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Samhandlings verktøy på Universitetene

The latest educational learning trend is to Enquiry Based Learning (EBL), which is described as environment in which learning is driven by a process of enquiry owned by the student.In essence, that means re versing the normal higher education (or business) process of lecturing or presenting from a podium and getting the audience to take notes.Within an EBL set up, the tutor establishes the task and facilitates the process, but groups of students (or individuals) pursue their own lines of enquiry, seek out relevant material and present the results . In educational a-v terms, it’s a massive turnaround.

Instead of just providing lectern-based presentation and control, the learning environment has also got to allow group’s access to presentations, web-based materials, library content and external sources. The resulting activity also needs to be captured, videoconferencing links may need to be set up, and a-v content libraries maintained.

The ideas behind EBL a re already being put into practice in the UK at Manchester Universit s new l y-opened C e n t re for Excellence in Enquiry Based Learning (CEEBL), which has been set up as a facility working within the university’s faculties of humanities, medical and human sciences, life sciences, and engineering and physical sciences.The project has been allocated £4.5m worth of funding over five years by the HEFCE and CEEBL’s role is to act as a hub supporting faculty development spoke by providing a base for EBL expert staff and consultants.

Operational since the beginning of the 2005-2006 academic year, CEEBL’s first phase of operation is largely concerned with training the faculties academics in its use. As the use of the learning technique gets into its stride, and the different faculties schedule student sessions in the centre, CEEBL will start to research and report on the effectiveness of EBL and its impact on student motivation and learning cultures. So what does CEEBL look like? Well, it’s certainly bedecked with more screens and cameras than users would normally expect to see in a seminar room. And it’s a lot more contemporary in design than most of the old style lecture theatres in Manchester University’s magnificently Victorian, Sackville Street premises.As well as an entrance corridor and a coffee / c a t e r i n g area (which can also be used for discussions between adhoc learning groups), the main activity centers on a large conference room that is divisible (with moveable dividers) into three smaller rooms. All that is backed up by a control, video and technical support area which houses the main AMX controls, videoconferencing racks, and links to the Access Grid system, which pipes videoconferencing around Manchester University locations. It also houses video capture and editing facilities as a DVD duplication tower so that the students can get a record of their work.When the main room is opened out to allow presentations from the front, there are three butted projection areas on the front wall capable of showing images from the lectern PC, from videoconferencing feeds, from the Access Grid and from remote sites. That part of the visual presentation facility is controlled from an Access Grid screen displayed on a Hitachi T-17SX interactive panel sited on the lectern, and the multiple projection windows are controlled and sized by the Access Grid system.Further facilities are then replicated in each of the three rooms. Sixty-one inch plasmas serve each of the break out areas and each area has its own equipment rack, (hidden in a cupboard below the plasma) carrying miniDV,VHS, and DVD source machines, Freeview boxes, host PCs, auxiliary video inputs, an AMX controller and a Kramer switch.

The whole area is further served by three lecterns with laptops and Elmo visualisers, no less than eight videoconferencing cameras, Crown microphones and amplifiers, and JBL speakers. The audio and lighting systems (which are backed up by induction loops) are pre-programmed so that when the room dividers are pulled across they are automatically reset to suit the new room configuration. The control mechanisms are commensurately complex. Control of the monitoring systems (which enable the operator in the technical support area to select camera views and record them) rests with the AMX touch panel in the support area, but other areas can be independently controlled by the groups using them. And, just to make sure that the message is getting across, the AMX controlled in tech support can also be used to send selected images and graphics to another 61in plasma in the coffee and adhoc conversation corridor.So far, the system has been mainly used with staff from the different university faculties.

We are still getting word out that the centre exists, and training people who are going to use it regularly, says CEEBL learning technologist Sally Anderson, whose job is to provide technical support to the sessions and to carry out online and e-learning development. We are looking to create blended learning solutions in which the EBL sessions are supplemented with online she says. And although it’s complex, the whole system looked to be working smoothly when A V visited. The plan is for a third of all Manchester University students to experience EBL, to expand the EBL facilities as staff are training to design and deliver it, and to develop networks and partnerships involving other institutions.With five other Access Grids operating across the university and two external grids able to link in, there’s plenty of opportunity to connect to virtual venues and the long term intention is to build EBL facilities dedicated to the four university faculties which will link back to CEEBL once the project gets into its stride.

The access grid is described as a prototype for the next generation video conference. It was invented (at the Futures Lab, Argonne National Laboratory) to provide technology that could support productive meetings between remote participants while using commodity hardware.Fe a t u res of the Access Grid system include high quality audio; the use of large displays to enable full-size people shots and simultaneous viewing of all remote sites; the use of multiple cameras to show groups and multiple viewpoints; collaborative software that allows remote participants to share and interact with data; and IP multicasting to enable bandwidth efficient networking. More information on the Access Grid project and network is available on the Manchester University web site, at the main Access Grid site in the USA, and from the UK-based Access Grid Support C e n t re (AGSC), which is managed by UKERNA and run by the University of Manchester with funding from the  JISC’s Committee for the Support of Research.

Article reproduced with kind permission of AV Magazine.