Tag Archives: videoconferencing

S.Korea schools get [racist] robot English teachers (via @daylemajor )

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via news.yahoo.com

Do I find this implementation racist and insulting to non-Caucasian teachers, hell yes! They are taking a teacher from the Philippines and putting a white women’s face on them. This could have been done a lot more realistically with true videoconferencing without having to add a layer of animation, which will end up deadening much of the facial cues leaving the animation nearly useless in this regard.

One defense of this could be that they want to maintain consistency in the appearance of the teacher even when using a variety of staff on the back-end. However, that still doesn’t explain the white-washing.

With that said, this is the first implementation of robot teachers (robot-assisted language learning–RALL) I’ve heard about that make some sense. This is basically videoconferencing with a mobile monitor (with some ability for arm and leg movements). This is much better than the stuff presented before that is basically a rolling tape player with some ridiculous voice recognition. Having a skilled teacher behind the robot is key and, at least for the foreseeable future, the only way to provide an optimal educational experience.

As I saw in a presentation by KICE a few months ago, the biggest problem with using videoconfernced teachers in classrooms is having a trained (and motivated) teacher/facilitator physically in the classroom with the videoconferenced teacher. Local teachers tend to sit back and watch or, worse yet, just leave the classroom during the videoconferencing time. In addition, there is little planning time afforded local teachers, thus they tend not to plan classes with their videoconferenced co-teachers. This finding is nothing new to native English-speaking co-teachers in Korean public schools. The same complaints have been heard for years. They were hired as co-teachers, but end up planning and conducting classes alone as a result of both teacher apathy and poor oversight and training.

With all this in mind, I’d say where is the time and money for training local staff? Without it, these high-tech innovations make for great publicity, but lousy education.

19% of Americans have tried video calls or video chat or teleconferencing online and on cell phones | Pew Internet & American Life Project

19% of Americans have tried video calls or video chat or teleconferencing online and on cell phones

Almost a fifth of American adults – 19% – have tried video calling either online or via their cell phones. These figures translate into 23% of internet users and 7% of cell phone owners who have participated in video calls, chats, or teleconferences.

In the internet realm, the video-calling has risen modestly from 20% of internet users in April 2009 to 23% of internet users in the summer 2010 survey. On any given day, 4% of internet users are participating in video calls, video chat, or teleconferencing, up from 2% in April 2009.

Some of the key findings in the most recent survey related to online video calls, which are conducted by 23% of the adults who are internet users:

  • Video calling online is especially appealing to upscale users. A third of internet users (34%) living in households earning $75,000 or above have participated in such calls or chats, compared with 18% of those earning less than $75,000.
  • Younger internet users are considerably more likely to conduct video calls. Some 29% of the internet users ages 18-29 have participated in video calls or chats or teleconferences, compared with 15% of internet users age 65 or older.
  • Online men are more likely than online women to participate in online video calls (26% vs. 20%).
  • Urban internet users (27%) and suburban users (23%) are significantly more likely than rural users (12%) to have participated in video calls, chats, or teleconferences.
  • On a typical day, 4% of internet users participate in video calls, chats, or teleconferences. That is a uptick from the Project’s April 2009 survey, when 2% of internet users reported participating in online video exchanges.

Some of the key findings in the most recent survey related to video calls on cell phones, which are conducted by 7% of the adults who cell phone owners:

  • Cell-owning blacks are more likely than whites to participate in video calls, chats, or teleconferences (10% vs. 5%).
  • Those in upper-income households are more likely than others to participate in video calls (10% of cell owners in households earning over $75,000 participate in such calls, compared to 6% who live in households earning less than $75,000.
  • Cell owners under age 50 are more likely than those over age 50 to have participated in such video calls (8% vs. 4%).
via pewinternet.org

This is still pretty small, but It’s growing. The more opportunity there is for videoconferencing, them more it will be done. While I don’t see a huge need for mobile videoconferencing, I think that is the technology that will put usage over the top.

Eleutian – I think that this is a pretty cool service. Ideally, collaboration between video-based teachers in Wyoming and English teachers in Korea

via eleutian.com

I would love to experience this in person. This is an amazing program. I’ve been saying for years that we need to use technology to connect qualified masses of teachers to those who need them around the world.

This is not a cheap program, but it is a well-integrated program that includes the use/adoption of Korean curricula, (ideally) collaboration between the the teachers, and the provision of native English-speaking teachers to areas of Korea that have trouble staffing them.

I saw a presentation as well that painted a pretty good picture of the program. Unsurprisingly, as I alluded to above, collaboration was the real issue. Korean teachers did not collaborate as much as was expected. This isn’t too surprising as it is the same result that we have seen many times in collaboration studies in the States. Most importantly, the Korean teachers were not compensated (in time or money) for the “extra” collaboration. The American teachers were paid for all of the time that they spend on the service so it’s not too difficult to see why they were willing to do so.

If this is really going to work throughout Korea, much still needs to be done. First, training in collaboration and methods specifically revolving around the use of videoconferencing needs to be added for pre-service programs and in-service training. There is no way that teachers are prepared to do this. These are some of the same problems we see in NEST-NNEST collaborations now in Korea. We are going to make the same mistakes again if we continue to put the technology before the training.

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