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Volume I
Issue 6
10 October 1999 |
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From a Distance: An Interview with Rita Wissinger By Nancy K. Ford "When did you first learn about the arts?" asks Rita Wissinger. Time and again, she finds, "for the majority of people, it was in public school." Rita Wissinger has asked the question many times. A teacher herself - everything from kindergarten to graduate school - she now works as the advocate for an educational cooperative of 23 Upper New York State public school districts. Her job is to "make things happen," to coordinate and develop programs for students from kindergarten through 12th Grade in high school. In a meandering telephone conversation, we explored what that means. What is it, exactly, that you do? Through the BOCES cooperative (Board of Cooperative Educational Services, pronounced BOE-sees), several schools can receive funding that the state would not provide to a single school making a similar request for aid. This coordinated approach is promoted by the state education budget, which provides economic incentives for inter-district cooperation and resource sharing, in programs for all students, from the at-risk to the academically able to the artistically inclined. For example, if state education funds might support a field trip from her rural school districts to a brass quintet performance in Buffalo, NY, Rita helps the schools get the state aid. As soon as she discovers this brass quintet will be performing in Buffalo, she sends a notice to all 23 BOCES school administrators, each of whom can decide if they want to send students to the concert. The students who attend gain the enjoyment and edification of a live concert-hall event, in the traditional field trip model. Similarly, BOCES arranged for high school students to visit a nearby university where the National Shakespeare Company was in residence. In the audience of 300 students, only six or seven had previously seen live theater. Rita observed students found it a difficult visual transition from slick moviemaking techniques to the more subtle impact of the traditional theater. Encountering live theater for the first time, after years of movie-going, she finds, students can take a while to adjust, to learn how to appreciate the differences. As Rita says, "public schools in this country continue to provide students with the opportunity to explore and experience the arts. Students are able to broaden their experience through classroom instruction regardless of their levels of talent or experience / prior knowledge." Then there are the "virtual field trips," made possible by communications technology now widely available (if sometimes under-used) in many public school systems, including the BOCES schools. Rita has been able to provide videoconferenced field trips to places as varied as the Tolerance Museum in Los Angeles, California, an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, and a New York City studio where members of the American String Quartet worked with student musicians from three of the BOCES schools. Where is distance education, in the big picture? Rita is clear that videoconferencing will not replace the classroom teacher but she has found it will enhance what the teacher can offer. For example, in the virtual field trip to the Tolerance Museum the teacher took two or three children from each of four fourth- grade classes, to videoconference with Museum staff. Those students became the "experts," and back in their classrooms, they served as a resource for their entire class. Rita values the way it involved the students in the teaching process, in this case, part of a unit on prejudice, covering the US civil rights movement, the Holocaust, and the Kosovo war. Rita says the virtual field trips involve students and teachers alike, enabling them to learn what's out in the world, away from home. Rita has seen successful distance learning in art, music, theater, history, psychology, English, math, science, social studies, and debate. Two schools' recent summer programs used distance learning, resulting in the best sessions ever designed for at-risk students, close to failing out of school. "They gravitated to the medium because it was new, and they could be hands-on learners. We connected the two schools through the Internet, so the teacher at Site A could share with Site B what they saw on the Internet." The students learned to use the equipment, to zoom, and to transmit details from a book, map, or object with the high-definition "Elmo" system, a digital version of the overhead projector. "By the last week of summer school," she reports, "the staff didn't need to be there - the students were so completely involved." High school students too far away to attend entry-level college classes in person, can sign up for distance courses at community colleges, graduating high school with up to twelve hours of college credit already on their transcripts. Schools band together, jointly sponsoring an Advanced Placement class for the few students at each school signed up for the course. How did you get involved with distance education? Rita was not predisposed to favor it. "I wouldn't have expected I'd be gravitating to this. I saw no need for it. Then I watched some demos, and it began to click in." Now she is a believer. "Technology can and must play a critical role in the development of the arts. Students of the arts need to be able to discuss and show their work with their peers, as well as with teachers and professional artists / performers. Rural areas can connect with large metropolitan sites within their home state, other states, and the entire world. We continue to learn about ourselves and the diverse make-up of our culture, which in turn allows us to be tolerant of our differences. We are only limited by our imaginations! How does videoconferenced distance education actually work?
