Building Bridges - E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning - page 247

misunderstanding forced the presenter to notice
that a student at the satellite campus had a question.

looking at it in the beginning but not at the end
(GS4).

Instructor Awareness Second, even those who did pay attention to

the awareness display indicated that, generally, it
did not provide adequate detail. One speaker said,
for example, that she “didn't ever have a real good
sense of whether they were bored or not,” adding
that “it was hard to see their faces, which would
have made a difference, I guess” (GS2). This is
in part because students at the satellite campus,
despite repeated urging from the teaching assis-
tant, tended to sit toward the back and sides of the
classroom, far from the camera. While zooming in
on specific students for more detail was certainly
possible, this made less sense when the goal was
to give the speaker an overall sense of what was
taking place at the satellite campus. One presenter
said, however, that he knew from the students'
questions whether or not the material was getting
across clearly. In other words, interaction served
an awareness role as well.
In thinking about how to improve the awareness
features of the modified ePresence system, several
mentioned improved video resolution and more
shot detail. This applied to both wide shots of the
entire class, and zooming in on specific students.
One speaker, for example, said that local questions
were “almost [like] a one-on-one dialogue with
the student asking the question…, but not at all
with the remote students” (GS5). In particular,
this speaker missed the ability to gauge visual
reactions of remote and satellite students. Another
mentioned that it would be useful to superimpose
students' names, so he could use their names in
calling on them.

All of the interviewees said they were conscious
of the satellite students, but the attention paid to
them varied. This is confirmed by our observa-
tions, which showed that some speakers looked at
the awareness display regularly while speaking,
while others did not. There appear to be several
reasons for this variance.
First, several speakers and all observers noticed
that the camera used primarily for capturing the
speaker, and the awareness display were in differ-
ent locations in the lecture room (see Figure 1).
This meant that the acts of paying attention to the
satellite students (i.e., looking at the awareness
display to gauge their engagement with the mate-
rial and see if they have questions) and giving the
students the sense that they were being attended to
(i.e., looking at the camera to mimic eye contact)
were mutually exclusive. Some speakers were
aware of this and made a conscious effort to pay
attention to both the awareness display and the
camera. One in particular said he had prior ex-
perience with video and made a special effort to
“look into the camera … and try to say something
that made them realize that I wasn't just randomly
looking straight into the camera” (GS1).
Relatedly, some speakers also said they found
it hard to look at the awareness display because
“it wasn't on my computer screen in front of
me” (GS5). This speaker looked primarily at the
display in front of him and the first few rows of
the audience. He felt that looking at the awareness
display would have been distracting. Others said
they simply were not in the habit of looking at
the awareness display: TECHNOLOGY AND

DESIGN IMPLICATIONS

you kind of forget, you get absorbed in your
material and you forget. So I don't remember
consciously looking at it. I remember consciously

We conclude with a discussion of lessons from
our case study for those involved with systems
for lifelong learning.