Compressed Video Learning:
How Do We Create Active Learners?

Source:
Burge, Elizabeth J., and Judith M. Roberts. 1998. "Compressed Video Learning: How Do We Create Active Learning?" In Elizabeth J. Burge and Judith M. Roberts, Classrooms with a Difference. Montreal: Chenèliere/McGraw-Hill, pp. 106-11, 113-16.

Copyright:
From Lifelong Learning on the Information Highway™, Classrooms with a difference: facilitating learning on the Information Highway, BURGE AND ROBERTS, © 1998.
Reproduced with the permission of Chenèliere/McGraw-Hill.

Introduction

By the end of this chapter, you will be able to identify the key opportunities, strengths and limitations of Compressed Video Learning (CVL) and how all these factors influence learning and teaching. You'll have more ideas about how to prepare, deliver and evaluate the results. The chapter concludes with some success stories.

How Does Compressed Video Learning Work?

Compressed Video Learning occurs when instructor and learners use microphones, cameras and other television equipment to exchange verbal and moving color images to engage in discussions, exchange messages and access experts as part of a formal or informal learning process. All such interactions occur in real-time, which means the learners and instructor are present at the same time and must coordinate their schedules.

Other terms for this activity include interactive television and interactive videoconferencing. The term videoconferencing can also be used to describe different equipment configurations from those treated in this chapter (one-way television with two-way audio). Because of these variations In terminology and equipment, it is important to know enough about the technology to ensure that the learning event is appropriate to your technical environment and your learning requirements.

Compressed Video Learning can occur in rooms or at the desktop. Our discussion applies to both locations.

As Figure 9.1 shows, CVL consists of three technical elements:

• a room environment with a minimum of one camera, a television monitor, a codec (video encoder and decoder), a microphone and a control pad for changing camera angles (Most vendors sell all these elements in a cart that can be wheeled from room to room.)
• the equivalent of two digital telephone lines (minimum)
• a mechanism for linking three or more sites called a bridge

Compressed video conference is the term used to describe this technical configuration.

A word about compression. Why are we using this term and what does it mean? Historically, "full motion" video such as we see on commercial television or a videotape required the equivalent of 1,200 non-digital telephone lines for each site to transmit a video signal. This capacity gives the illusion of full or natural motion. Compressed video equipment "squeezes" a picture down into a signal that can be sent on as few as two digital telephone lines or as many as 24. The equipment that does this compression (encoding) at the transmitting end and the decompression (decoding) at the receiving end is called a codec. The greater the compression, the less similar the CVL picture quality may be to that of full-motion video; you will see jerky motions instead of smooth ones.

Not all sites have the correct type of digital service. Either you or a technical support person should verify the kind of digital service available at each participating site before committing to a project.

Once you acquire an appropriate level of communications services, you may want to design your room different from the basic layout shown in Figure 9. 1. Figures 9.2 and 9.3 show different room layouts for you to consider as starting points.

Room layout is only one element that varies depending on user needs and preferences. Another is the design of the control pad. Figures 9.4 and 9.5 illustrate two different types of control pads. In general, the control pads provide the same functionality but look quite different. Typically, instructor comfort with the design of a control pad is a critical element when an institution is evaluating different brands of compressed video equipment.

As with Audiographic Learning, an instructor wanting to use Compressed Video Learning needs to know how to manipulate some of the equipment controls in order to plan a learning session. When you deliver the session, it is a good idea to have a second person operate the control pad, leaving you free to concentrate on learning issues. A learner can readily perform that function at each site. A technician is needed to service the equipment. Many organizations have a technician on call during learning events. As everyone gains experience, they tend to call the technician less and less frequently.

One specific challenge to orderly interaction occurs when switching between various sites in compressed video conferencing. The switching is typically sound-driven, which means the bridge connecting the sites shows a picture of the site that has requested the floor. However, the bridge cannot distinguish between "approved noise" generated by a participant's comment and unintended noise generated by shuffling papers or side conversations. In her book on Compressed Video Learning in this Series, Judy quotes Jef Van den Branden of EuroPACE 2000 in Belgium, who reports that "it is therefore a good idea to have at each site a tutor or animator who is previously briefed about these issues and the seminar's agenda. This tutor can assist the seminar moderator by, for example, monitoring the local site for unintended noise, by facilitating discussion when questions are called for and by managing on-site activity when a technical problem occurs-which of course will happen now and then!" (1998, p. 47).

What Are Compressed Video Learning's Strengths? What Are Some Key Issues?

CVL has a number of strengths but requires that we pay attention to several key issues. Table 9.1 shows our summary of 10 strengths and five issues.

Let us elaborate a little.

Visual Presence. Some instructors and learners have high social needs or a strong interpersonal learning style. Seeing a person adds an important extra dimension to learning dynamics for some people.

Table 9.1: Strengths and Key Issues of Compressed Video Learning

Visual presence is important when attitude and learning with an emotional component are involved. It is less important when studying highly theoretical conceptual topics. Videoconferencing equipment would therefore be an advantage in teaching intercultural communication skills but would not add much to a course in philosophy.

