Using Technology in Integrated Learning Communities
Mary K. Long, SMCC

Introduction
The Dynamic Learning Block IV at South Mountain Community College uses a coordinated studies model and requires that students co-enroll in Contemporary Cinema, History of World Religions and Introduction to Sociology. Students meet together two days a week for approximately 4 hours. The class involves a multimedia, multidisciplinary, integrative, and interactive approach. In this environment technology has played an essential rather than peripheral role in facilitating the goals of our learning community.

Technology Can Be an Integral Part in Creating a Learning Community
In understanding the use of technology in the block, put aside an image of a room full of computers with students sitting behind monitors staring at the screen as their fingers tap the keyboards. Instead, picture groups of students formulating activities to accomplish learning objectives. In meeting these objectives, they have access to the Internet, video, video conferencing, CD-ROMs, e-mail, presentation software, and classroom /electronic forums.

Although individual activities and "traditional" classroom strategies are still used, more often small groups engage in a shared inquiry process which is then communicated with a broader audience. Learning drives the process as various media are chosen. The use of technology affords opportunities to integrate learning through interactions with students, teachers and the world as a whole. Students experience an environment not of isolated information and unrelated offerings but a world connected through technology, a world in which the can play an active role, a world in which they are part of the learning and discovery process, and one in which they become teachers and learners.

Specific Technologies
If technology can play an essential role in facilitating the goals of learning communities and if it can provide a medium in which the processes and outcomes desired in learning communities naturally arise, what technologies in particular are useful and how can they be used in a learning community atmosphere? Two examples of Internet applications, in particular, enlarge the learning community outside the classroom, the college, and the surrounding community to the global village and provide a substantially qualitative and quantitative unique expansion of the learning environment. In addition to contact with the global electronic village, these technologies can foster higher-level learning.

First, the Internet as a whole, can sharpen critical thinking and information evaluation and problem-solving strategies essential in information literacy. Using the Internet, students learn to formulate research questions, search through various net databases, evaluate the source and quality of the information, and integrate and synthesize information. Students are given current and up-to-date resources and because much of the World Wide Web is interactive, they can at times provide input back to web sites. Their e-mail access allows them to receive information from anywhere in the Internet world. Furthermore, student projects can be posted on the Web (published) on student-designed pages, thereby making learning outcomes performance-based and public.

The second technology, desktop video-conferencing, allows students to send and receive real-time video and audio world-wide. The technology becomes more attuned to the learners own psychophysiology. They can hear, see and respond through a personal computer to other students, teachers and experts around the world. They can participate in international conferences or simply talk informally with fellow students around the world. The technology allow students to interact globally in an inexpensive way.

Although current freely-available software may be unreliable [analogous with sitting around a radio or TV in the earlier part of this century], the expansion of videoconferencing grows by quantum leaps. In using this technology, we are beta testing inexpensive real-time audio visual connections world wide that prior to this could only be gotten by fairly inaccessible and expensive (to the point of being prohibitive) satellite connections. As the currently-developing and more reliable video conferencing applications become available, students will have a seamless interface from the web to video conferences to e-mail and so forth. And, not through an expensive telecommunications studio but on their desktops. And maybe, just maybe, from home, school, and/or work.

Some of the learning effects of video conferencing are that students have opportunities to engage in discussion, form and express opinions, and listen to other points of view in a much wider context. They learn to articulate their own perceptions, opinions, and ideas at the same time they learn the norms of a larger electronic community. It can sensitize them to other cultures, give them access to experts in numerous fields, and give them a chance to become global learners by increasing their access to resources, information, and people.

Video Conferencing Equipment and Software
I have used CU-SeeMe software (developed at Cornell University, now distributed by White Pine) with a black and white Connectix QuickCam -- those little eyeball cameras seem to be everywhere! Both the hardware and software are available for Macintosh and Windows computers. The audio quality depends on the number of connections, the speed of the access lines, various mysterious unknowns, and can range from quite good to useless. Internet Phone from Vocaltec can be used for audio in conjunction with CU-SeeMe. Direct connections are always best -- yet often the audio is adequate. You can connect directly to another computer (if they are running CU-SeeMe and you know the Internet address of their computer). There are also "reflector sites" where you can join in group conversations.

There is a new technology for videoconferencing called "CoolTalk" that may become the standard cross-platform product for conferencing over the Internet. Beta versions of "CoolTalk" for Macintosh and Windows are available. I have not used CoolTalk but reports are that the audio quality is better than CU-SeeMe and you can set it up to record "voice mail" like messages if you are not at your computer. It requires lots of memory!

Student Responses
By providing appropriate technology to a learning community certain patterns of responses emerge. Students are more likely to speak about the outcome as getting an education and being educated. Often they express appreciation for the exposure to technology, especially the internet. Surprisingly they seem to express the perspectives of teachers as well as learners. Interestingly and most importantly, they comment on their learning rather than focusing on the technology. It's a tool, a medium not a replacement for education -- whatever that may be! Certainly the definition of education is evolving.

Sample Student Responses
"Using computers in the teaching process has opened a whole new aspect of teaching. Having computers for the purpose of gathering information enables a student to regulate their instruction. Teaching a computer-based class empowers a teacher to use this as a source of extended information for the students. Instead of passing out information, a teacher can assign an assignment and allow the students to seek and accumulate the information needed through the Internet. Almost any information that is needed to complete an assignment can be found on the internet. Many colleges and universities have not made these kinds of computers available to all students. These schools may not realize that they are limiting the amount of education a pupil can receive from their schools. Incorporating computers into the thing of classes could produce a whole new generation of people who are self-educating. Having this characteristic in people causes them to be very self-sufficient. The new dynamic way of learning is a great benefit to the education world. I was able to see a different approach to the educational process. I do hope other schools will consider this new way of teaching a step to better educating the population." [This was written by a student in the class who is also a teacher. For her the experience was an example of how her role as a teacher could expand and grow.]

"To teach in a way that will prepare people for the future is a difficult task. It involves teaching the people to teach themselves, leading them to discoveries, and helping them to see the value in obtaining new information. Until now I had not known that this was possible. I have spent this semester learning and discovering the wealth of information all at my finger tips, if I choose to indulge. This Dynamic Learning process, that includes cinema, sociology, and religion is the way of the future. I have learned more this semester than I could hope to learn in years."

"I have become more familiar with the computer and the internet this semester. I am able to do a search and weed out the irrelevant information and to find what I need. In the electronic forum I have had a chance to express myself and to keep up on my writing skills."

"I learned that it is possible to learn without the use of a textbook. I also learned that this format for class is a million times less stressful than a traditional lecture style classroom atmosphere."

-t h e   l a b y r i n t h-

URL: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/
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