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- Publically funded metropolitan research university.
- “The University of Missouri-St. Louis is the land-grant research
institution committed to meeting diverse needs for higher education and
knowledge in the state's largest metropolitan community. It educates
traditional and nontraditional students in undergraduate, graduate and
professional programs..” (UM-St. Louis Mission Statement, http://www.umsl.edu/services/academic/admin/mission.html)
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- 15,500 students (12,000 on-campus)
- 64% of undergraduates are fulltime
- 78% of new undergrads--transfers
- Commuter campus: 20% residential
- 26% minority student population
- Middle/working class background
- Median age: 27.3
- Netgen?
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- WWW (release .01) circa 1993
- MyGateway (Blackboard) circa 2000-2008
- Combined sections: In-class, online, day and evening
- Asynchronous: discussion boards, lecture notes, group wikis
- Synchronous:
- Face-to-face
- Wimba Live Classroom
- Concern: student engagement and interaction
- Focus: Access to the classroom anytime/anywhere and social learning
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- Online, synchronous presentation software
- Duplex audio
- Application sharing
- Archiving
- Tracking
- Polls and quizzes
- Check out the interface: MyGateway
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- Increasing channels of communication and interaction.1
- “Collaboration is increasingly seen as critical across the range of
educational activities, including intra- and inter-institutional
activities of any size or scope.2
- Accessibility and Flexibility
- Why not?
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- Began using Centra Fall 2004
- TA’s going back to FS 2003
- Issues with Centra
- Switch to Live Classroom
- Integrated into MyGateway
- FS 2005 experimented with one class (student presentations)
- Spring 2006 onward--used in all classes (blended model)
- Issues:
- minor technical difficulties
- Benefits
- TA use: review sessions
- Student group use
- In-class versus “Wimbians” competition
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- Survey of students (SS06, FS06, WS07, SS07, FS07):
- Online demographics
- Compare to UMSL in general
- Compare to US users in general
- Perceptions of the usability and utility of Wimba Live Classroom
- Perceptions of the usability and utility of wiki-based assignments
- 716 students completed the survey
- 13 classes: online and face-to-face
- 50%-65% of students “internet only”
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- “Wimba was great for listening to lectures later on in the archives.”
- “Overall the best part of the course was the use of the wimba, it
enabled me to not have to be at the campus to attend the lecture.
I really appreciated having it as a resource.
- “Using wimba is a good tool to review, lecture, and to clarify things..”
- “I did not use Wimba live to attend the class but I am glad it was
available. I have used it to play back for attendance credit only. I
would like for this feature to be added to other courses at UM-StLouis.”
- “The flexibility and convenience of Wimba allowed me to attend EVERY
class. In a traditional classroom course, I would have missed at least 4
classes.”
- “I think that all courses should have the wimba archives
available!!! I travel a lot and it was great to have a class that
I could be out of town and still attend.”
- If it weren't for WIMBA I would not have been able to take this
class. I have taken other "on-line" courses at other
colleges and hated them. The archived "live" classes
were great.
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- “With the use of these technologies it has become easier to balance my
schedule than it ever was before. I really enjoy the opportunity
to attend class through wimba. It offers many students better
opportunities to learn because sometimes a student might not be able to
attend class but if they have the opportunity to attend from home they
can still benefit from that days class without having to miss
anything. I would like for almost all classes at UMSL to
incorporate the advantages Wimba provides.”
- “The availability of being able to attend class whenever I had time made
my life much easier because I work full time, go to school full time,
and am a full time mother. This kind of flexibility in attending class,
and doing the work when it fits into my schedule made my things so much
nicer, I would definitely sign up for any other courses that were
offered in this format.”
- “The use of wimba to review achives was sooo nice. It made me not stress
about missing classes due to illness. I wish there was this feature in
ALL my classes. It would really benefit my learning process.”
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- “I hate wimba.”
- “Wimba and wikis were so confusing at the beginning. I fell behind
the first three weeks trying to learn how to get around on the online
system. I also had to spend extra money to get my computer
set up to go online. Now it's a piece a cake, but it was really
frustrating at first.”
- “The use of wimba and wiki certainly have problems to work out. Had I
not had trouble listening to archives...I would have been more pleased
with the features. As they are currently, however, they take up more
time trying to use them than they are worth trying to convey
information. If they were improved they might be more useful to
students.”
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- “Just because UMSL offers Wimba and Wiki does not mean every student
wants to use it. Students also have lives, each student is not
:fresh" out of high school and adding these programs makes it that
much harder when you have a full time job, kids and try to attend school
all at the same time. Not everybody can handle the internet.”
- I don't think that watching courses on Wimba should be a requirement for
students that are registered for Internet sections of a course. Wimba
should be an available tool for those that want to use it, but as a
requirement, it made even completing an Internet course on my own weird
schedule difficult. I sign up for Internet classes because of the odd
and changing hours I works, so having to work around an application like
this was, at times, difficult.
- “Wimba still has some technical glitches that need fixing.”
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- Technical issues (bandwidth, microphone, video)
- Archive labeling
- Screen space—application sharing vs. PowerPoint
- Online chat during class—difficulties in paying attention to online and
in-class students, yet “social learning”
- Students resistant to use of microphone (tech issue), now camera.
- User (instructor) error ;-)
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- Students clearly appreciate the flexibility and accessibility
- Using Live Classroom works well for traditional classes, as well as
distance/online
- Students are learning to use archives as a resource
- If nothing else, students think they do better (learn more)
- The more these tools are used, the more students want them
- Tools like Live Classroom are key in improving student engagement and
retention
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- Video integration (talking head or class)
- Integrating online activities and group work—breakout rooms seem easy to
configure.
- Developing archive library
- Wish we could edit archives
- Integrate with podcasting (issue of tracking)
- Working from home (or the beach ;-) say, if only this conference was in
June……
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- Robert Keel
- Teaching Professor
- Department of Sociology
- UM-St. Louis
- rok@umsl.edu
- 314-516-6052
- http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr
- http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/wimba_08/wimba_helix_08.htm
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Notes
