Week 3 Application Assignment

Week Three Application - Interactive Tours

A high school history teacher, located on the west coast of the United States, wants to showcase to her students new exhibits being held at two prominent New York City museums. The teacher wants her students to take a "tour" of the museums and be able to interact with the museum curators, as well as see the art work on display. Afterward, the teacher would like to choose two pieces of artwork from each exhibit and have the students participate in a group critique of the individual work of art. As a novice of distance learning and distance learning technologies, the teacher turned to the school district’s instructional designer for assistance. In the role of the instructional designer, what distance learning technologies would you suggest the teacher use to provide the best learning experience for her students?

The availability to access learning materials are now available worldwide.  Although, for the lesson to work the teacher would have to work with the museum curator closely so that the curator will be able to share the art pieces the teacher wants to focus on.  Museums have websites that depict many pieces of art and additional activities and information.  One New York City museum called The Whitney Museum of American Art provided Gallery Talks which were recorded events on specific artists and their work.  They also had a Talk Back page that allowed students to type in their views and comments to different art questions posed.  Now to focus on ways for the museum curator and the classroom to interact her are a couple of tools to enable that moment.  One solution for this type of interaction is videoconferencing (Videoconference - H.323 - Polycom, Cisco/Tandberg, LifeSize, etc...).  The school will need to have the videoconferencing equipment to see and speak with the host.  However, another option is available that does not demand the high cost of the videoconferencing tools and that is web conferencing which can be done with a computer and telephone connection.  One free online conferencing tool available is mikogo (www.mikogo.com).  Another web conferencing technology is BlackBoard Collaborate which allows an image to be presented while also seeing the presenter.  It allows for questions and dialogue to happen throughout the conference.  I was impressed with all that BlackBoard Collaborate had to offer and believe that this is a great way for people to connect internationally to share and learn from one another.  

The following links will take you to sites that detail the above ideas:

http://www.fenimoreartmuseum.org/fenimore/for_teachers/distance_learning - Fenimore Art Museum

http://www.mikogo.com/ - Mikogo Web Conferencing

http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Collaborate/Resources/Recorded-Demos.aspx - BlackBoard Collaborate

One drawback noted in our reading to web-conferencing is that the telephone component can be costly (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2012).  I am sure we will see ways to provide this technology without the burden of the telephone cost.  One way already is through the usage of Skype.  We used this technology to conference as a group with people from all over the U.S. and even from Kenya.  Just make sure to get the time right so that it works with everyone no matter where they are located.

References:

Blackboard Inc. (2013). Blackboard collaborate in action. Retrieved from http://www.blackboard.com/Platforms/Collaborate/Resources/Recorded-Demos.aspx

Fenimore Art Museum. (2013). For teachers/distance learning. Retrieved from http://www.fenimoreartmuseum.org/fenimore/for_teachers/distance_learning

Mikogo. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.mikogo.com/

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education fifth edition. (5th ed., p. 184). Boston: Pearson.