What a Difference a Decade Makes
My husband Larry is working toward a Master's degree from Clemson University. As we live in Chicago and Clemson is in South Carolina, he's enrolled in the online program. This will be Larry's second Master's degree, as he earned an MBA in 1998. He's finding the process quite a bit different this time around.
Part of the reason for the difference is undoubtedly just the online versus standard classroom format. The rest of it is the technology.
Ten years ago, Larry was assigned papers which he typed up in Word, printed and handed in, literally, to the professors. He presented those papers to his classmates by standing up in the classroom and sharing his findings. He took tests in that same classroom, all essay questions that required a solid block of time to complete.
Last semester, his first at Clemson, was a completely different experience. The classroom has been replaced by a virtual chat room. Tests are multiple choice and are taken online by students at any time the student wishes. Students are given the opportunity to take practice tests to ensure the best possible grade.
As seems to be case with most of us, Larry was already familiar with chat rooms and online communication (that's how we met, actually, but that's a story for another day, perhaps), so he took those things in stride. Then he got to the assignment of the paper.
The students were told initially that they would be writing a paper and presenting it to their classmates. Nothing unusual in that for a Master's program, right? Then it was revealed that they would be putting together a PowerPoint presentation to use to present their paper. Next they were given instructions to record a narration for the presentation and synch it to the slide show. Finally, it was explained that the presentations would all be uploaded and viewed in a virtual reality environment.
To do all of this, the following pieces of software and/or websites were required: Word (to type the paper), PowerPoint (for the slide demonstration), Audacity (to record the narration), Archive.org (to upload the narration file to a public location from where it could be streamed to play along with the slides), SlideShare (to upload the presentation to a public location from where it could be displayed in the virtual reality space), an application within Slideshare (to synch the audio with the slides), and the software for the virtual reality space that was downloaded to Larry's computer.
Larry is without question the smartest person I have ever known, and he was more than capable of doing all of this. He wasn't particularly excited about it, though. I, on the other hand, with the "geek" part of my brain in overdrive, loved it all. I asked for permission to help with the preparation.
Sure, there was some frustration with the fact that it took me 3 days to get the audio synched to the presentation, but that turned out to be a problem in the synch tool, a fact we learned after MANY students emailed the professor in total frustration.
On the day the presentations were supposed to be viewed, Larry got stuck in traffic due to the lovely winter weather here in Chicago, so he called and asked me to log him in to the virtual reality space. While I was waiting for him to get home, I hacked around in the space, looking for the "treehouse" the professor had said he was "standing next to." I also learned how to make Larry's avatar fly, dance and walk, noting that he could fly and dance at the same time.
While I have to admit I can come up with no real practical use for the virtual reality space, I will be using the rest of what I learned last semester to see if I can use the technology to record webinar content with audio that can be viewed online and/or purchased. I've already started taking advantage of the SlideShare capabilities by uploading some presentations there and linking them to my LinkedIn account online.
Technology will always, I think, change and develop so quickly that we'll never be able to completely keep up. I've never been big on trying things when they're brand new -- working with nonprofits, I don't like to see my clients spend their resources serving as guinea pigs for software developers. I do, however, love finding technology that's been around for a relatively short time, long enough to have proven itself viable and useful, but new to me and able to help me -- and help me help our clients -- move in new directions.
Part of the reason for the difference is undoubtedly just the online versus standard classroom format. The rest of it is the technology.
Ten years ago, Larry was assigned papers which he typed up in Word, printed and handed in, literally, to the professors. He presented those papers to his classmates by standing up in the classroom and sharing his findings. He took tests in that same classroom, all essay questions that required a solid block of time to complete.
Last semester, his first at Clemson, was a completely different experience. The classroom has been replaced by a virtual chat room. Tests are multiple choice and are taken online by students at any time the student wishes. Students are given the opportunity to take practice tests to ensure the best possible grade.
As seems to be case with most of us, Larry was already familiar with chat rooms and online communication (that's how we met, actually, but that's a story for another day, perhaps), so he took those things in stride. Then he got to the assignment of the paper.
The students were told initially that they would be writing a paper and presenting it to their classmates. Nothing unusual in that for a Master's program, right? Then it was revealed that they would be putting together a PowerPoint presentation to use to present their paper. Next they were given instructions to record a narration for the presentation and synch it to the slide show. Finally, it was explained that the presentations would all be uploaded and viewed in a virtual reality environment.
To do all of this, the following pieces of software and/or websites were required: Word (to type the paper), PowerPoint (for the slide demonstration), Audacity (to record the narration), Archive.org (to upload the narration file to a public location from where it could be streamed to play along with the slides), SlideShare (to upload the presentation to a public location from where it could be displayed in the virtual reality space), an application within Slideshare (to synch the audio with the slides), and the software for the virtual reality space that was downloaded to Larry's computer.
Larry is without question the smartest person I have ever known, and he was more than capable of doing all of this. He wasn't particularly excited about it, though. I, on the other hand, with the "geek" part of my brain in overdrive, loved it all. I asked for permission to help with the preparation.
Sure, there was some frustration with the fact that it took me 3 days to get the audio synched to the presentation, but that turned out to be a problem in the synch tool, a fact we learned after MANY students emailed the professor in total frustration.
On the day the presentations were supposed to be viewed, Larry got stuck in traffic due to the lovely winter weather here in Chicago, so he called and asked me to log him in to the virtual reality space. While I was waiting for him to get home, I hacked around in the space, looking for the "treehouse" the professor had said he was "standing next to." I also learned how to make Larry's avatar fly, dance and walk, noting that he could fly and dance at the same time.
While I have to admit I can come up with no real practical use for the virtual reality space, I will be using the rest of what I learned last semester to see if I can use the technology to record webinar content with audio that can be viewed online and/or purchased. I've already started taking advantage of the SlideShare capabilities by uploading some presentations there and linking them to my LinkedIn account online.
Technology will always, I think, change and develop so quickly that we'll never be able to completely keep up. I've never been big on trying things when they're brand new -- working with nonprofits, I don't like to see my clients spend their resources serving as guinea pigs for software developers. I do, however, love finding technology that's been around for a relatively short time, long enough to have proven itself viable and useful, but new to me and able to help me -- and help me help our clients -- move in new directions.
Labels: archive.org, Audacity, SlideShare, technology
posted by Cheryl J. Weissman at
8:14 AM
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