Erasing Generation and Country Borders via Networking
by Josef Kolár, Tomás Macek, Bozena Mannová and Barbara Williams
Some IT courses delivered at the Department of Computer Science
and Engineering, Czech Technical University (CTU) in Prague permit
interesting educational experiments in which we aim both at technical
and social aspects of teaching that uses modern Internet-based
tools.
The first experiment was conducted as a part of the Global Cooperation
Project during the summer term of the 1997/98 school year with
computer science classes at both the CTU and North Hennepin Community
College, USA. Although the main aim both classes was programming,
the students also obtained a basic instruction as how to use modern
Internet-based communication tools. The project was conceived
as a pilot project for teaching team cooperation on a global scale.
For three months the students worked in teams consisting of team
members from remote places and different working and social background.
There were two videoconference sessions (at the beginning and
at the end of the course) while most of the communication was
done via e-mail, file transmission service, and WWW presentations.
We tried to stress the social aspects of the projects so that
the students were asked not to restrict their communication to
professional issues. At the beginning, each student introduced
him- or herself during a videoconference and a more complete presentation
was done via personal WWW homepages they were asked to prepare.
For many participants the project was the first opportunity to
have real working contact with a person from another country.
They acquired new knowledge concerning educational systems in
the two countries and learned a lot about differences in living
styles. For the Czech students there was another positive outcome
in the strengthening of their motivation to learn English. We
noticed a remarkable improvement in their command of the language
when comparing their initial and concluding presentations. All
participating students got to know about current issues in the
other country and also spoke about their personal interests.
Most of us who have ever worked in a different country realize
that some of the local issues look different from elsewhere. The
Global Cooperation Project helps the students to get this kind
of different perspective at almost no extra cost as compared to
international student exchange. It gives them a background that
makes them more eligible for a stay abroad later on during their
study. We anticipate that it will also result in a greater ability
to establish personal contacts, which will greatly facilitate
future business cooperation.
To the teachers the project confirmed that good motivation helps
the students more than hours of lecture. We were surprised by
the intricate presentations the students were able to prepare
for their Web pages in spite of the fact that they were given
only a minimum instruction concerning the structure of HTML documents.
Another interesting teaching experiment is being developed in
the first IT course for seniors, which is being taught at the
department in the 1998/99 school year. It is designed as a bi-semestral
course stressing the practical aspect of computer usage and does
not include any programming. The enrolment of this course is 35
people (10 men and 25 women) whose age is between 55 and 79 years
(65 on average). Mostly, these people do not plan to use computers
for work since they are pensioned already. An important motivation
factor for them was to be able to understand their grandchildren
and perhaps help them when playing and learning with computers.
It is a well-known fact that grown-up people who have not had
any opportunity nor need to get acquainted with computers during
their education or at the beginning of their professional career
have both objective and subjective problems to start using them.
Upon our meaning, the most important obstacles are subjective
in nature. These people are frightened with the omnipresent buzz
about computers considering these machines too complex and themselves
too far behind to be able to understand them properly. This is
not a problem at all for children ñ they have do not fear computers
do not bothering what is inside but playing the games that attract
them.
We are successfully trying to persuade our senior students that
this is the way they should take it as well and Internet services
(starting with WWW) is used instead of games. The potential of
these services and the ease of using them are very convincing.
Once the subjective barriers are removed, senior students advance
very well in other topics making usage of the features of grown-ups:
determination and dedication.
Please contact:
Josef Kolár - CTU
Tel: +420 2 2435 7403
E-mail: kolar@fel.cvut.cz
