Unit.  College/School/Department:

School of Communication

In Cooperation with (Optional):

(Name of Cooperating Unit)

Name of Project Director:

Larry Gillick and Christine Russell, JD

Campus Address:

Joyner East 6251

Phone Number:

328-4227

E-Mail:

russellc@mail.ecu.edu; gillickl@mail.ecu.edu

Total Funding Request:

$19,523

Choose One:

x

¬ Distance Education Proposal

¬ On Campus Proposal

Project Title: 

Mobile Global Classroom

for Increased Interactivity in Communication Distance Education Classes

Name of Unit Head:

Griffin, Linner, Ed.D.

Campus Address:

Joyner East 102

Phone Number:

328-4227

We are seeking to encourage and increase student/faculty and student/student interactivity while fostering development of a learning community in our DE Media Studies program in order to improve the quality of education provided to our DE undergraduate students.

We plan to use the mobile streaming classroom system to transform in-class lecture, videos and PowerPoint-type presentations into live and archived streams for use by distance education students in their personal “educational environments.” The SmartBoard technology would allow DE students to share in the teacher-information interactivity normally present in a resident class, distributed through the Breeze live/archived classroom software environment. Being able to archive and allow students who are abroad access to class instructional settings at any time of the day and night is crucial to keeping our military students connected and active in their learning process.

Our students will view/listen to these classes via laptop or if they have available PDA and/or iPod photo/audio.  The additional interactivity of the mobile global classroom technology will allow students who prefer using audio/video or a combination of those as learning tools to supplement the information using the archived audio/video tracks from the live class sessions. Integration of these technologies should increase student involvement, improve student learning and foster a stronger sense of community in our DE classes.

The BS in Communication (Media Studies with a concentration in public relations and journalism) offered by ECU’s School of Communication is the only fully online distance education degree program in communication offered by the UNC system.  It is also one of the ECU programs included and under review by the Department of Defense for supported distribution to deployed troops.  Demonstrating our expertise and willingness to embrace current and emerging technologies to reach remote students we hope will be beneficial in that review as well as aid ECU in recruiting more military students from variant branches of service.

The distance education degree program of the School of Communication serves a variant student population residing all over North Carolina and the world. In fact, an increasing number of our students are deployed student-service members.  Some of these students were resident students prior to military activation and deployment.  Others are North Carolina residents who serve as active duty or reserve troops.

The students and courses immediately affected are: COMM 2104 PR & Corp Writing, which enrolls 23-27 students each semester and is taught Fall, Spring and Summer 1. The use of the requested technology would affect approximately 125 students a year in that class alone.

However, the global classroom smart cart would also be put into service for use in as many of our DE classes each semester as feasible given one cart and time constraints. This would affect approximately another 200 students per year, assuming use of the cart in 3 additional classes, beyond the one described above per semester, and 2 courses during the summer sessions, using a class size average of 25.

Courses affected include any course offered in our current DE program including but not limited to the following: COMM 1002 (Media Writing), COMM 2410 (Public Speaking), COMM 2030 (Communication Research), COMM 2104 (Public Relations and Corporate Writing), COMM 3120 (Public Relations Theory), COMM 4180 (Public Relations Strategies), COMM 2320 (Basic Reporting, COMM 3320 (Advanced Reporting), COMM 4240 (International Electronic Mass Media Systems)

We make use of the global classroom facility in the new science and technology building to generate streaming video of our advanced reporting class. The classroom space in that facility is limited and scheduling will continue to be more difficult as the site is a fixed location and in use by other Colleges.

We currently have two staff members trained in global classroom use. 

We do not have any other like facilities or equipment for this project.

N/A

Wendy’s comment:

I think this is fundable and within scope.  Although, a smart board is used and not traditionally purchased, I am assuming it will be used as a tool to capture lecture notes and screen shots to share info with the DE students. For those of you evaluating proposals, you may want to ask how they plan to handle any recurring costs (ie, the hosting charge). 

Software (Quote good through December)                                                    $9,750.00

   Macromedia Breeze software (no recurring license fee):

erver (Dell e-quote good for 30 days)                                                           $3,012.80  Mobile Smart-classroom/ PC:

Dell, Inc. Latitude D600 Laptop (Education pricing)                                                                              - $1,662.34

Custom configured: 1 GB RAM, 80 GB HD,  Logitech Optical Mouse, Dell A215 Speakers, CD-RW combo, Pentium M, Windows XP SP1, 3-year warranty                                              

DE-Classroom interactivity unit (input device, not projector):

Smart Technologies, Inc. SMART Board 580                                                                                         - $1,999.00

Video Camera, live feed:

Canon XL2 digital                                                                                                                                    - $2,499.95

Microphone system (wireless lavalier):

Audio Technica MT-350                                                                                                                             - $599.00

with T32 Beltpack, Omni Directional Mic with Deatchable P3 connector,  R32 Receiver      

Faculty (3)

We will also engage in both quantitative and qualitative research to assess student satisfaction and learning gains in order to provide recommendations about incorporation of these technologies in distance education classes for future use by any ECU program.

We will include a qualitative comparison of students in DE classes that do not use these technologies and those that do to determine the level of effectiveness of incorporation of the new technology into the learning environment. We will have a unique opportunity to study the integration of this new technology at variant levels: no use, or use of the mobile global classroom technology using Blackboard and Breeze as elements of a learning platform. This study should help us determine how well, if at all, integration of multiple technologies help improve student learning and course satisfaction.