Education and Information Technologies 1 21–41 (1996)

1111 2 3 4 5 6 Audiographics in transition: changing 7 8 technologies and patterns of usage 9 10111 1 ALLAN ELLIS 2 Faculty of Education, Work and Training, Southern Cross University, PO Box 3 157, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia. 4 E-mail: [email protected] 5 World Wide Web: http://www.scu.edu.au/ 6 7 ROGER DEBRECENY 8 Faculty of Business and Computing, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, 9 Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia. 20111 E-mail: [email protected] 1 World Wide Web: http://www.scu.edu.au/anet/people/RogerD.html 2 3 ROBERT CRAGO 4 Revelation Computing Pty Ltd, PO Box 356, Zillmere, Queensland 4034, Australia. 5 E-mail: [email protected] 6 World Wide Web: http://www.powerpu.com.au/~revcom 7 8 9 30111 1 This paper discusses the development and use of an audiographics program, 2 Electronic Classroom®, at all levels of Australian education and analyses the 3 manner in which the rapid improvements in computing performance have 4 allowed the technology to meet the needs of users from new areas of the 5 curriculum; illustrates the usage of the product in a variety of educational 6 settings by pointing to a number of case studies; discusses the educational strate- 7 gies used by teachers in their use of audiographics and makes conclusions on 8 the role of audiographics in education. 9 KEYWORDS: distance education; computer assisted instruction; tele-teaching. 40111 1 2 INTRODUCTION 3 4 Audiographics has been variously defined, but in the context of this paper refers to 5 the linking of a number of educational sites into a ‘distributed’ classroom by a com- 6 bined voice circuit usually using telephone connections over the public switched 71111 telephone network, PSTN (‘audio’) and linked computers (‘graphics’) at those sites.

1360–2357 © 1996 Chapman & Hall 22 Ellis et al.

1111 Table 1. Selected educational technologies differentiated by 2 temporal and spatial features 3 4 Spatial 5 Temporal Same place Different place 6 7 Synchronous Classroom Audiographics 8 Educational TV & Radio Teletutes 9 10111 Asynchronous E-Mail 1 World Wide Web 2 Real Audio 3 Asynchronous TV 4 5 6 Audiographics is an example of what Bates (1993) calls the ‘remote classroom’ where 7 the teacher is in control and is arguably the ‘source of knowledge’. Table 1 shows 8 the place of audiographics amongst selected educational technologies analysed by 9 temporal and spatial factors. 20111 1 The traditional classroom is conducted synchronously and in a single geographic 2 location, and by its very nature allows for two-way communication between teacher 3 and student. Audiographics is also synchronous, but conducted in different geo- 4 graphic locations; and also allows for two-way communication between teacher and 5 student, both by the shared use of the whiteboard and by the telephone connec- 6 tions. Teletutorials provide asynchronous, different place connectivity, but have no 7 visual element. Both audiographics and teletutorials are designed for relatively 8 small groups working intensively. 9 30111 Educational radio provides a mass synchronous, different place but unidirectional 1 educational experience without visual element. Educational television can provide 2 all of these features but to provide bidirectional communication adds significant 3 technological challenges, and to move to asynchronous television requires formid- 4 able computing and bandwidth capabilities. 5 6 Audiographics is a low cost and relatively low technology solution to a variety of 7 educational problems. At its most simple it requires two relatively low end personal 8 computers equipped with modems and a voice line for oral communication. The 9 personal computers provide a rich shared multimedia workspace. Audiographics 40111 has a low setup cost, is simple to establish and run on a going basis and provides 1 for flexible delivery compared with the more structured nature of print based dis- 2 tance education materials. It relates well to the traditional classroom model and 3 can, therefore, readily be adapted to use in the K12 system (McCullagh and Stacey, 4 1993; Gray and O’Grady, 1993; Oliver and Reeves, 1994), but is also to be found in 5 higher education (Barker and Patrick, 1989) , teacher in-service training (Knapczyk, 6 1992; McCullagh and Stacey, 1993; Stacey, 1995) and staff training environments 71111 (Miller, 1991). Audiographics in transition 23

