Four years ago I was asked to participate in the planning for a project which would use Integrated Systems Digital Network (ISDN) technology to provide advanced telecommunications technology to the school environment. I didn’t know what was then, but I did know that the people proposing the project were talking about the use of interactive video conferencing for distance learning.

Up until this time, I had been a heavy user of computer communications. I was aware of the growing interest in distance learning using video technologies but had never worked with video. With full knowledge of my ignorance of the uses of video in learning settings and deciding that I would be able to contribute because of my experience in working with computer communications in learning settings, I agreed to participate in planning for the project that is now called Impact North Carolina: 21^st Century Education.

Now, four years later, I am coordinating Impact North Carolina. I think I have also discovered a relationship in the use of technology in education that concerns me and, I would think, should concern all technology using educators. Simply stated, there seems to be an inverse relationship between amount of bandwidth available and the level of creativity employed in the use of that bandwidth.

Before I started working with Impact NC I did not think in terms of bandwidth. I thought in terms of baud rate; and was feeling pretty good about being up to 2400 baud. I have now learned that baud rate is simply a way of stating bandwidth and that the more bandwidth you have the more information you can send or receive. A 2400 baud modem is really operating at 2,400 bits per second or 2.4 kilobits per second (KBS). The ISDN lines we use in Impact NC are capable of transmitting 128 KBS over twisted pair copper wire (phone wire). ISDN can transmit so much more over the phone line because it uses direct digital signaling rather than the analog (sound) used over standard phone lines. A fiberoptic line can transmit 45 megabits per second (MBS) or more. Obviously, you do a lot more with fiberoptics than you can with ether ISDN or a modem.

But that seems to be part of the problem. Because a picture of very near television quality can be sent over fiberoptic lines, the users of fiberoptics and other broad bandwidth systems seem to be content with sending television shots. Their main interest seems to be in putting a teacher on one end with a camera and a microphone and students at the other end (possibly at several ends or sites) with a camera and a microphone and trying to d business (teaching) as usual.

There are, of course, claims that it is an economically sound solution since the schools involved could never offer the classes they are offering via this system in the usual way. If there are not enough teachers to teach the specialized subjects being taught or if it would cost too much to hire teachers for all the schools being served this way, the reasoning goes, this is then the most economical solution to the problem. Even if those are justified claims (I wonder; fiber and the equipment that hangs off the ends of fiber are pretty expensive), there are questions of the educational efficacy of such a teaching system and, even more importantly, the question of whether the full benefit of such advanced technologies is being fully realized by trying to replicate a standard classroom setting through a television screen.

At the other end of the bandwidth spectrum are those teachers and students who are using modems. As evidenced by the high quality of the entries in the SIG/Tel telecommunications contest and the wide variety of literature describing projects and sundry computer communications based activities, there is a wealth of examples of powerful ways to use computer communications to enhance the learning experience of students across the entire educational spectrum. Simply browsing through the calls for participation boards on FrEdMail, or a sample of the learning circles activities from the AT&T Long Distance learning Network, or a check of any number of other computer communications services used by teachers will verify the high level of creativity and energy that goes into the exploitation of the tiny bit of bandwidth available. Teachers are using the modem to provide opportunities for their students to gather information, to share knowledge, to solve problems, to broaden experiences, to provide diverse audiences for student work, to collaborate, and much, much more. They are getting a maximum benefit from their very small (in terms of bandwidth) connection to the rest of the world that it feels like a very large connection.

That is why I feel very fortunate that the other people working with me on Impact NC have agreed to use what has been learned from modem-using teachers for our planning model. No, we are not on the greatest amount of that bandwidth available, but we do have pretty good video (compressed, though it is, thus not as smooth and rich as television quality video). This video would be very acceptable if we wished to have a teacher at one site and a class at another site. Instead, we asked what uses of the technology would most likely enhance the learning opportunities of the students. The answer turned out to be the same kinds of things teachers are doing with modems to enhance the learning setting. We decided that putting learners on both ends of our video connections who can share information or collaborate on problems or projects was the most effective use of the technology that was available. And we found that the video works better when supported by some pretty standard form of computer communications (such as email). We also decided that we wanted to enable learners to work across grades and across curricula. Thus we find ourselves doing projects that have:

