Project Number 02 – 1994

VELCOM:
A Teaching and Learning Strategy for the Electronic
Information Environment

Project Number 02 – 1994

Abstract

Information technology is changing the way we live and work. Our graduates will need to work and learn effectively in an environment where social, organizational and intellectual patterns and practices are shifting rapidly in the context of information technology. This emerging electronic environment has five major characteristics that have implications for the way we teach and learn. It is computer-mediated, information-intensive, collaborative, indifferent to proximity (distributed), and rapidly changing in unpredictable ways. Many undergraduate courses, even those with technology as the subject or the teaching tool, continue to use a teaching model that runs counter to many of these characteristics and is individualistic, instructor and classroom centered, and oriented to print information. The purpose of this project is to develop a teaching and learning strategy that mirrors the electronic information environment by embodying these five characteristics. Thus the way students learn also becomes what they are learning. We call the teaching and learning strategy, VELCOM (Virtual Electronic Learning COMmunity). Although the two classes we have taught so far using Velcom have been graduate classes on the subject of the electronic information environment, we view VELCOM as a powerful undergraduate teaching strategy and the undergraduate version of the graduate course is under development, as is the application of VELCOM to another subject area.

The VELCOM strategy has seven objectives: 1) to use commonly available types of information technology for communication in combination with traditional communication methods, 2) to focus on the class as a community of learners, explicitly identifying activities and roles in learning communities, 3) to focus explicitly on gathering, filtering, organizing and synthesizing information from a variety of people and material resources, 4) to focus on involving people with varying experience and expertise regardless of geography, 5) to focus on the ability to observe and analyze complex interaction in the electronic information environment as a basis for responding to rapid change, 6) to provide a conceptual structure flexible enough to accommodate diverse content areas, and 7) to be adaptable to a range of generally available platforms and applications and to be accessible to the remote user.

The VELCOM conceptual strategy identifies eight essential activities in an electronic learning community: structure and governance, coordination and leadership, training and help, system administration, information gathering, organizing information for current and future use, facilitating group use of information, and assessment and improvement of community learning activity. Within these activities, roles are assigned based on the objectives of the specific learning community, rather than based on an individual’s identity as student or instructor. The activities take place on four levels: class-wide, small group, pairs, and individual.

VELCOM is a conceptual strategy that is enabled by generally available information technology and does not require high-end equipment or special-purpose software. For our application of Velcom, we have chosen UNIX-based programs, so the sole technical requirement for student participation is access to a PC with an Internet connection. Remote access and the ability for students to participate in group work from home is important, although not essential, to the conceptual design, so technologies were chosen that are easily accessible with a low-end PC and a modem. Listed below are the general functions used by Velcom, along with the technology that we currently use or are planning to use in the near future: individual and shared file space (UNIX–awaiting a UNIX-based Pacer-Forum or equivalent); email (PINE); local bulletin boards (USENet with the tin reader); listservs and bulletin boards (USENet with tin reader); real-time electronic discussion support (talk, y-talk and GroupSystems 5); Internet tools (telnet, ftp, gopher, Veronica, WWW and Mosaic). [Note: GroupSystems 5 is the only software requiring proprietary purchase, and we are using that for development purposes, to test the usefulness of synchronous electronic support for discussion].

Although we envision VELCOM as a strategy that can be used with a wide variety of subjects, current development has been done in the context of a course entitled, The Electronic Information Environment. It has been taught twice, the first time as a joint class with students from the University of Illinois and Indiana University at IUPUI meeting electronically as one learning community. An undergraduate version is now under development and the use of VELCOM to teach a class in Special Libraries is now planned. Further joint classes with students from Illinois and Indiana are planned, and we have interest in developing joint classes using the Velcom model from institutions in France and Great Britain. The use of Velcom by faculty in other disciplines is being explored.

Project Criteria

1. Use of Network Technologies: The Velcom strategy is enabled by networking technologies. Both LANs and the Internet enable synchronous collaborative classroom discussion, asynchronous discussion and collaboration of many types, and the gathering, organizing and sharing of electronic information resources. Velcom is, by nature, a distributed (i.e. networked) learning community. 
2. Use of Library and Information Resources in Teaching and Learning: Velcom, as an electronic learning community, develops its understandings of subjects through explicit awareness and use of many types of information resources, including other students, practitioners and other experts, and print and electronic resources of many types. Student projects involve building electronic information resources of various types and organizing them and making them available for future use. 
3. Collaborations of Different Types of Institutions, Organizations and Agencies: Velcom is a collaboration involving faculty from two different universities, students from different universities, faculty representing different disciplines and specializations, a systems professional and a librarian specializing in electronic information access. Many other experts are used as information resources through use of the Internet. 
4. Doing More With Less: Velcom is a teaching/learning model that brings together distributed students, faculty and information resources using readily available information technologies. 
5. Replicability and Viability: Velcom is a conceptual teaching/learning strategy designed to be used with many subject areas and readily available technology. 
6. Impact of Networks in Teaching and Learning: We have data on student perceptions of two semesters of teaching with Velcom. More research on impact is underway. 

Audio-visual requirements

Windows or Mac color computer with Internet connection and Mosaic;
overhead and LCD projector