1111 Audiographics has been most popular in Australia and Canada, with the major 2 audiographics products originating in these countries. Both are very large coun- 3 tries with only relatively small populations. At the same time, they both have highly 4 urbanized communities. This means that many rural areas have very low popula- 5 tion densities; with distances between population centres, many of which have only 6 tiny populations, which would be unthinkable in most other countries. This combi- 7 nation of distance and low population density provides particular educational 8 challenges in the delivery of high quality education at a reasonable cost. 9 10111 The focus of this paper is on the development and usage of an Australian audio- 1 graphic software package, Electronic Classroom®, which runs on the Apple 2 Macintosh platform. The technology has been employed in a variety of educational 3 settings throughout the K12 curriculum in both rural and urban areas and in the 4 technical and university sectors, with more than 1000 sites around Australia now 5 servicing a diverse range of programmes and subject matter. The remainder of 6 this paper analyses the manner in which the rapid improvements in hardware and 7 operating system performance over the five year life of this product period have 8 allowed this educational technology to meet the needs of both the early adopters 9 of the technology as well as providing new tools for users from new areas of the 20111 curriculum; the paper analyses the usage of the product in a variety of educational 1 settings by pointing to a number of case studies, and discusses the educa- 2 tional strategies used by teachers in their use of audiographics and makes some 3 conclusions on the role of audiographics in education. 4 5 DISCUSSION 6 7 Technical developments 8 9 In an educational environment, audiographics as implemented by Electronic Class- 30111 room® allows: 1 2 (1) synchronous communication between teacher and students at a distance at 3 relatively low cost, 4 (2) the remote call up of common files stored on floppies or hard disks and 5 control peripheral devices such as CD-ROM drives, 6 (3) instructions to be issued to remote computers to display movies, and 7 (4) interrelationship of the output of one computer program into the audio- 8 graphic software for transmission to remote computers. 9 40111 The technical history of Electronic Classroom® provides a snapshot of the adap- 1 tation of the educational technology to both changing functionality in computing 2 and communications and to the changing needs of teachers. The design analogy 3 for Electronic Classroom® is that of an electronic equivalent of the standard class- 4 room whiteboard. Information which is ‘written’ on the ‘whiteboard’ by the ‘teacher’ 5 or ‘student’ is reproduced on the screens of the other site(s). Version 1.0 was 6 released in February 1990 and could connect to a maximum of two remote sites. 71111 It offered freehand, text, rectangle, oval and straight line tools and supported one 24 Ellis et al.

1111 Figure 1. A basic link between three sites (Version 1 setup) 2 3 4 brand of modem at 1200/2400 byte s–1. It ran on either Mac Plus or Macintosh 512K 5 and, consequently, only supported a 9” monochrome screen. A typical Version 1 6 setup is illustrated in Fig. 1 with one base and two ‘remote’ Macintoshes commu- 7 nicating by low speed modem and with voice communication by telephone. The 8 first classroom users of Electronic Classroom® were in a number of secondary 9 schools in Victoria and in three central (K10) schools in New South Wales. 10111 1 Version 1.02 came in October 1990 and added dialling features for congested 2 exchanges, as well as the ability to open multiscreen files. Screens are held in 3 random access memory (RAM) on each computer and so it is very quick to switch 4 from screen to screen. Subscripts and superscripts in text were also added to 5 accommodate the needs of mathematics teachers. A ‘buzz’ feature was added, so 6 that students at remote sites could gain the attention of the teacher, meaning that 7 the teacher could ask the remote students a question and, rather than putting up 8 their hands as in a normal classroom, they would ‘buzz’. 9 20111 Versions 1.04 and 1.05 in early January 1991 supported greater than two remote 1 sites via a special multiport serial card in a Macintosh II, this still forms the foun- 2 dation of most multiple sites. Asian language support was added for languages 3 other than English (LOTE) and is now provided by WorldScript. The first Macintosh 4 LCs were making their way into schools, so coloured drawing was added. A new 5 graphic selection capability was added, as was automatic restarting on multi- 6 pointing computers to accommodate dropped telephone lines. 7 8 Key features in the next several maintenance releases added support for more 9 modem types, including for the first 9600 baud modems in schools. Support for 30111 teachers and students to work on screens after the lesson was over was added. 1 This allowed students to review the lesson after its completion. 2 3 Three major releases then took place in the period from August 1992 to July 1994. 4 Version 1.13 provided for the increasing number of schools with Macintosh LCs with 5 colour screens and added colour picture support, including reading PICT files and 6 7 8 Audiographics in transition 25

