UF Professor Develops E-learning Lab For Students Of All Ages

May 3, 2000

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Picture a world in which kindergartners and college students alike can see and speak with other students around the globe and learn from teachers and professors all over the world — at little or no cost.

At the University of Florida’s College of Education, that world already exists.

In the College of Education’s Collaborative E-learning Laboratory, UF Professor Kara Dawson meets once a week with eight college students in a class called Cognition, Technology and Learning. But this class is different, because five of her students are sitting in a classroom at Iowa State, watching her on a computer monitor. The three students at UF also receive instruction from Jerry Willis, an Iowa State professor who will never meet them face to face.

How might this technology change the future? First, it will allow school children to communicate with their peers both around the country and around the world, an opportunity that will expand children’s horizons, Dawson said. The technology also will allow college students to learn from the country’s foremost experts in various field, even if they’re not geographically nearby. Researchers across the country will be able to collaborate better than ever on projects and research papers, because they’ll be able to see each other and analyze research results live, Dawson said.

“It is certain that collaborative technologies will improve and become more commonplace and less expensive,” Dawson said.

Internet-based live video learning programs have become increasingly popular as more people turn to the World Wide Web for everything from commerce to education. But the costs of running such programs — often several hundred dollars an hour because of the need for satellite uplinks and high-capacity land lines — have made this form of education inaccessible to most people.

But Dawson, along with professors from the University of Virginia, the University of South Florida and Iowa State, has begun programs in which classes are transmitted over Internet2, an Internet bandwidth accessible to educational institutions. The cost to use the service is minimal, and schools need only to buy a video card and Web camera for each computer they plan to use for the program.

“Many more traditional distance-learning programs have been set up to make money by allowing one professor to teach many students,” Dawson said. “Here, we’re using the technology for enriching the educational experience rather than making money. It’s a more collaborative learning process, where several students get to learn from several other students and teachers.”

The program is still in its infancy at UF, but Dawson sees big things in store.

“I think 10 years down the road it’s going to be ubiquitous,” she said. “I think it will be used in kindergarten through 12th-grade classrooms, too. It might be used in small group settings, for collaborative writing or analyzing strategies for math, for example.”

E-learning technology will enhance the educational experience for students who have a chance to use it because it will remove many of the physical boundaries that now limit learning, said Willis, who has been using e-learning technology at Iowa State for three years.

“It is an opportunity to bring students in contact with experts who are specialists in a particular field or discipline,” he said. “Students in a program at a university won’t be limited to the expertise of faculty at that institution. They will be able to participate in courses and other learning experiences with faculty from many different institutions.”

The University of Florida is one of the leaders in developing a technology that will transform education at all levels, said Gerardo Gonzalez, interim dean of UF’s College of Education.

“We are fully committed to a technologically advanced College of Education,” he said. “We think that the roles of teaching and learning have been transformed by this technology.”