Modern information technologies are transforming the way people learn. E-learning provides new possibilities for personalized learning at home or in the workplace, reduces the need for costly classroom training, and enables an optimal balance between tradi
OVERCOMING TECHNICAL FRUSTATIONS IN DISTANCE EDUCATION: TELE-TASK*University of Trier FB IV - Computer Science D – 54296 Trier meinel@uni-trier.deChristoph MeinelUniversity of Trier FB IV - Computer Science D – 54296 Trier schillings@uni-trier.deVolker SchillingsUniversity of Trier FB I - Pedagogics D – 54296 Trier vanessa-walser@gmx.deVanessa WalserABSTRACT Modern information technologies are transforming the way people learn. E-learning provides new possibilities for personalized learning at home or in the workplace, reduces the need for costly classroom training, and enables an optimal balance between traditional and innovative forms of knowledge transfer. But facts have proven that content creation for online courses is time-consuming and costly. Also most of them are not easy to call up. A simple and efficient solution of content creation for online courses is strongly required. Our new system, tele-TASK [1]- Teleteaching Anywhere Solution Kit, paves the way for these requirements. With the help of the new developed system tele-TASK a new, drastically simplified entrance technology for on-line lectures has been reached. Not only contents of teaching, which are presented to the students in the lecture-room by either a whiteboard or a video beamer are delivered but also video and audio of the lecturer. For tele-TASK a special hardware (T-Cube) is now available, which permits the creation of Real or Mpeg4 streams in different bandwidth ranges on the fly. Thus a pre-installed standard player can be used.1. NOWADAYS E-LEARNINGOur society today is characterized by what is called informational society“. Our communication culture and information organization is going to change, as the importance of the internet is growing. As in the term of the informational society‘ is expressed knowledge is a central aspect of people` lifes, that s is – as soon as it is learned – antiquated. So people are forced to lifelong learning not to miss their connection to future developments. At the same time globalization calls for mobility and flexibility. In consequence the processes of learning have to be adapted. They have to be untied from time and place. E-Learning creates new possibilities. So Urry talks about the begin of the computime‘ [2]. Knowledge is deterritorialized and turned into bits of information resulting in ’information blizzards‘ [3]. Besides the mentioned flexibility the use of New Media changes the processes of learning, too. Tele-Teaching is one of this new modes. The public and scientific opinion in reference to E-Learning is ambivalent. While some authors emphasize the revolution of our work via E-Learning, its cost-effectiveness and its greater social inclusion, others speak of a crisis of E-Learning and its little acceptance. Certain is that E-Learning changes the quality of learning experience itself. The reason why critical voices are raised is the fact that many of realized E-Learning projects don’t overcome the status of a pilot project. Why? The answer is given by Hohenstein & Tenbusch [4]: They are missing a perspective paying attention to the functional and structural qualities of a system. In the development of an E-Learning project it is unalterable to consider the aspects organization‘, man‘ and technique‘ equivalently and simultaneously. ORGANIZATION MAN TECHNIQUE Environment Personality soft-/ hardware - culture of learning - qualification - infrastructure - structure - acceptance - quality - process - motivation - meshingsee Hohenstein & Tenbusch 2002 [4] * Proceedings of the e-Society 2003 Conference, Lisboa (Portugal), 2003, pp. 34-41
Modern information technologies are transforming the way people learn. E-learning provides new possibilities for personalized learning at home or in the workplace, reduces the need for costly classroom training, and enables an optimal balance between tradi
Organization Initiators of E-Learning projects should be prepared to changes of structures and processes as a result of the introduction of media based learn methods. Man A successful realization of E-learning projects presupposes the analysis of target groups. Wilbers [5] distinguishes several dimensions concerning the requirement on the part of potential users: the principle of learning, the principle of curriculum and the principle of competence. The principle of learning contains personal styles, aims, the speed of learning and motivations, that have to be analyzed as conditions of the field of work and learning. Trainers must ask for the available technical knowledge of the future users. Those have to know and understand the important terms. Furthermore, they have to be able to apply the central tools. Moreover the experiences of the learners with the internet have to be examined as their experiences with online-teaching, the use of learn programs, the use of web-based services. Curriculum principle means the consideration of the learner’s future professional situation. The principle of competence is seen as the task to get a picture of the competencies that should be realized and their connection to further aims. Technique The technical conditions have to focus on human needs. They have to support the users in facilitating the processes of learning and working. E-Learning should integrate - concerning man - all processes of management of information and management of working, -concerning organization - administration and winding-up, the culture of organization and its aims. Existing communication structures are to be proven if there is a possibility for implementation. The technical infrastructure functions as a City of knowledge“ [4]. An E-Learning project is successful, if it stands the test in all three mentioned dimensions. Changes in one of them must effect changes in the other ones [6]. Now we will concentrate on our project TeleTASK. We want to introduce you to our ideas, that lead to a successful realization of our teleteaching project.2. THE TELE-TASK CONCEPTThe tele-TASK system was originally deployed for recording, transmission and archiving of the computer science lecture "Information security in open networks" at the university of Trier in the summer semester 2002. High access numbers express the perfect problem-free and easy possibilities of using tele-TASK. In this semester another lecture titled "Internet security" is being offered at the University of Trier and simultaneously transmitted to Beijing University of Technology, China. Here Chinese students take part in the lecture via Internet together with students in Germany. Practical testing proves that our solution is successful. In the following, we would like to introduce the new "easy to use" internet based teleteaching package teleTASK, which accomplishes all requirements to modern teleteaching systems. Furthermore, we will present the complete all-in-one solution "T-Cube", which allows you to create online-courses on the fly without previous training for students and operators(!). In reference to the target group analysis we expect to have students, which are able to use a standard web browser. We will later see, that tele-TASK has no further requirements subjected to the technical abilities of the learners.2.1 The Content Creation ProblemToday, there are several ways of electronic content creation for online courses. The most common way is to create the content of the lecture for web-use by means of creating static or dynamic web pages with HTML or PHP. The disadvantage of this method is the extremely high cost for development. On the average, one can calculate one person working for a half up to a full year for the preperation of electronic learning content