1111 extracting the text where appropriate. Colour pictures are much larger than the rel- 2 atively simple monochrome and colour paint files, and presented a challenge to 3 transmit in reasonable times over unreliable phone lines at 2400 or 4800 byte s–1. 4 Apple’s QuickTime™ technology was used to compress them on the fly by the 5 sending computer and uncompress them on the fly by the receiving computer. 6 Multiple window sizes, up to Apple’s two page monitor, were also provided. 7 8 Version 2.0 added remote CD-ROM, including PhotoCD™ access and QuickTime™ 9 movie support. The QuickTime™ digital movie format allowed the teacher to play 10111 movies on the remote computers. In theory, the movies could be downloaded over 1 the modems, but realistically given the size of the movies this was infeasible. Hence, 2 an alternative solution had to be found and a methodology for recognizing mounted 3 storage volumes, be they hard disk or CD-ROM, on each Macintosh was devised. 4 The teacher could, then, distribute CD-ROMs to each school and as long as the 5 students or support teachers at each location had loaded them into the CD-ROM 6 drive, the teacher could play the same movie simultaneously on all remote 7 computers. 8 9 The only information transferred over the PSTN was the instruction to get and play 20111 the desired digital movie [see Ellis and Debreceny (1994) for a full review of Release 1 2.0]. Almost all the schools that have been purchasing computer equipment for 2 Electronic Classroom® use in recent years have been purchasing computers with 3 inbuilt CD-ROMs, and a number of schools that had purchased equipment in 4 previous cycles have been progressively adding external CD-ROMs. 5 6 Version 2.5 added a whole new word processor, with transparent and scrolling text 7 so that the teacher could pre-prepare significant amounts of text and scroll them 8 up into view as required. Invisible text was added by request of teachers so that 9 they could pre-prepare an answer to a question and make it invisible and then, as 30111 needed, make it visible to other parties. Similarly, speech bubble text borders were 1 added following the expressed needs of LOTE teachers. Sound input and speech 2 synthesis was supported. 3 4 To reduce the amount of time at the start of a lesson taken up with the connec- 5 tion and transfer of the lesson, this version allowed for complete lessons to be 6 sent ahead of time and opened remotely without delay. In contrast to the early 7 period of the software when there were only a handful of modems available and 8 they had limited functionality, the mid 1990s saw a diversity of brands and of stan- 9 dards being followed. Each modem seemed to have different initialization strings 40111 and varying success in gaining and holding a connection notwithstanding the manu- 1 facturers’ claims. Version 2.5.8 in January 1995 implemented modem scripts for a 2 wide range of modems, and different types of modems were now allowed on each 3 different port in the bridge computer. Most schools now purchase 14.4 kilobyte 4 modems, but the line quality of the PSTN means that many still must run them at 5 9600 or even 2400 byte s–1. Interestingly, it appears that faster line speeds are often 6 possible from small town to city, but not from small town to small town. 71111 26 Ellis et al.

1111 Version 2.5.9 in June 1995 added multimedia support via attachments to text 2 objects. Now multiple onscreen movies, stills and sounds can be played, shown or 3 hidden at will, using resources from commercially available CD-ROM titles. File 4 opening was simplified, especially for stepping through folders of similar lesson 5 material. Many other keyboard features were also added to reduce the time taken 6 to perform frequent tasks while teaching. Finally, the ability to form lessons over 7 local area networks and the Internet is under final testing as this paper is being 8 completed and will be released in early 1996. 9 10111 In the half-decade, the product and the manner in which Electronic Classroom® 1 (has been used in Australia schools has changed from the basic setup shown in 2 Fig. 1 to the more complex and rich environment shown in Fig. 2. A bridge computer 3 with a multiport card provides linkage to a number of remote sites. The teacher 4 can be at the site hosting the bridge computer or any of the remote sites. The 5 computers are now often equipped with substantial memory so as to hold all the 6 screens in a particular lesson in RAM and CD-ROMs for use with educational multi- 7 media resources. In many schools as the most powerful computer is given over to 8 Electronic Classroom®, usage is maximized by using it for other purposes during 9 non-class periods. 20111 1 Teachers have over this period also gained considerable experience in the manner 2 in which the technology is employed in the classroom. Typically, a classroom or a 3 4 Bridge Computer 5 6 7 Modems connected 8 to multiport card 9 30111 1 Remote Computers 2 3 Remote Modems 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 4 5 CD-ROM 6 71111 Figure 2. Typical multisite setup in mid-1990s Audiographics in transition 27

1111 Datashow 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 2 Slave Monitors 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 Figure 3. Two possible screen display setups 5 6 7 portion of a classroom will be set up as the distributed classroom. Two strategies, 8 shown graphically in Fig. 3, have been employed if the number of students exceeds 9 three or four, the effective limit at which a single screen can be viewed. The first 30111 approach has been to acquire a computer projector or ‘datashow’ which takes the 1 output from the computer and displays it on to a screen. The second approach 2 has been to acquire a video booster and splitter and up to three computer displays 3 which are then distributed around the classroom. 4 5 This latter approach has become more popular as colour screens have predominated 6 and given the often prohibitive cost and relatively poor display characteristics 7 of colour datashows. Some schools have also ‘daisy chained’ keyboards together, 8 so that each group of students clustered around a monitor can use the mouse or 9 keyboard, obviating the need for students to get up from their chairs and move to 40111 a central keyboard if called upon by the teacher to answer a question or illustrate 1 some particular point. 2 3 The work environment 4 5 In a typical Electronic Classroom® class while the computers are being connected, 6 the screens that the teacher has prepared prior to the class are transferred across 71111 the modem lines to the other classes; and as this process of a few minutes takes 28 Ellis et al.

