Case Story: Streaming Theatre
Case Story: Streaming Theatre
| Summary | For Emerge June 2008 Event | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group / workshop | None | Status | ||
| Project details... | ||||
Situation
What was the setting in which this case study occurred?
User group and the work contextTwo modules jointly taught at two institutions (Warwick and Amsterdam) on the cultural aspects of national theatre. Seven undergraduates from each institution, working both as a single group and as separate pairs (one from each institution). Technological setup (and frequency of use)
Project blog – personal introduction followed by discussion of key elements (medium)
Website – outlining session plans, containing links to the other online resources and tools (high)Online editing space (digitale snijmachine) – for uploading presentations and adding clips from videos (final activity – high over short time period)Videoconferencing – using Macromedia Breeze for sessions, presentations and class discussions (weekly)Forums – intended for pairs of students to communicate with each other to develop final presentations (low)Email – actually technology used for students to communicate with each other to develop final presentations (high)
Task
What was the problem to be solved, or the intended effect?
The modules were to articulate the specific national characteristics of theatre in the two countries and thereby identify the differences in cultural traditions, the role culture plays in developing a national theatre, to highlight characterstics within students’ own cultural traditions that may not be recognised as such. For example, British students were not aware that clowns were a specific cultural type within their own culture until they learnt they did not have an equivalent prominence in Dutch culture.Actions
What was done to fulfil the task?
Hold an early face-2-face project meeting to discuss user needs and possible social tool-sets and services that could be adopted.Assign responsibilities for their instantiation. There was open acknowledgement that not one single tool could fulfil all the requirements of providing learning support.To develop a blend between synchronous and asynchronous, and between formal and informal learning opportunities.To bring the strengths of the experiences of the two institutions (Warwick blogs and forums; Warwick’s experience in the pedagogy of videoconferencing; Warwick’s familiarity with metadata; Amsterdam’s online video editing system, Amsterdam’s technological implementation of Breeze; Amsterdam’s use of video streaming)
Results
What happened? Was is a success? What contributed to the outcomes?
Due to differences in national attitudes to IPR, there was a mismatch between the resources that could be provided between Warwick and Amsterdam, and a lack of appreciation of how complex these issues were in the UK. Since this was the first step in the project, this was initially detrimental to the collaboration. Having multiple modes of communication worked effectively because: 1) the rationale for each mode being included was because it was the most appropriate for each task 2) tasks were clearly identified – the activities were structured and scaffolded 3) the various modes were all pulled together under the umbrella of the website – this was where the activities were explained and the links to them were hosted. The blogging supported the telematic activity, in that people were more comfortable with communicating over webcameras when they knew more about each other. Although students were assessed on their activity in the forum, they did not choose this as a means to communicate, instead using emails and then copying the correspondence into the forum when they had finished.Lessons Learned
What did you learn from the experience?
All the activities took place either through online activity, either synchronous or asynchronous. Students felt that they would have benefited from face-to-face activity in addition to this. A useful structure for the sessions would have been some face-to-face work in the classroom, then a connection to the other side, then finishing with a de-brief face-to-face. Videoconferencing was not the most effective platform for the assimilative learning activities – for example a simple one-way didactic lecture. Because of the limited social presence of the lecturer in that mode it became difficult for students to maintain attention. The finding was that the telematic environment should be used for situative approach activities, for example, class discussions. Discussions enhance the sense of copresence between participants, which acts to compensate for the limitations of the medium. Students were being asked to adjust to a new platform for learning and also a new learning approach (constructing knowledge as a group rather than assimilating information). According to the students, either of these changes would be possible to adapt to on their own would, but in combination they were too challenging.Licensing
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