The Global Classroom Video Conferencing Model and First Evaluations

This paper presents and discusses findings about how students, teachers, and the organization experience a start-up-project applying video conferences between campus and home. This is new territory for adult learning centers. The paper discusses the transition to this eLearning form and discusses pedagogical innovativeness, including collaborative and technological issues.
The research is based on the Global Classroom Model as it is implemented and used at an adult learning center in Denmark (VUC Storstrøm). VUC Storstrøms (VUC) Global Classroom Model is an approach to video conferencing and eLearning using campus-based teaching combined with laptop solutions for students at home. After a couple of years of campus-to-campus video streaming, VUC started a fulltime day program in 2011 with the support of a hybrid campus and videoconference model. In this model the teachers and some of the students are present on campus in the classroom, while other students are participating simultaneously from their home using laptops.
Although the Global Classroom Model is pedagogically flexible, the students are required to attend according to regulations from the Ministry of Children and Education to pass their exams. Evaluations show that the students are happy with the flexibility this model provides in their everyday life. However, our findings also show several obstacles. Firstly technical issues are at play, but also the learning design of the lessons, as well as general organizational and cultural issues. All these matters need to be taken into consideration when implementing the Global Classroom Model.
Through the start-up period of a PhD study and through a research-based competence development project with senior researchers, we have gained knowledge about the experiences, challenges, and potentials of the teaching and learning within the Global Classroom Model. Both studies are action research studies with a user-centered approach. In this paper we focus on the students experience and on the organizational issues related to the transition to the Global Classroom Model as well as on the continued development of the teachers’ educational designs. The research is based on interviews, on utterances in feedback sessions, and on the observed interaction taking place.