TECHNOLOGICAL TOOLS IN HIGHER EDUCATION: BRINGING THE WORLD TO OUR STUDENTS By Mark Brockmeyer and Joseph Traylor

Campuswide telecommunication links classrooms, offices, dorms, and even remote guest lecturers with simultaneous video, audio, and data lines.

EVERAL YEARS AGO a chalkboard and an overhead projector were common " too ls" used by professors to add a visual element to lectures. Then came films and videotapes, which are still used by most

educators. Today, telecommunication is the new " too l " appearing in a few college and university classrooms across the country.

At our small college in northwest Iowa, howev- er, this new " too l " is much more than a visual aid used in teaching a generation of "television tube babies." It is also a vehicle for bringing the world to our students, most of whom come from small towns in Iowa. Although there are many advan- tages to being located in the rural Midwest, one major disadvantage is our isolation. Through a $1 million telecommunication system, Buena Vista College is now able to attract guest lecturers and additional educational programming live via satel- lite that would never have been possible without

Mark Brockmeyer is telecommunications engi- neer, and Joseph Traylor is director of computing, at Buena Vista College in Storm Lake, IA.

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TOP: Resource room in the business school links the campus to world financial markets, letting students track stock and commodity markets via TV and computers. ABOVE: Governor Lamm speaks with students live via satellite.

our electronic extension. In the few months that Buena Vista has been

wired for telecommunication, Ted Turner (owner of WTBS and the Cable News Network) has ad- dressed and answered questions from our mass communication students live from his studio in At- lanta. Colorado Governor Richard Lamm has dis- cussed bioethics with Buena Vista freshmen via

teleconference from Denver. For busy people like Turner and Lamm, teleconferencing was probably the only way they could come to our campus--by eliminating the time and cost involved in traveling to Storm Lake.

What makes telecommunication at Buena Vista unique in comparison with what major universities are doing lies not so much in the actual technolo- gy, but in the fact that Buena Vista College's cam- pus is totally wired. And, because of the smaller size of our campus, we have been able to accom- plish this long before most other institutions. From the headend of our system in Lage Commu- nication Center, cable has been run to and wired into every building and every room on the Storm Lake campus of 950 students. This provides im- mediate access for everyone (students, faculty, administrators, conference guests, and so on) to the college broadband system.

According to Scott Apfelbacher, an applications engineer for Todd Communications in Minneapolis (a firm that helped design our system), Buena Vis- ta is already the telecommunication center for northwest Iowa and is keeping stride with ad-

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The control center for Buena Vista's telecommunication system is housed in Lage Communication Center. It is tied into the college's television control center. Behind the glass panels are the college's satellite receivers.

vances in telecommunication by larger educational institutions. According to Apfelbacher, two larger schools in California are working on similar inte, grated telecommunication networks Pepperdine University and UCLA.

How did a small school afford such an ambi- tious undertaking? Buena Vista's telecommunica- tion system was made possible by an $18 million gift from Harold Walter Siebens. a Storm Lake native who has become an oil millionaire in Cana- da. Had it not been for Sieben's generosity in 1980, telecommunication would not be a teaching tool at Buena Vista. (Part of the gift was used to build the $10 million Harold Walter Siebens School of Business, which was completed in 1985.) Located in the midst of a struggling rural economy, Buena Vista is indeed fortunate to be making such important advances when many re- gional businesses, colleges, and universities are being affected by the poor farm economy.

The System

The "broadband" telecommunication system at Buena Vista allows us to receive and transmit au- dio, video, and data signals all over the same sys- tem at the same time through a single coaxial ca- ble. Simply put, our broadband system simulta- neously transmits many signals on one wire: each signal has its own frequency range called a chan- nel. The "broader" the band (available frequen- cies), the more simultaneous channels are possi- ble. A single channel could carry a television sig- nal. a videotape playback on-camera image, audio from a cassette player, or a computer data signal.

Buena Vista's system presently allows one lo- cal-origin video channel from our own cameras, 13 received video channels from satellite or cable, and 16 data (computer) channels. Expansion po- tential will allow growth to l0 original channels, 45 received channels, and several hundred data

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The business school f ea tures a te lecommunicat ions sys tem linking Buena Vista College to the world via satellite. N e w s m a k e r s such as media entrepreneur Ted Turner, speaking f r o m his Atlanta studio, can visit electronically with s tudents on campus.

channels. A separate system carries FM radio sig- nals.