BOCES schools all have a room with a camera, four large video screens, and speakers. With this equipment the host site can show, on one screen, video live from its own site, with up to three more remote sites transmitting simultaneously from their schools to the other screens. After learning how to operate the camera, and to select the number of sites in view at any time, teachers can involve all four locations in the day's activity. What one person contributes at one site instantly transmits to all the locations. For additional realtime feedback, students send faxes to each other during class, and use Elmo to share detailed visual information. At suitably equipped locations, classes can be recorded and archived, as well, for future reference. Rita recalls watching a replay of the active four-screen setup they used for their virtual visit with the American String Quartet. A camera had captured the exact same thing she had seen live, two hours earlier. She enjoys the possibilities this offers - for remediation, for review, and for catching up with the rest of class after an illness. Is it difficult to teach this way? Teaching with cameras and screens takes a little getting used to. The first time Rita did it, five or six years ago in a college setting, it felt strange for her the first 30 minutes or so. The trick was remembering those people who were "there," but not seated in front of her. In recent years, the technology has improved, letting teachers move out from behind a podium, and allowing them more choice about when to be in view of the camera and when to get out of the way. On virtual field trips, for instance, with students from several locations, the students want, and need, to see each other, not the teacher. Rita enjoys watching teachers get very excited about it - even teachers with 20 or 30 years' experience begin to make a real connection. There's no apparent generation gap. Rita finds "the younger teachers are not necessarily more comfortable with the technology - those who have been around can apply it quicker, and use it to build bridges." In fact, Rita sees a lot of the same faces now at distance education meetings as she did fifteen years ago at conferences on teaching the gifted and talented. How do the students react? To help introduce young students to the trappings of distance learning, the BOCES schools give elementary kids a preview. Bringing them into the videoconferencing room two or three days before their first scheduled distance class, the teachers "let them putz around, and explore a bit," Rita says. With older students, being videoed doesn't bother them any more, since it's a part of their everyday life. For them, "you let them look at their hair and their bodies, and after a day, they get used to it." Overall, most students adapt rapidly to distance learning. To insure against a "left-out feeling," Rita prefers having a teacher physically present at each site, especially for younger children and classes struggling with sophisticated concepts. To cultivate a sense of belonging, some teachers will commute between two distance learning sites - part of the week at one site, then at the other. Any advice to new teachers? Asked how she would advise a teacher new to videoconferencing, Rita does not hesitate: "First, don't be afraid. Plan all your curriculum units around at least one or two virtual field trips, and then sit back and enjoy it." Her bottom line is simple: "Ultimately you want kids to be successful in school, so you want them to know this technology. Don't be afraid of it - let the students learn how to work it. Let them at it." Kids as young as first-graders are eager to press the button that zooms the camera in while they are speaking. "We don't want these rural students to be caught shorthanded because they don't know a piece of technology. If we are truly becoming a global village, our kids have to know how to adapt and cope with whatever comes down the line." Pointing out that children now in kindergarten will be doing jobs that haven't been invented yet, Rita believes "learning to be at ease with today's technology is the best background we can provide these kids." Even in its present, still imperfect state, Rita is convinced that "videoconferencing is the most natural medium in which students and teachers can converse with professional artists and representatives of diverse cultures." Especially for classrooms in rural areas, the wider scope provided by videoconferencing helps teachers introduce students to topics and experiences they would not otherwise encounter. What's next? Further refinements are in the works for classroom distance educators. Rita looks forward to being able, on a virtual visit to an art museum, to walk through the halls, stopping to see each painting where it hangs on the wall. At present, the museum brings the works of art to a separate room with the camera, for distance students to see, one at a time. She envisions a semester-long sequence - first a virtual visit, to talk with the experts, and begin the curriculum. Next the class pays a physical visit to the museum, applying all they have learned in preparation, followed by a virtual "debriefing" visit, to conclude the process. In general, she predicts further technological advances will permit students to guide their virtual visits, to go wherever they want, very quickly. Her personal high-technology goal? "To go out in space. I really want to go up in the shuttle." It does sound like the ultimate field trip for Rita. It almost makes a person wonder how many digital video cameras she'll bring in her carry-on luggage. She'll need them, of course, to help transmit her traveling companions' in-flight concerts to classrooms around the globe. Resources: About the Author: Nancy K. Ford is a freelance journalist and poet from Madison, Wisconsin. She writes frequently about education and the humanities |
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