1111 2 3 Screen Menus 4 Control 5 6 7 8 Tool Bar 9 Pointers to 10111 remote sites 1

2 Ann 3 St1 4 5 St2 6 Jon 7 8 9 20111 1 2 Work area 3 4 Figure 4. Electronic Classroom® screen showing menu bar and vertical 5 tool bar 6 7 8 place, the teacher may call a roll and set out the objectives for the session. 9 Alternatively, in a quicker start to the class, the teacher can retrieve screens that 30111 have been transferred previously to the remote computers or are located on a 1 CD-ROM or other external device. 2 3 The workspace that the teacher and students share in the latest versions of 4 Electronic Classroom® retains the whiteboard concept of the first release, but is 5 now a rich multimedia whiteboard. The interaction is built upon a teacher–student 6 model; with the teacher retaining overall control of the session, but allowing 7 students at the other sites to have control at any time. 8 9 While the workspace is a shared environment, it is not shared synchronously as 40111 only one site may change the workspace at any one time. The current status of 1 the class is shown by the names of the remote sites and the state of the ‘lamps’ 2 for each site (see Fig. 4). The site which has current control, in this case ‘St2’, is 3 shown with a darker lamp and the connected state of the other sites is indicated 4 by their grey lamps. At any time the teacher can take back control of the screen 5 by clicking on the lamp for that site and either reallocate control to another site 6 or retain control. Sites may request to take control and a buzzer will sound on all 71111 computers and the lamp will flash. Audiographics in transition 29

1111 The teacher or student can cycle around the screens with the arrows on the tool 2 bar, as well as to insert new screens. The tool bar also provides the usual features 3 of a simple graphics package. The text features are rich, with scrolling windows, 4 transparent text, a variety of borders and the ability to incorporate sound files 5 within the text box. A teacher can prerecord sounds or use existing sounds, and 6 then write a small amount of text to describe the sound. This has obvious appli- 7 cations for language teaching, but has been used in disciplines as far from language 8 teaching as physical education and science. The video menu gives control over the 9 playing of digital movies in QuickTime™ format. 10111 1 Case studies of usage 2 3 Some 1000 copies of Electronic Classroom® are in use around Australia, with a 4 handful outside the country. The breakdown of usage between sector is shown in 5 Table II, with the overwhelming usage in the secondary sector. 6 7 Table 2. Breakdown of usage by educational sector 8 9 Sector Percentage 20111 Secondary 80 1 Primary 9 2 TAFE 3 3 University 7 4 Professional development 1 5 Total 100 6 7 8 9 This preponderance of usage in the secondary sector can be attributed to the need 30111 for secondary schools to support a higher number of students in a wider range of 1 subjects than in a primary school. A primary school in Australia might service an 2 enrolment of as low as 20 students with a single teacher, which would be incon- 3 ceivable at the secondary level. Further, there is pressure from students and parents 4 to offer a wider and wider selection of subjects to higher levels. A particular school 5 may appear to have a viable number of students and staff to mount a full secondary 6 programme, yet not have the appropriate mix of staff expertise or student demand 7 to warrant offering a particular programme. This is particularly the case in the 8 eleventh and twelfth years of the K12 experience. 9 40111 A number of schools can jointly offer subjects that each would not be able to 1 mount, using audiographics as the technological ‘glue’. Schools may also be short 2 of teachers with skills in high demand; with, in the Australian context, teachers of 3 Japanese with native language skills being a particular example. Finally, for some 4 schools, such as the northern border schools of New South Wales, a combined 5 senior school is the only economic way in which a programme can be mounted 6 (Debreceny and Ellis, 1994). 71111 30 Ellis et al.

