1. The proposal

• The aim of this proposal was to use the special opportunities offered by Videography, a new subject in the Humanities devoted to an exploration of what it means to 'write with video', in order to challenge the technological and pedagogical limits of videoconferencing technology and practices. It sought to incorporate into all parts of the process the richest possible mix of audiovisual materials and interactive possibilities.
• The pilot primarily used the Richmond and Blacktown sites, with off-campus scheduled for multipoint use on two occasions. It involved two classes per week for the whole semester, approximately 2 hours of videoconferencing per week in a 3 hour tutorial workshop per class: a total of approximately 52 hours of videoconferencing time. Four teaching staff were continuously involved in the pilot, with lecturers at both sites: Marion Benjamin and Bob Hodge at Richmond, and Lindsay Barrett and Steven Maras at Blacktown. There were 23 students between the two classes.

2. Unique features of pilot

• The fact that the subject was concerned with production and use of video images meant that students and staff had access to supplementary modes of image production (specifically videocameras and multimedia production) and a high level of interest in and capacity to make critical and productive use of the technical resources of the video-conferencing setup.
• It was part of the subject for students to 'tackle the stylistic, aesthetic, ethical and political issues surrounding the use of video in different cultures and spaces'. Thus they had relevant readings and teaching support in becoming more critical and self-reflexive in their use of this technology and its accompanying pedagogy.
• As a result, this pilot was more like a laboratory investigation of the limits of the technology and pedagogy, explicitly and rigorously testing its possibilities, often in 'abnormal' or deliberately aberrant ways in order to come up with principles that would have wider applicability. It was less concerned to implement or improve on a single 'best practice' model which could then be used directly by other users of this technology. Thus, some of its experiments came off well and would open up stimulating and suggestive possibilities for other groups, but other experiments though successful for this group require levels of visual literacy and technical interest that could not be assumed in standard users (but of course could be taught in a modified induction course). Other experiments tended to reveal starkly some of the inherent limitations in the technology or its attendant practices that will need to be taken account of in future attempts to extend the scope and uptake of videoconferencing.
• The pilot was unique in that it was a subject about videoconferencing, in the context of an exploration of video-writing. The framing of the pilot holds within it an interesting tension between 'study' in the traditional sense of that term--analysing and discussion an object through readings--and a process of 'production'--as in video production, the production of audio-visual texts. Participation in the subject tended to oscillate between 'study' and 'production', tutorial discussion and creative practice.Seeing videoconferencing not just as an object for discussion but as a tool was a major challenge of the pilot. The pilot was successful in encouraging students to produce and perform with the technology, in very successful ways. It also allowed for a dismantling of the opposition of 'study' and 'production', by allowing for different kinds of writing that involved interpretation and theory.
• The pilot explored videoconferencing not just as a tool for teaching, but as a form of writing specific to particular kinds of learning situations. Based on this experience, it would seem that there is enormous 'performative' potential in the technology, especially in terms of choreographed group presentations using a range of forms (video, graphics, text, fiction). This 'performative' potential should not be confused with 'interactivity'. At an extreme, performance can be narcissistic, and the performer can turn into his or her own audience very easily (this applies to lecturers as much as students). Interactivity can be furthered by the use of graphics, examples, and exercises, and range of performative strategies, however they are still not the same thing. Interactivity can also be diminished by performance, with the audience reduced to passivity. However, if the performance can maintain a participative edge, and a shared experimentation with material and examples, the experience of the classroom can be enhanced.