Color and Movement. Being able to present colored moving visuals can be essential for some learning goals. For example, a simulated interview would benefit greatly from CVL, as body language is very important in such a situation. Learning activities such as role plays cited in Chapter 3 also lend themselves well to CVL.

Interactivity. In both the human and technical sense, compressed video is a highly interactive medium that permits learners to be active participants in the process, not passive viewers of a screen. Figure 9.6 describes two techniques to stimulate the interaction and active engagement discussed in Chapter 3.

Symmetry. The videoconference equipment shown in Figures 9.1 to 9.3 enables each site, and each group of learners, to originate learning activities. It is not like other types of television, where only one site, or studio, can originate programs, while the others are primarily recipients, with their interaction limited to voice or data. From a learning design perspective, therefore, all learners can be expected to contribute equally.

Flexibility. Compressed Video Learning can be used for a wide variety of learning applications such as (1) showing case-study material, (2) conducting role plays, (3) demonstrating interview techniques and (4) presenting information requiring high-quality graphics or movement. Réal Samson, president of Le Collège de l'Acadie in Nova Scotia, cites an instructor who reports that "the technology allows me to be innovative and creative in presenting my material."

Convenience. The equipment often sits on a cart, which can be rolled in and out of any classroom equipped with the right telephone jack (see Figure 9.1). The equipment can also be permanently installed in one room shared by many users. The choice is yours, depending on your needs.

Cost. Compared with the cost of many other types of educational television, or with the cost of travel, compressed video is cost-effective. For example, Transport Canada estimates that it recovered the cost of purchasing its equipment within 12 months because of the direct and indirect travel expenses that were saved (Roberts, 1998).

New Revenue. Users such as the Huron County Board of Education in Ontario plan to recover some of their costs by selling unused time to other education and business users in their community. Elizabeth Katz (1995) and her colleagues at the Bridgewater Research Group conducted an analysis of trends in the use of technology in the United States and reported that many institutions, especially schools, are adopting that same strategy in order to make videoconferencing affordable.

New Partnerships. Sharing equipment, whether yours or theirs, may lead to new partnerships among education and training stakeholders in a community.

Interconnectability. Vendors have agreed to some common standards so that several different brands of equipment can be linked up. As a result, you do not have to be unduly concerned about what brand of equipment a colleague might have, as long as it has international standards-based software.

Five key issues need to be addressed so as not to limit these strengths or hinder the effective application of Chapter 2's CARE learning principles to Compressed Video Learning.

Active Learners. First, let's revisit the need to create an active learning environment. We know how essential that is and repeat it here for one reason-everyone's familiarity with broadcast television. The CVL screen is a television monitor, and that fact often encourages the same sort of audience passivity that watching TV does. So, when we are offered the opportunity to use what looks like a normal television set for learning, we have to change our habits and focus on the people at the other end to engage ourselves actively with the minds on the screen. The television set, camera and microphone are our channel to learners. If learners are not encouraged to take responsibility for some of the learning activities, then you may have a difficult task generating productive learning.

Visual Presence. A second set of issues clusters around three features involved in creating a visual presence: (1) the camera, (2) picture quality and (3) motion and pattern. First, it is critical to use the camera in such a way that gives you a good picture of a person without making him or her feel too self conscious about being in a "close-up." If the camera angle is so wide that a face appears as a small dot, we haven't created much of a sense of visual presence. Later on, we make some more specific suggestions on how to use the camera appropriately. Second, compressed video equipment produces different levels of picture quality depending on the number of telephone lines used. The most cost-effective option uses the equivalent of two telephone lines. Many users find that they need as many as six lines to produce the clarity needed for their application. Factors that affect the degree of clarity needed include the subject matter being taught, the teaching model used and learner character istics such as special sight needs. As for the third feature, compressed video is different from full-motion, broadcast-quality television and cannot, especially when only two lines are used, accommodate quick-motion and highly patterned material. Figure 9.7 shows an example of a still visual that was adapted to CVL so that too much pattern was avoided; the complex still visual was included in the print learner's manual, not transmitted by the camera.

Ergonomics. Color, lighting, acoustics and other features of the room you use need special attention. Factors such as where to put the television monitors to avoid glare from the windows need to be added to the baseline ergonomic issues we described in Chapter 2.

Sound Quality. Most compressed video vendors provide a standard type of microphone setup. Many users interviewed for Judy's book on Compressed Video Learning, such as Memorial University of Newfoundland, indicated that achieving good sound quality was a greater challenge than creating picture quality. They found it necessary to upgrade the standard package provided by vendors.

Preparation. The richness of the video learning environment comes with a price-additional preparation. Each component of the information delivery and communication processes must be planned for: print materials must be pre-circulated, graphics must be created for the document camera and verbal and visual presentation skills to be used during the session must be practiced. We will touch on each of these in a later section.

If this seems complicated, don't panic. Lots of people agree with Sandra Hodder that "the second day was much easier than the first, and, by the third day, I don't think that I would have noticed that the classroom was 'electronic'" (Roberts, 1998, p. 9).