1111 Western Australian rural education 2 Oliver and Reeves (1994) have analysed the priority country areas programme 3 (PCAP) project in schools in Western Australia. The project is designed to improve 4 educational opportunities and outcomes in rural Western Australia where less than 5 10% of the state’s population resides. The project saw the introduction of audio- 6 graphics in both primary and secondary programmes, including post-compulsory 7 schooling. The introduction of audiographics required significant investment in 8 training and preparation by individual teachers and changes in the communication 9 patterns within the ‘classroom’. Equally important were the organizational and 10111 management support for the introduction of audiographics, with success depending 1 on management at the school, regional and system levels. Oliver and Reeves (1994) 2 found that audiographics ‘. . . showed itself to be an ideal application of technology 3 in response to an urgent educational problem’. 4 5 Northern Border senior access programme 6 7 Debreceny and Ellis (1994) have analysed the experiences of students in the 8 northern border senior access (NBSA) programme in the north west of New South 9 Wales. The area is described as ‘rural, disadvantaged’ and has a relatively high 20111 proportion of Aboriginal students. The schools that made up the programme are 1 ‘central’ schools that had previously taught only until Year 10. None of these schools 2 could on their own mount a programme to Year 12. The programme involves 3 building a combined high school between a number of smaller schools using 4 Electronic Classroom® and teleconference links. Teachers in the combined high 5 school are drawn from all the schools in the programme, and so students may have 6 teachers from their own school as well as the other schools. A bridge site was 7 built at a centrally located school and the teachers and students from the other 8 sites dial in to the bridge. Subjects taught using Electronic Classroom® are unusu- 9 ally broad, ranging from mathematics to general science and computer studies. 30111 1 Queensland secondary school 2 Three secondary schools in the far north of Queensland are currently engaged in 3 a trial project of teach Japanese language skills to senior students (Years 11 and 4 12). While no individual school had the resources to offer the programme, the 5 combined resources of all three schools allowed a teacher to be appointed and the 6 necessary equipment purchased. The project commenced using audiographics 7 sessions to support existing paper-based print materials. All sessions are multi- 8 point. The teachers involved in the project are progressively adapting the 9 paper-based print materials to Electronic Classroom® format and extending and 40111 enhancing them by introducing sound, colour graphics and movie files. 1 2 As it is not appropriate to transfer large sound or movie files in real time, even in 3 compressed format, lesson resources are transmitted to remote sites during non- 4 teaching times using Appletalk Remote Access. With identical lesson materials 5 stored on hard disks at each of the three sites the teacher is able to remotely call 6 up an extensive range of resources during any given lesson. These resources are 71111 also available for the students to review after the lesson has been completed. In Audiographics in transition 31

1111 the near future it is hoped that the transfer of core lesson resources will be achieved 2 at regular intervals by burning and distributing files on CD-ROMs. E-mail and fax 3 technologies are used to support this distance teaching programme. The trials have 4 been so successful that it is already planned to introduce another language option, 5 Italian, in 1996. 6 7 Northern Territory Correspondence School 8 The primary instructional resources of the Northern Territory Correspondence 9 School remains paper-based print material. Teachers in the school have tradition- 10111 ally used mail or telephone–radiotelephone to support students working either 1 individually or in small groups of three to five students at remote localities 2 throughout the Territory. Two years ago audiographics sessions using Electronic 3 Classroom® were introduced to provide an additional form of student support and 4 tutorial assistance. Today 12 or 15 sites throughout the territory are regularly linked 5 to the school for tutorial sessions in English, mathematics and science. At this 6 stage there are no plans to develop specialized teaching materials for delivery via 7 Electronic Classroom®. 8 9 About one third of the teachers at the school are regular users of audiographics and 20111 a systematic programme of staff development and training is provided to encourage 1 and support new users. The frequent poor quality of standard telephone line connec- 2 tions in some of the more remote parts of the territory and the ability of Electronic 3 Classroom® to maintain a useful data stream under such conditions, albeit at low 4 baud rates, was one of the reasons that it was selected for use by the school. 5 6 Tasmania 7 The Tasmanian Correspondence School has been a user of Electronic Classroom® 8 for five years. Audiographics is regarded as an important teaching technology for 9 LOTE programmes and is used in classes from Grade 4 to Year 12 (ages nine to 18 30111 years old). At present the school services 12 sites. The usual format is point-to- 1 point with a teacher connecting to one school and working with both the students 2 and teacher of a traditional classroom group. This format not only teaches the 3 students, but provides a form of staff development for the classroom teacher who 4 is not a language teaching specialist. 5 6 The school still relies primarily on paper-based print materials, but there is an 7 evolving pool of Electronic Classroom® resources and a growing number of teachers 8 willing to integrate audiographics into their weekly teaching sessions. One teacher 9 at the school receives a work load allocation to provide training and assist in the 40111 development of resources. 1 2 University Undergraduate Programmes 3 Southern Cross University has ‘university centres’ in regional centres in the north 4 east coastal strip of New South Wales. The university centres provide study sup- 5 port, meeting space and communications links to the main campus. The university 6 offers a Bachelor of Business in selected majors through the centres for a primar- 71111 ily mature age audience. Electronic Classroom® has been used for the teaching of 32 Ellis et al.