3. Strengths and weaknesses

• This highly motivated and technologically and visually competent group of users nonetheless did not in any instance rate the technology as more than 'effective', with the lecturers more likely to rate it higher than the students. The numbers of respondents of course is of course too small for significant results, and this was a group that was oriented to critiquing the technology.
• Most of the students did excellent work in using the technology in creative ways to choreograph presentations to the 'remote' group. Most felt that they had learned a great deal from their efforts to work with the technology and reflect on issues of pedagogy within the course
• Use of the two sites allowed the course to diversify the video technologies that it employed, with multimedia at the Richmond site and video production at Nirimba. In the case of this particular course at the present time the other advantage of the technology, of allowing teaching to occur at different and distant sites, was not an advantage for students and staff whose teaching and learning otherwise is primarily at Richmond.
• Done as it was it was an expensive way of teaching, with double the staff input for this as a pilot, small classes at each site, each with at least one lecturer in attendance so that neither site was technically the 'remote' site. Technical support was often needed (though often not forthcoming, see below). A high level of advance preparation was often required, and lecturers reported a feeling of tiredness or exhaustion. Partly these were one-off consequences of its status as a pilot, but over-all there did not seem to be any easily identifiable economies.
• In spite of the presence of lecturers at both sites, there was a tendency for an us-them relationship to develop between the two sites, with Richmond coming to seem the privileged site, and Nirimba students feeling a greater sense of alienation. Had there been only a lecturer at the 'home' site and students at the 'remote'--as in the preferred model for the technology--this tendency would probably have been stronger.
• Technical problems, exacerbated by the new technology and by the fact that not all systems were in place at the start of the semester meant many lengthy and frustrating delays. Especially early on there was a problem of drop-out between the two sites. Technical support, especially in the beginning, was essential and not adequate, especially to test proposed uses of the technology before a class and iron out any bugs.
• Attempts to use the technology for any set up other than point-to-point between Richmond and Nirimba quickly ran into enormous complications, so much so that two intended multi-point set ups had to be cancelled entirely.
• The document camera supplemented by video-tapes and a supplementary camera was extensively and imaginatively used to good effect. However, the second or rear camera was under-used and fell into disuse.
• In spite of efforts made throughout the course to enable a computer to be linked to the document camera this did not happen, so that work done in the multimedia mode could not as originally planned be incorporated into videoconferencing exchanges.
• Initially the students had an unease with the technology, and even by the end many rated it an 'unfriendly' or alienating medium. With this alienation in mind, it was interesting that many discussions in the pilot revolved around other media like TV, news, video. It could be concluded that there is a danger in over emphasising the uniqueness of videoconferencing, instead of situating it in a broader media and information context. Recognition of this broader context can provide a means of validating student experience with videoconferencing. Not simply aliens to a radically new form, they are already users of media, in an increasingly mediatised context.
• Interactive possibilities were always a problem, especially between sites. Possibilities of interaction cut out rapidly when numbers rose above a relatively small number, and there was in general less interaction across a group spread between two sites linked by the technology than in a group of the same size in a single site. Lecturers and students alike devoted a great deal of creative effort to expanding the range of interactive possibilities of the medium, but felt that in spite of all these efforts it remained inferior in this dimension to most single site interactions in a standard tutorial format.
• It proved difficult to structure the sessions effectively, partly because it was hard to predict how the technology was going to work or perhaps not work. A flexible attitude to curriculum design is recommended, one that can be modified according to the flow of a group, and the unfolding of the subject. A common response of students was that the sessions using videoconferencing were experienced as too long and/or too boring, and maintaining motivation was an increasing problem.

4. Conclusions

• Overall, lecturers and students alike found the experience of using this technology very stimulating and educative in many ways and they recognised that many of the difficulties they came up against were teething problems. There are skills which can be developed to make better and more imaginative use of this technology, and all concerned were aware of and interested in working on this aspect of things. The pilot worked on the assumption that the world has become more tele-visual, and that it has been like this for some time (eg Plato). From this starting point, videoconferencing offered opportunities for bringing the world and the classroom closer together. Some of the techniques that might evolve could develop 'visual literacy' in staff and in students that could have important spin-offs for teaching in more conventional modes.
• Teaching in a videoconferencing format involves unique opportunities for the performance of views, theories, and research. While in the traditional academic model performance is separated from research, the format allows for a shifting of this separation, and a different kind of thinking with the media.
• The pilot took up a pedagogical challenge of trying to turn the mechanism of delivery of the subject into a major object of study. The figure of Plato was used in the subject to highlight 'an apparatus' of which videoconferencing is a part. This apparatus includes teaching in a transmission or delivery model. In so doing, it went against the grain of the 'best practice' model which encourages the invisibility and unobtrusiveness of the technology. Students found the task of trying to think with the medium extremely difficult. However, it should be said that this difficulty perhaps signposts the greater need for a critical approach to the apparatus. While not every video-conferencing session can start with a reflection of the nature of the apparatus, an approach that allows and supports such reflection is certainly encouraged, even if only as a strategy for group formation.
• There were problems in managing a simulated single tutorial across two sites with numbers greater than about 8 at each site. Despite attempts by lecturing staff and students to promote the idea of the session being run as a single workshop conducted at two sites, it was difficult to stop a process whereby each group at each site saw themselves as a discrete group. It is doubtful if even smaller groups would stop this trend.
• It did not appear that there were notable economies of scale achieved by videoconferencing except in cases where there were not viable numbers on one site. This is not currently a problem facing the School or the Faculty, though it might come to be a problem if the School of Humanities transfers its main base to Blacktown and wishes to teach across the two campuses.
• The effort involved in preparing such courses seems greater than for teaching in face-to-face formats, without scope for re-use of a particular class plan or exercise to an extent that would repay this investment. This leaves the technology of only apparently applicability to mainstream teaching in the School or Faculty. Such economies seem viable only across network members at Hawkesbury.
• One potential advantage of the technology, its capacity to bring in guest lecturers from other places, could not be utilised when required because of technical support problems. Re-scheduling or cancellation caused disturbance to the flow of curriculum, and this should be planned for.
• Experimentation with the medium should be encouraged, in order to liberate potentials in the technology that are possibly disguised by contemporary models of teaching.