My name is Janson Hews,

I'm currently Education Manager at The Powerhouse Museum.

And I was motivated to study eLearning because I wanted to see how it

might apply to my work practice in broader.

One of my recent assignments was a subject called eLearning Technologies.

And as part of that assignment, we had to develop a technology plan.

So that was more or less an argument for why we should integrate this particular

technology to enhance learning in your professional workplace.

And what I did for that particular assignment was develop up a technology

plan for the use of mobile video conferencing unit.

Fast forward a couple of months to my professional practice.

I presented that similar argument to executive staff and

we're successful in acquiring a mobile, and video conference unit.

So with the video conferencing programming,

we'll have a range of ways in which we broadcast that out.

So that might be point to point, in which case we're going to one particular school,

or it might be In the vast majority of the cases multiple points.

So you'll have anywhere between three to five to

more schools participating in that, which means you could effectively be reaching

anywhere between 50 to 150 students real-time.

With that comes a lot of moderation and a lot of being able to jump between schools.

And what is the best model there, is when you get conversations happening

between the schools, rather than just say, from the museum to one particular school.

That takes a bit of work, but that's the best outcome.

And so the way in which, I've applied the learning there

was being able to get an insight into, what methodology and

teaching practice is going to best transfer, into that mode of technology.

So we've got a lot of programs that we run at the museum

which educate [INAUDIBLE] in the gallery spaces.

So how can you take that same experience and that same content that's already

been developed and adapt it for that online experience.

For example, we'll often do experiences such

as a transport tour where we actually explore the gallery space and

augment that with a mix of video, still image and live footage.

And we try to replicate as much as possible and

stay true to the format in terms of making it highly interactive.

In terms of what the interactive experience might be using video

conferencing at museum, we will take something like a science show which is

very much a format that's relying on interaction.

So you have, the educator delivering material, but so

much of that relies on the response from the audience and

to resolve some of the questions and open-ended questioning.

So, what we do in the instance of say a science show,

is make sure that interactivity is put at the center of the experience and,

we'll often do things like supply material and

resources prior to the fact, prior to the actual video conference workshop,

so that teachers can prepare students, give them a bit more contextual

understanding of what that learning experience is going to be like.

Have the students think about what some of the questions that they might have around

some of the science concepts, for example, or of the educator.

And what we'll also do is have follow up activities after the fact.

So it's this sort of continuum of learning that we look at for that experience.

Because what I'm really conscious of is that, while the video conferencing is

great for that real time interaction and that synchronous learning,

what's the experience that leads up to that and after the fact?

because there's so much more learning that goes on outside of that as well.

The other thing that we do in terms of the interactivity,

is making sure that those experiences at the student's end is,

especially for younger audiences, is something that's physical.

So we try and engage the physical body as much as possible, whether that be forming,

responding to particular things or getting them to get up and

move about rather than them just looking at a large static screen.

In terms of the technologies that we're using for video conferencing,

at one end of the spectrum we're using mobile video conferencing technology,

where there's restrictions at the museum for the actual kit and

not being reliant on the studio which we have.

So the benefit there is that you can go into the gallery, the experience is

much more low tech but it's much more realistic in terms of being out for

the students being able to see the specific context.

The benefit as well is that on that level of interactivity,

we can have students more or less direct where that goes.

So if you open up the question, then you can have students say, oh,

can you show us over there?

Can you take us over there?

Which gives us the capacity to do it.

Whereas, if you're in a studio setting, the main control that you might have is

around different camera angles or different positions for cameras.

So that allows us one way for the audience,

our learners to navigate some of those learning experiences.

In the majority of state schools, they have video conferencing technology and

depending on where they're located they'll have that

situated in either really good place or a really difficult place.

It becomes that little more difficult for secondary because they'll often be one

point which with time tabling makes that little bit harder,

but the majority of schools have the technology at their disposal currently.

What we're finding is that more and

more schools are sourcing ways of going outside of that and

utilizing other technologies such as Google Hangout, Adobe Connect for example.

There's certain restrictions on state schools in terms of how they might use

that, but there is a lot of exciting work that is being done for, say,

Google Hangouts and the possible partnerships that happen there.

The benefit there, as well, is that the reach becomes that much more global,

because they're not closed systems.

You're able to get schools from Honolulu to

Australia through to Denmark and have that conversation online.

The production on the other ones are very onerous,

you have to have someone that's operating the tricast, and

you have to have a staff member that set the cameras up.

And while the experience is really rich, it can be quite laborious and

sometimes take away from the magic of exploring a gallery, for example.

It's a mix of formal evaluation and

also informal evaluation using drawing and written responses.

In terms of evaluation of some of the more formal programs,

we'll have our formal methods which will be getting students to complete surveys,

getting teachers to complete surveys.

Other ways which have been really useful in terms of getting

insights from students in the bigger concepts that they're learning,

we use a lot of drawing for example, especially for the younger audiences.

So we might pose the question what did you learn from your visit to the museum today?

And we get the students to draw that, so for example,

if they're doing a transport tour there may be a number of key characters and

a number of key objects which are featured in there, and

we look to see how often those kind of images are communicated.

That's evaluating, assessing students recall of some of those.

But it's also some of the concepts that we might communicate on one of those

experiences and questions are able to visualize that and communicate that.

In terms of monitoring the delivery of teaching from a teaching perspective

I find documenting that process throughout and reflecting on that and

massive means of evaluating how effective, your improvements of being.

In terms of how it's effective, that's your own personal use of it,

in terms of how effective it is from the students' perspective, I think ongoing

feedback and listening that from the students is really important.

And you can kind of see where things are sort of falling down in terms of

that particular technology is not being used or

that particular approach is not being taken up.

And I think from the teacher's perspective it's being really conscious

of what's working and what's not.

And the same kind of checking mechanisms that you'd have face to face or

in a classroom setting, it does apply online.

So, why aren't those things being taken out,

why aren't people delivering on some of those things, and reflecting on that.

In terms of tools online to assist levels of learning,

I think you've got the cold hard facts and

the material is really important to assess for that particular task.

I think it's also important to see what learning is happening outside of that and

not being too restrictive in it.

And I think being conscious of otherwise in which that learning might manifest.

So, in some instances it's not purely the final mark,

its the extent to which collaboration happened, or the extent to which those

students supported other students in their learning, and building a bigger picture of

what that online learning experiences which isn't simply completing the task.

Case Study - Video Conferencing in Museum Education (K-12) (Optional)

Learning to Teach Online

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