1111 accounting in this programme. The audiographics teaching involved weekly early 2 evening classes which employed a combination of pre-prepared screens that were 3 also used in the on-campus environment and partially completed screens for worked 4 examples. Audiographics was found to be particularly appropriate for the group 5 in working step-by-step through worked examples. The lack of computer expertise 6 amongst the mature age student population mitigated against extensive involvement 7 from all students. The weekly meetings did, however, build a common understand- 8 ing between teacher and student that could not have been achieved by more 9 traditional distance education approaches (Debreceny and Ellis, 1994). 10111 1 Stacey (1995) reports the integration of audiographics into an undergraduate preser- 2 vice teacher education programme at Deakin University in Victoria. Students teach 3 lessons in Indonesian into remote primary schools from an audiographics site on 4 campus and in Italian to metropolitan schools. They work with primary aged chil- 5 dren whom they do not meet face-to-face until a later semester when they go out 6 for the traditional in-school practicum experience. 7 8 Patterns of usage within the educational environment 9 20111 Audiographics presents a number of challenges to teachers as it requires the inte- 1 gration of a new educational technology at the same time as the teacher often has 2 to adjust to a completely different form of teaching to a distributed classroom and 3 perhaps to a subject not previously taught (Oliver and Reeves, 1994). 4 5 The patterns of usage will depend also on the training of teachers. Gray and O’Grady 6 (1993) analysed the application of the use of audiographics in a variety of subjects 7 in 23 high schools in Queensland and undertook audiographics hook-ups with two 8 schools and administered a standard set of questions at the end of each semester. 9 They found that a particular issue was the interrelationship of the development of 30111 audiographics, largely by teachers in the field, to the bureaucratic structure of the 1 schools’ administrations. There was clearly an under-estimation of the level of com- 2 mitment to the programme required by individual teachers and by administrative 3 systems. They found that the methods used to train teachers in the use of the 4 technology and the ‘theory’ of distance education, by bringing in teachers for a week 5 long course, was inappropriate. Training sessions should have been centred at the 6 schools and been ‘hands on’ from the outset. The study found that students felt 7 involved in the learning process more than might be the case with ‘regular’ class- 8 room methods, and that their capacity for self-learning and to express themselves 9 was improved by the use of audiographics. At the same time, the ‘classroom’ ana- 40111 logue and the scheduled class ‘meeting’ ensured that the students did not require 1 too great a leap from the reality of school life. 2 3 Teachers use audiographics in very different ways depending on the subject matter, 4 teaching style, the level and type of training given the teacher and students as well 5 as their sense of expression and visual style. Audiographics is an active means of 6 transmission of information and an approach very different from, for example, the 71111 use of overhead transparencies in a large university lecture theatre needs be adopted. Audiographics in transition 33

1111 Four major styles of usage can be identified: 2 3 (1) the clean whiteboard, 4 (2) the partially filled whiteboard, 5 (3) the filled whiteboard, and 6 (4) the multimedia whiteboard. 7 The clean whiteboard 8 9 As Gray and O’Grady (1993) note, the foundation of audiographics is not too far 10111 removed from the normal classroom and some teachers use Electronic Classroom® 1 purely as they would a whiteboard. As they talk to the students, they use the mouse 2 to draw, or create shapes or the keyboard to type text to reinforce their words. 3 Such an approach requires a considerable skill level with the technology and an 4 equal level of confidence in the subject matter. 5 The ‘partially filled’ whiteboard 6 Other teachers use the ability to create screens ahead of time to create a founda- 7 tion or ‘partially filled’ whiteboard that can be built upon in an interactive fashion. 8 A first example is shown in Fig. 5 and is drawn from secondary French in Queensland. 9 20111 The teacher has used the pen tool to create a simple line drawing upon which an 1 interaction can be built that can revolve around wind, rain, the coat and umbrella 2 worn by the female walker. No French or English language is displayed on the initial 3 screen and the teacher will build on the initial graphic to work with the students 4 in the distributed classroom to construct a dialogue about the scene. The screen 5 has no colour or photographs or movies, but is nonetheless an effective founda- 6 tion for a shared classroom experience that might last most of a typical period. 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 4 5 6 71111 Figure 5. ‘Partially filled’ whiteboard: secondary school French, Queensland 34 Ellis et al.