Using our five satellite dishes, Buena Vista can receive signals from approximately two dozen sat- ellites. Connected to the dishes are a total of 15 satellite receivers. Our satellite dishes gather sig- nals from the two major satellites (Satcom III and Galaxy I); national networks; business networks such as Biznet, Financial News Network, and commodities services; Campus Network, which provides social and cultural entertainment pro- gramming; National University Teleconference Network (NUTN); and teleconferences.

Access to the college's VAX 780 computer is also available through the broadband system. The 16 VAX ports that are attached to the system through a Sytek broadband system allow full com- puter use from any broadband tap on campus. Conventional phone modems are also available. Together these allow for the use of electronic mail

via computer through a special software program, as well as campus information channels that dis- play schedules for the day, special events an- nouncements, and internal campus newsletters on television monitors around campus.

Using the Tool Our use of telecommunication as a classroom

tool changes almost daily as we put new concepts into practical application on the system. Following are some specific examples of how we have used this technology in Buena Vista classrooms.

�9 Within the School of Business, a resource room (electronic business library surrounded by faculty offices) houses nine television monitors and several computers. Through the telecommuni- cation system, business networks and commod- ities services run continually on the monitors, and students have access to all the latest stock, com-

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modity, money, gold, and over-the-counter mar- kets in the world at a glance.

�9 Also in the School of Business. teleconferenc- ing is used in teaching. Using the case study meth- od of teaching business, professors form teams of students into b'busineSses" or "f i rms." Through practical cases, students have to solve problems and make decisions as actual business leaders do. The students then talk, via teleconference, with the president or CEO of an actual firm that experi- enced a similar situation. " By having actual cor- porate executives beamed into the classroom to talk with the students, they can interect, ask ques- tions, and learn more intricacies of corporate rela- tions that may not exist in textbooks." says Bue- na Vista College President Keith G. Briscoe.

�9 Mass communication students also benefit from the telecommunication system. BeCause of the many opportunities for campus-originated broadcasts, students in television production and broadcast fields gain hands-on experience. Al- ready they have produced, broadcast, and tele- vised live a special event on campus that was aired over local cable throughout the city. Through the broadband system and Innovation Video. the student-run television production facili- ty, satellite and student-produced programming is aired every Monday through Friday over city ca- ble television.

�9 All Buena Vista mass communicatiOn students had the chance to ask questions of media mogul Ted Turner during a teleconference last spring, and they are planning a similar major teleconfer- ence with another guest for this fall.

�9 Telecommunication has entered the conven- tional classroom at Buena Vista as well. Professor Debb Vandehaar wanted to find a way for stu- dents to benefit from one another's writing in mass communication and speech classes. Vande- haar pioneered a new approach using electronic mail for students to receive an original document, respond in writing, then send their responses to one another, generating responses to responses! This was done by entering information into com-

puters and sending it over the broadband system to various sites around campus.

�9 Other academic areas also have access to such services as National University Teleconfer- ence Network. AS an NUTN subscriber, Buena Vista has access to teleconferences on a variety of topics originated from colleges and universities throughout the nation,

�9 Computer science faculty and students shared a teleconference seminar from Iowa State Univer- sity,s "upl ink" source. Our receiving video and audio, and our ability to converse and ask ques- tions by phone directly to the speaker, gave the talk a true seminar format.

�9 In November 1985 we served as one site re- ceiving the nationwide Texas Instruments one,day Seminar on artificial intelligence.

�9 In addition to providing educational services, Buena Vista's telecommunication system provides social and cultural entertainment as well. Through Campus Network, an entertainment channel re- ceived by satellite, our Students can see live con- certs from New York, special programs from Cali- fornia, and more! Because it is costly to bring the- atrical groups, bands, orchesti'as, and the like to our campus, we provide students with this type of programming through Campus Network.

�9 Because our campus is not close to a major metropolitan area, we also provide services and facilities to our community and region. For exam- ple, Iowa Public Services held a conference on our campus and was able to serve as one of 50 sites throughout the nation thai received a special teleconference. Our technology serves many other organizations and companies throughout iowa and the Midwest.

As telecommunication becomes more common- place in classrooms throughout the nation, there will be new technological devices to challenge and change the way we educate our students. Buena Vista College is proud to be one of the first small colleges in the nation to use telecommunication-- the newest educational " t o o l " - - t o bring the world to our students. �9

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