Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62199
Technology Distance Learning Disappoints Some Distance learning may, after all, lack a certain je ne sais quoi. So says Wm. David Salisbury, a professor at the Univer - sity of Dayton in Ohio, who studied his own MBA class of local and dis- tance learners. He found that, although their grades didn't suffer, distance learners were less satisfied with their experience. "The Limits of Information: A Cautionary Tale about One Course Delivery Experience in the Distance Education Environment" was pub- lished in the winter 2002 issue of e- Service Journal, a journal of elec- tronic services in the public and pri- vate sectors. An earlier version of the paper appeared in the education track of the Americas Conference on Information Systems in 2000. "It is clear that, while there are advantages to distance education, there is a social aspect to the educa- tional experience that a lot of the online or distance learning or Internet-based programs are miss- ing," said Salisbury, assistant profes- sor of MIS, operations management and decision sciences. "The view that education is just transmittal of infor- mation leaves out a lot of richness." Salisbury's graduate-level infor- mation systems class was conducted simultaneously for a group of 15 students on the main campus of a Southeastern U.S. university and another group of 13 students at a satellite campus 100 miles away using two-way videoconferencing, TOOLS OF THE TRADE McCombs Students Take Tablet PCs to China Computing while traveling the world frequently rep- resents a challenge. However, a new generation of tablet-style PCs, which allow users to write directly to the screen's surface as if it were a pad of paper, has made on-the-move computing even more portable and convenient than on standard laptops. MBA stu- dents at the Red McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin are testing out this tech- nology by taking M1200 Tablet PCs, manufactured by Motion Computing of Austin (www.motioncomput- ing.com), on a field-study trip to China. The students will collaborate with their MBA counterparts at Shanghai Jiaotong University. The two groups will explore the emerging opportunities in the People's Republic of China and study ways to develop and manage complex business relationships with companies in China's information technology and telecommunications industries. The students will use their new tablet PCs to collect, process, and com- municate information while out in the field. 50 BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2003 "The tablet PCs will give students from both uni- versities the benefits of full-function computing while on the go in China's major centers of com- merce or in outlying villages," said Larry Leibrock, associate dean of technology for McCombs. "This is the ideal opportunity to rigorously field-test the Tablet PC as an advanced information technology platform in a mobile environment." The M1200 comes equipped with a 12" display screen—the largest available on a tablet computer—which can be used in either landscape or portrait modes. It has an 866 MHz Pentium III processor; up to 40 GB of hard disk memory; phone, microphone, and headphone jacks; and an optional key- board and display stand for more traditional desktop-style computing. The students' study tour of China, which began in February, will include ten projects, including mar- ket planning of tablet PCs, investment in early-stage software startups, managing research and develop- ment staffs, and marketing of Internet equipment in China. When they return from their trip in mid- March, the students will present their field work to corporate executives in the tech sector. "press-to-talk" microphones, and 32-inch diagonal TV monitors. The one technological limitation was that the students in the distant class could only view one aspect of the local class. They could see the pro- fessor, the presentation slides, or stu- dents in the other class, but none simultaneously. Students on the main campus were more satisfied, had a stronger sense of belonging to the class, had greater participation, and offered more favorable overall evaluations of the class than the students at the satellite campus. Students on the main campus also felt greater morale about being a member of the class and perceived they were more highly involved in the class than the stu- dents in the distant setting.