•  High school students doing science experiments with elementary school students.
• Second graders providing a story starter for second graders at another school to finish.
• Second graders challenging second graders at another school and a myriad of adult visitors with riddles they had devised to explore word relationships.
• Fourth graders collecting data from another elementary school to test the formula used in Gulliver’s Travels to provide clothing for Gilliver in Lilliput.
• Graduate students in Appalachian Studies and at risk high school students in English class sharing information about the Appalachian region they are studying or living in.
• Third, fourth, and fifth graders sharing visions of the future with undergraduate teacher education majors.
• High school students in a science class and eighth graders in language arts sharing information about the science and myths of constellations.
• Seventh and eight grader, high school students, and graduate students in instructional technology using Lego Logo sharing solutions to the same design problem with each other and sharing their results with executives at AT&T.

I am not sharing this list of activities because I want you to praise Impact NC (though I am proud of what we have been doing). Rather, I wonder why projects that are exploring broader bandwidths don’t seem to want to do anything other than teach classes on the system. It disturbs me that, with so much learned about the uses of narrow bandwidths to enhance learning opportunities, there seems to be no carryover to the broader bandwidths. Do none of the lessons learned from the use of modems have anything to teach us about the use of video connections? Is the only real way to use videoconferencing to replicate a traditional teacher-student relationship across distance?

There is truth in the saying that necessity is the mother of invention. Is it possible that with large amounts of bandwidth and nice cameras and microphones we don’t feel the need to try other things? We know that we can’t teach in the normal way when all we are using is a modem and a non-real-time, text based connection. Thus, teachers begin to explore interesting and different ways they can exploit what they have. In the process they have discovered powerful learning activities that add value to the classroom.

The power of broad bandwidth technology will not be realized and learners will not get the maximum benefit of interactive video technologies until we begin thinking outside the standard teacher class relationships. I contend that what teachers have discovered through the use of modems provides a significant guide to those who are developing systems that use a greater bandwidth.

In a presentation to the National School Board Association’s Technology and Learning Conference (Dallas, 1992), Alan Kay of Apple Computers drew the analogy between the invention and use of the movie camera to the exploration and use of computer technologies in education. In this comparison Kay related that the movie camera was, at first, only used as a stationary recording device. The idea was to record a play from the perspective of the audience, thus audiences all over the world could watch a performance as if they were sitting in the theater. It was not, according to Kay, until D.W. Griffith realized that by moving the camera and using different shots (close ups, wide angle action shots, etc.) to focus the attention of the audience and to shape the mood and perceptions of the audience that the movie became its own art form with a unique story telling quality.

Do we have a parallel with videoconferencing over broad bandwidth system? Are we simply trying to do the same old thing with a new technology? Surely, the attitude seems to be, if we keep improving the technology we will be able to recreate the real classrooms across distance. The people working with the early movie cameras must have said very much the same thing. Once we get sound we can make it just like going to a play. Are we (today’s camera persons) missing the real potential of this technology by not looking to exploit its capabilities in unique ways? I believe that may be the case.

I also believe that we have a large body of practice that will help us learn to exploit the capabilities of broad bandwidth system. The problem is that the people who are installing the broad bandwidth videoconferencing systems do not, as a rule, ask the teacher who has worked so hard to exploit her 2.4 kilobits per second what should be done with 45 megabits per second. The problem may also be that the modem-using teacher does not think he/she has anything to say to the people developing videoconferencing systems. The truth is that if you have been engaged in good learning activities using a modem to connect your students to people and information around the world (or around the block), you have a great deal to say to those who are putting in videoconferencing systems. Help the educators working with video systems discover the values of students working together across distance to solve problems and to share information. Be insistent that you have something important to share. Let’s not waste the resources now being installed in schools across the country by simply assuming that the way to use them is to do more of the same. The creativity that has been employed to develop powerful learning activities for modem based communication can be applied, with success, to the broad bandwidth systems. It is our job to make sure that others benefit from our hard-won expertise and that students get the best learning experiences available to them through the use of communication technologies.