Please note that these materials are provided for historical purposes only. The information presented is out of date and may be neither accurate nor useful. External hyperlinks may no longer be valid. For current court technology information, please see the new Court Technology Bulletin.
Vol. 12 No. 4
2000
Internet Learning
A perspective from Jim McMillan and
Mary Ann Massey
Jim
McMillan:
This past October the Court Technology Laboratory (CTL) in
cooperation with the Institute for Court Management's Distance Learning Center
celebrated the project’s 10th Anniversary in appropriate style, not
with a cake but digitally, via the Internet!
Using a combination of Internet distance training software from PlaceWare.com
and telephone conferencing via Gentner Communications, a group of twelve court
sites located across the US participated in a three-part Internet seminar on
electronic filing. This is how the
experiment worked.
Step one was to schedule the audio portion of the class through our selected vendor, Gentner Communications. Gentner provided the telephone bridge service that we selected for the test since they have the possibility of connecting literally thousands of participants together in a conference call. But why did we use "old fashioned" technology like the telephone? First, because telephones usually work; and second and more important, we believe that verbal class interaction is necessary to foster a high quality educational experience. Why else would you attend an Internet class but to learn something that you could use?
Step two is the Internet part of the process. The presenter, in this case me, sat at his computer in Williamsburg, Virginia. Prior to the start of the event, I connected to the PlaceWare.com to create the class. PlaceWare stepped me through the scheduling and creation of an e-mail notification that included the conference call information and the digital "key" to connect to the class.
After getting the class scheduled with the participants and PlaceWare, I was then ready to load my slides into the presenter’s area. The accompanying picture gives a general idea of what the presenter’s area looks like. On the left is a button that activates the slide loader. It gives one a browser box to select the PowerPoint file you wish to load into PlaceWare. The system then automatically converts the PowerPoint slides into web slides. That established my basic course. However I then decided to use several other features of PlaceWare. I put in several class polls to help with class participation. I also included some screen snapshots from several Internet sites and at a couple of points in the class used the text and whiteboard drawing capability.
One other great presenter feature is the audience area. In the lower right is the "classroom" display. The small black boxes turn green when a new participant logs into the PlaceWare class. That way I can know who is participating in the class and when it’s ready to start. Of course I also can see when participants leave just like I do in a face-to-face class. Finally, class participants could chat among themselves (a feature which by the way can be turned off) and submit written questions to the presenter.
From the class participants' perspective, all they need is a telephone, a decent Internet connection (even 28.8 KB modem connection works with this technology) and, a reasonably new browser version (version 4 or later with Java support). PlaceWare provides a test area to make sure your machine can connect to their service. Only one participant couldn’t connect through their court Internet firewall. If you want to try out a version of PlaceWare for yourself, connect to their www.myPlaceWare.com website, load up your slides and have five of your friends login to see your presentation.
The most surprising aspect of the experiment was the class
interaction. Even though we
couldn’t see each other, we had some great discussion among all the
participants. This was a great surprise because I had originally feared
that this might be a potential problem. It
also confirms that the audio conference choice was superior to the alternative
of sending streaming audio via the Internet.
Mary Ann Massey
ICM was most pleased that Jim volunteered to take on this major experiment. He is modest. He was superb in this medium. Even though we had some early glitches (always expected with experiments), he delivered a terrific program.
The Distance Learning "Team" consists of Ray Foster, Manager of the Ed Tech Center, Kevin Mittler, Ed Tech Productions Engineer, Jim McMillan, and myself (director of ICM’s Distance Learning Center). We research software packages, online education systems, online curriculum design options, and videoconference delivery tools. Together we have ventured farther out into virtual learning than any one of us could do alone. The team’s combined skills allow for the development of a breadth of programs during the 2001 calendar year.
We (the team) continued without breaking stride after Jim’s inaugural program right to a second program entitled: Increasing Leader Effectiveness. This three-part program was delivered by a Fortune 500 trainer, Dr. Bob Rust. He also had about ten attendees in his sessions, used PowerPoint slides, the audio bridge for discussions, the polling feature, and the chat room.
We took a little break, switched Web conferencing companies (what’s an experiment without options) and began to explore the possibilities that Gentner Communications has to offer with their Webex partnership (http://www.thedataport.com). They offer more sophisticated options than PlaceWare, but it will take us some time to ‘catch up’ with what they can offer. We concluded the year’s experiment with two other programs: Dr. Carl Baar, an ICM senior faculty and visiting scholar at the NCSC this fall, presented a two part series on "The Purposes of the Courts" to a full class of 20 attendees . Lynn Levey, a research associate with the NCSC Research Division, also conducted a two part series on "Courts and Domestic Violence" to a capacity crowd.
In each program, some sites opted to use a speakerphone and a large screen projection system to extend the number of potential attendees at a site. This worked fairly well even though the programs are designed for individual use. Accurate polling becomes prohibitive when multiple attendees are at a site, limiting responses to a more "general" flavor. Still, it’s a useful option and the benefits outweigh the limitations of a group site.
So what’s next? Many more Internet classes from the NCSC are planned for 2031. An asynchronous interactive program is now available free to courts as a mini class on: An Introduction to Court Performance Standards. Visit the Court Technology Laboratory web site at http://ctl.ncsc.dni.us for the lab's next offering and other upcoming presentations and classes.
This is just the beginning. ICM plans to convert some of these presentations into an asynchronous mode and have them available 24/7 in 2001.
If you have any questions or comments about this
article please drop me an e-note at jmcmillan@ncsc.dni.us.
James E. McMillan is the director of the Court Technology Laboratory at The National Center for State Courts. He can be reached at (757) 259-1839, or jmcmillan@ncsc.dni.us.
Mary
Ann Massey, Ed.D, is the director of the Distance Learning Center for the
Institute for Court Management (ICM) of The National Center for State Courts.
She can be reached at (757) 259-1511.