1111 An example of a partially filled whiteboard which provides clear visual signals 2 and which is drawn from primary school English in New South Wales is shown in 3 Fig. 6. 4 5 Here the teacher has prepared a simple set of alternatives using text below a photo- 6 graphic image which graphically represents the action being analysed. The slide 7 may only take a few minutes in the teaching period. Conversely, an example of a 8 partially filled whiteboard which was relatively simple to prepare and yet contains 9 enough material for a complete teaching period is the slide from secondary school 10111 German from New South Wales shown in Fig. 7. 1 2 The slide presents a time schedule which is a facet of school life known to every 3 secondary school student. The times of the day and the days of the week are 4 completed, but the activities in each of the cells are not completed. The teacher 5 can then work with the students to discuss what might go on in each of the time 6 periods, search for the appropriate words or phrases in German and type them 7 into the relevant cell. 8 9 The ‘partially filled’ whiteboard is designed to provide a rapid and productive start 20111 to the lesson and to focus the classroom context. 1 2 The ‘filled’ whiteboard 3 For many subjects, it is appropriate to complete the screen prior to the class and 4 then talk about the screen over the voice link, perhaps using the chalk tool to make 5 an emphasis. A ‘filled’ whiteboard may well be followed by a ‘partially filled’ white- 6 board slide. 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 4 5 6 71111 Figure 6. ‘Partially filled’ whiteboard: primary school English, NSW Audiographics in transition 35

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 Figure 7. ‘Partially filled’ whiteboard: secondary school German, NSW 2 3 4 A relatively complex slide is the secondary school mathematics from Victoria shown 5 in Fig. 8. This uses simple, but very effective, graphics to illustrate the words on the 6 left-hand side of the screen. The text uses appropriate fonts to correctly render 7 the super- and subscripts. The teacher can then talk to the screen, as well as pos- 8 sibly use the ‘chalk’ tool, to emphasize particular parts of the graphic or formulae. 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 4 5 6 71111 Figure 8. Filled whiteboard: secondary school mathematics, Victoria 36 Ellis et al.

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Figure 9. Filled whiteboard: university undergraduate accounting, NSW 9 20111 1 The scrolling text box allows a teacher to include a considerable amount of material 2 which can progressively be brought into the discussion. Figure 9 shows a slide 3 from an introductory undergraduate accounting class where the complete journal 4 entry has been placed in a scrolling text box and the students and the teacher can 5 collectively work through the example on the screen. The journal entry has been 6 laid out with appropriate use of decimal tab stops. 7 8 Figure 10 shows a Japanese lesson in phonics from Western Australia. It uses a 9 very simple combination of coloured line drawings, using the pen coupled with 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 4 5 6 71111 Figure 10. Japanese lesson in phonics, Western Australia Audiographics in transition 37

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 5 6 Figure 11. Slide from secondary school German, South Australia 7 8 text explanations, with appropriate underlining to provide the appropriate phonic 9 emphasis. 20111 1 A slightly higher level of sophistication is displayed in Fig. 11 drawn from secondary 2 school German in South Australia. The screen uses a couple of visual clues, drawn 3 from an existing body of scrapbook art, a sentence in German and the sound of 4 the sentence. The teacher can then draw the class into a discussion of the sentence 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 4 5 6 Figure 12. Filled in whiteboard, secondary school physical education, Western 71111 Australia 38 Ellis et al.

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 Figure 13. Multimedia whiteboard: secondary school Japanese, Queensland 1 2 3 and what might go on in the context of a party with gifts. The inclusion of the 4 sound allows students to come back after the class and listen again to the sentence 5 as many times as they wish. This slide is providing the opportunity for both 6 synchronous and asynchronous student learning. 7 8 Even an active subject such as physical education has been taught using audio- 9 graphics. Figure 12 shows ‘The Autonomous Guy’ which is the third in a series of 30111 screens which include ‘The Cognitive Guy’ and ‘The Associative Guy’. Here the 1 teacher has created a series of questions within a ‘bubble’ text box and has 2 enhanced the learning with a small sound file which the students can click on for 3 reinforcement. 4 5 The slides in the ‘filled’ whiteboard series show similar strategies. They generally 6 use simple graphics and provide a foundation either for immediate discussion, in 7 the case of the German and physical education slides, or worked examples or exer- 8 cises in the case of the mathematics and accounting slides. In each case relatively 9 minimal preparation time gave rise to an effective teaching tool that could be inte- 40111 grated into the distributed classroom. 1 2 The multimedia whiteboard 3 The multimedia whiteboard brings together a number of different features in an 4 integrated fashion. Figure 13 shows an example of a slide in secondary school 5 Japanese from Queensland. Here relatively simple graphics have been combined 6 with a considerable amount of text using a Japanese font and audio text buttons 71111 for replaying on the computer’s speakers. Audiographics in transition 39

