Case Study 2: Room-based video conferencing to develop an understanding of patient management processes (collaborative evaluation task)

Face-to-face student view

Remote student view

Joanne Curry

In this design Joanne Curry from University of Western Sydney used Access Grid video conferencing to bring together and simultaneously engage students across three university campuses. The lesson, in the discipline of health informatics, involved a combination of a lecture and a small-group activity culminating in the groups reporting back to the whole class. There was a lecturer and tutor present at one of the sites and only a tutor present at a second site. The Access Grid setup at each campus involved the use of multiple screens showing video feeds of each of the other sites along with presentation slides displayed by the lecturer. During the report-back phase, students made use of a networked interactive whiteboard to share their notes with students at the other sites. The lesson generally proceeded smoothly with students on all sites able to participate effectively. Minor issues included an inability for students to hear questions asked by their classmates at remote sites, and difficulty in making out the details of the material shared through the interactive whiteboard. The lecturer used encouragement, questions and prompts to involve students at all campuses. The role of the remote tutor in promoting input from remote students emerged as an important element of the lesson.