no idea what to expect." But the results speak for themselves.
In that one summer session, 28 students came to regular office hours, but 43 students came to online office hours, according to Camp.
Camp says the online office hours are good for the students because they are physically convenient.
And he adds they are good for him because his students become more engaged in the discussions. They find something liberating about the anonymity of the chat rooms.
"They say things in the chat rooms that they would never to my face -- and I mean that in a good way," Camp said.
"They tell me when they disagree with me," Camp added.
And that's exactly what he wants.
"I don't want my students to think exactly like I do. I want them to think."
Contributed by Kevin O'Kelly, Center for Instructional Technology
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