1111 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 Figure 14. Multimedia whiteboard: secondary school Japanese, Queensland 2 3 This theme is continued in Fig. 14, which has the added complexity of scanned 4 photographs of images which are in the everyday experience of the students and 5 which have been completely integrated into the lesson in the distributed class- 6 room. The slide shows graphic images, text in a LOTE font and interaction with 7 sound icons that can be used by the teacher and students in an interactive fashion 8 or, alternatively, the students can return to the slide in their own study periods. 9 30111 The multimedia whiteboard extends the educational context for the students to 1 incorporate material which is important for the particular class, or to reinforce 2 more strongly the subject with experiences to which the students can relate. Sound, 3 scrapbook images, photographic images and digital movies all can be integrated 4 on the same whiteboard space and subsequently manipulated by teacher or 5 student. While such screens are more time consuming to prepare, they are much 6 less difficult to create than fully interactive multimedia where there is no involve- 7 ment of the teacher. 8 9 40111 CONCLUSIONS 1 Audiographics in the Australian context has only been in existence for half a decade, 2 but has shown that it can be used effectively in a wide variety of educational envi- 3 ronments from primary to tertiary levels and from the humanities to the sciences. 4 5 The technology is not age specific and Electronic Classroom® is used in a vari- 6 ety of ways depending upon the characteristics of the teaching institutions and 71111 the resources available at remote sites. The patterns of usage which have been 40 Ellis et al.

1111 discerned have not been dominated by the technology, but have been dictated by 2 management factors, such as the level of training of teachers and students and the 3 curriculum. Some educational environments are completely built around Electronic 4 Classroom®, whereas others use the product for tutorials or to reinforce and amplify 5 existing printed materials or classroom teaching. 6 7 The rapid changes in computing technology have been into the product in innov- 8 ative ways with QuickTime™, for example, being used in a manner that its designers 9 would not have imagined. It has also accommodated the constraints on the 10111 surrounding technology. Rural Australia is not endowed with high quality PSTN 1 lines so the software is designed to tenaciously hold those lines open and to ensure 2 that when sites are being reconnected that there is the least amount of disruption 3 possible to the distributed classroom. 4 5 The use of Electronic Classroom® is an example of a successful innovation in the 6 use of educational technology. It has been successful because it was designed to 7 extend in a productive manner and not to change the familiar context of the class- 8 room. It has been developed to meet the direct needs of the educational customers 9 and the levels of technology that were available at a particular stage in the devel- 20111 opment of the software. In doing so, it has followed the known tenets of 1 understanding of the diffusion of innovation (Burns and Stalker, 1961; Rogers, 1983; 2 Mahajan and Peterson, 1985). Perhaps the measure of success with an educational 3 technology is when it is so thoroughly embedded into the curriculum and teaching 4 and learning practice that it becomes effectively transparent. In some educational 5 environments, Electronic Classroom® has become just that. As one student in the 6 Northern Border Senior Access (Debreceny and Ellis, 1994) programme said ‘ audio- 7 graphics is just, you know, school. School is school.’ 8 9 30111 1 REFERENCES 2 Barker, B.O. and Patrick, K.R. (1989). Microcomputer based teleteaching: a description and 3 case study. Computers in the Schools 6(3/4), 155–64. 4 Bates, A. (1993) Educational aspects of the telecommunications revolution. In G. Davies and 5 B. Samways (eds) Teleteaching. pp. 1–10. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 6 Burns, T. and Stalker, D. (1961) The Management of Innovation. London: Tavistock Publications. 7 Debreceny, R.S. and Ellis, A. (1994) An evaluation of an audiographic delivery method: a cross- 8 sectoral study. In APITITE94. Brisbane: APITITE. 9 Ellis, A. and Debreceny, R. (1994) Electronic Classroom®: features, users and evaluation 40111 studies. In I. Maurer (ed.) Educational Mulimedia and Hypermedia – 1994. pp. 191–6. 1 Charlottesville, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. Gray, A. and O’Grady, G. (1993) Telecommunications pedagogy for effective teaching and 2 learning. In G. Davies and B. Samways (eds) Teleteaching pp. 307–315. Amsterdam: 3 Elsevier. 4 Knapczyk, D. (1992) Going the distance for staff development. Educational Horizons. 70(2), 5 88–91. 6 Mahajan, V. and Peterson, R. (1985) Models of Innovation Diffusion. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage 71111 Publications. Audiographics in transition 41

1111 McCullagh, W. and Stacey, E. (1993) Telematics-implications for teacher education. In G. Davies 2 and B. Samways (eds) Teleteaching. pp. 37–47. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 3 Miller, D. (1991). Trim travel budgets with distance learning. Training and Development 45(9), 4 71–74. 5 Oliver, R. and Reeves, T. (1994) An investigation of the use of telecommunications to increase equity and access to education in rural schools in Western Australia. In 6 T. Ottman and I. Tomek (eds) Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia – 1994. pp. 432–7. 7 Charlottesville, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. 8 Rogers, E. (1983). Diffusion of Innovation. New York: Free Press. 9 Stacey, E. (1995). Teaching and learning with audiographics: developing positive attitudes 10111 and effective pedagogy. DEOSNEWS 5(10). 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 20111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 30111 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 40111 1 2 3 4 5 6 71111