NM Tech Provides Electronic Classrooms Via Cable

by George Zamora

SOCORRO, N.M., Feb. 12, 1999 -- Traditional university classroom settings at New Mexico Tech are not in any immediate danger of being replaced, but some currently are being supplemented by modern communications technology and other electronic media. This spring semester, for instance, New Mexico Tech is offering both a Spanish class and a calculus class via one of the cable television channels on Socorro Electric Cooperative's cable television system.

"Elementary Spanish II" is being cablecast from 11 until 11:50 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on Channel 93, while "Calculus on a Computer" airs on Monday evenings, starting at 6 p.m. on the same channel.

In addition, the calculus class, which is part of Tech's Master of Science Teaching (MST) curriculum, also is simultaneously transmitted through telephone lines to students in San Juan Community College in Farmington.

"Any time we offer MST classes as a distance education course, we also plan on offering it on a real-time basis on the local cable channel," says Vannetta Perry, coordinator for educational outreach programs at New Mexico Tech.

As a member of the Waste-Management Education and Research Consortium (WERC), New Mexico Tech also currently is producing and transmitting two classes--"Contaminant Hydrology" and
"Explosive Surety"--on the WERCForce Instructional Television satellite network.

WERC members, which also include New Mexico State University, University of New Mexico, Diné College, and Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories, can access anywhere from six to nine courses each semester through a satellite up-link system, digital and analog frequencies, and other distance learning techniques.

As an added bonus, the satellite system and associated telecommunications lines employed by WERC let students at its member institutions interact with professors who are teaching courses over the network, allowing them the give-and-take of raising questions and receiving answers much as they would in a traditional classroom.

For the most part, the courses offered by New Mexico Tech on a distance education basis retain much of the organization of the "old" university classroom: Students who are taking distance
education classes for credit are still required to read textbooks, turn in homework and research assignments . . . and take tests.

But, as Perry points out, its usually the professors who have to make more of an adjustment to the unique characteristics of teaching over an electronic medium. "It's a very, very different learning environment," Perry explains. "And because of that, professors must use different or expanded techniques to teach than what they normally would use in the traditional classroom. . . . There is no rooom for 'winging' it. A large part of the problems encountered with distance education courses relates to the fact that an instructor must develop new techniques to draw in students from remote sites to ensure that they actively participate in and contribute to the class."

Perry speaks from experiences as both an administrator who has helped get several distance education classes "on the air" and as a student who currently is taking two classes over the Internet, or World Wide Web.

"In one of my classes, offered through New Mexico State University, a humanities professor here at Tech and I are learning how to design a web-based class," Perry says. "It's amazing just how interactive the learning environment is in a web-based classroom," she adds. "Many universities are now offering a diverse curricula via the Internet. And, eventually, web-based learning is probably where distance education at New Mexico Tech will also be headed."