Donald Armel, Ph.D.
James Holmes, Ed.D.
Printing Management
School of Technology
P.O. 8046
1120 Technology Building
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, GA 30460?8046
912-681-5167 voice
912-871-1455 fax
donarmel@gasou.edu
http://www2.gasou.edu/printmgt/

In the fall of 1999, the Printing Management program tested an idea; could a traditional lab based course be taught via distance learning?

The integrity of the introductory course for Printing Management was a concern, so several conditions were outlined for the distance learning class to meet. The students at the distance learning site were required to complete the same laboratory assignments and have the same experiences as the on-campus students. The instructional preparation could not be extensive like preparing a new course. The challenges were difficult but not insurmountable. What follows will describe the motivation to try this, the implementation of the course, the challenges faced with this model and lessons learned.

The Problem

The Printing Management program had identified several issues that could be viewed as either challenges or roadblocks. There was the need for program growth in terms of majors, the printing industry and the Printing Management program had low visibility as a career choice, the traditional pool of students in a high school technology are not college bound and there was little time on faculty schedules to add new tasks.

Common Solutions

Recruiting and visibility issues have commonly been addressed by aggressive advertising/recruiting campaigns. New product literature can be developed which when tied with an effective mailing and planned visits to high school graphic arts programs can generate new interest in printing management as a career. However, the problem is finding time to manage more recruiting and visits. Another solution needed to be found.

Distance Learning for Technology Based Disciplines

Georgia has over 450 distance learning sites in high schools, colleges and universities across the state, Georgia Statewide Academic and Medical System (GSAMS). How can Printing Management take advantage of a technology that sits next to one of its classrooms?

Georgia also has the Post Secondary Option (PSO). The PSO allows qualifying high school students to enroll in a post-secondary course offered by a college or university and receive both high school credit and the college credit. Other states may have similar programs.

Printing Management could teach its Introduction to Printing Technology or Desktop Publishing courses as a PSO course to high schools using distance learning. This model would solve many problems. With a little extra course preparation for distance learning, faculty can be both on campus and off campus at the same time. Teaching a course now becomes recruiting. To enter a PSO course the high school must be able to be admitted to the University as a regular student. Now the high school target audience is college bound.

Choosing the Technology

Surveying the possibilities for distance learning created a rather short list of viable choices. The internet provided two possibilities: 1) traditional web page development or 2) WebCT. Teleconferencing from Georgia Southern University provides only one choice, GSAMS. GSAMS was chosen because it required the least amount of lesson redesign, faculty could teach both classes at the same time, instruction is interactive, and the room and technology for distance learning is in the Technology building.

Implementing the Plan - Offering the PSO Course

Step 1 - Get approval on campus
This was a relatively easy task to accomplish. GSU has put great effort and resources into developing and promoting distance learning. In the College of Science and Technology, math, biology and physics have already offered some of their non-lab classes via distance learning. The administration was very pleased to support the expansion of distance learning offerings.

Step 2 - Getting into a public school

Since this was a first for the program, several decisions needed to be made about which high school teachers and programs will be appropriate as educational partners. In Georgia, many high school printing programs have been accredited by PrintEd. (high school graphic arts certification). This would be one of the first criteria along with teacher reputation and breadth of technologies in the program.

McIntosh High School in Peachtree City, Georgia was selected as the beta site for the distance learning. The printing program is PrintEd accredited, the faculty is nationally recognized by International Graphic Arts Education Association and the program has the technology and facilities for all but one printing process.

Step 3 - Meeting with school administration
To make this happen, a direct meeting with the people who can make decisions is a key to success. The Printing Management faculty had a meeting in late May with the principal, vocational supervisor, distance education coordinator and the instructor. After presenting the details of the class, the school's administration were able to approve and immediately plan the course for the coming fall semester.

The Courses

In the fall, the Introduction to Printing Technology was taught. It had thirty students on campus and another thirteen at the high school. The telecommunication connection was only needed for lectures. Lectures were scheduled on Mondays and Wednesday s, while Tuesdays and Thursday s were lab days.

The introductory course teaches printing technology related to 35mm photography, process photography, digital photography, scanning, image editing, lithography, flexography, screen printing and bindery. On lab days, the students at the high school would attend the school's printing lab and the teacher acted as lab facilitator. All lab assignments and instructional materials were provided. The high school provided the lab's supplies except for the flexography plates. Flexography was the one process that could not be totally completed at the high school. For this, the flexography plates were sent for processing and returned to Georgia Southern for printing.

The high school needed to schedule course for the full academic year, so in the spring the Desktop Publishing course was taught. The coordination between the two schools for desktop had to do more with the software than the hardware. Sixteen students total attended the class: eight were at Macintosh High school and eight were regular Georgia Southern students on campus.

Desktop Publishing class was a basic, point and click introduction to the technology. Lecture and lab topics included designing, creating and assembling products for both print and electronic (internet and multimedia) media. Both lectures and lab demonstrations were delivered from the Georgia Southern University's distance learning classroom to the students at the McIntosh site. The facilitator used instructor prepared learning packs to help facilitate the lab activities.

Problems

There was little participation on either side of the televisions. Students seemed to be intimidated by the technology. On Georgia Southern's side of the connection students had microphones on each desk and had to push and hold the button when they wanted to speak. The high schools microphones were always on, so background noise was a problem when teaching. The volume was turned down which meant that for a student to speak, they had to ask for the volume to be turned up first.

Although instruction did not have to be developed from scratch, there was still much time spent making existing instruction fit the new delivery format. The distance learning media was 36" television monitors. These were a relatively small format for instructional delivery. The distance learning classroom also included interactive microphones for both the students and the faculty, PowerPoint and internet capable computers, electronic white boards, VCRs and an Elmo. For the video display, the minimum font size was 24 point on screen with 30 being better. This caused many of the presentation materials to be redesigned.

The coordination, grading and feedback of tests proved to be a problem for the high school site. Time was the greatest obstacle after the test was given. The tests needed to be mailed Georgia Southern, graded and then returned for review.

Enrolling in a university course while still in high school prevented the high school from approaching the completion of assignments in a manner consistent with university students. The high school instructor often attempted to insulate students from the pressures of the university courses.

Evaluation

It worked. Most of the initial desired outcomes were realize with the long term less successful. The course raised visibility both on and off campus. No students entered the Printing Management program from this first experience.

Lessons Learned or What Next

To be able to offer this course, the high school teacher's schedule was changed which caused a lower enrollment for her first year course. The could be solved by providing funding to the teacher as a facilitator of an extra course.

As contacts are made to expand the offering to other schools several things become apparent. Universities' obsession with very early course planning is needed long before high school think about the next year's plan. Not as many high school printing programs are as diverse as the first one chosen, which makes offering the Introduction to Printing Technology problematic, however, the Desktop Publishing course seems to be a common element to most programs. Finally, the meeting with school administration is crucial because telephone conversations are not producing results.

Faster feedback on tests, and certain written assignments could be resolved (enhanced) by increasing the use of the internet classroom, and specifically WebCT. In the case of these classes, the short time frame we had to prepare for these classes eliminated the feasibility of using WebCT.

Outcomes

Increased visibility, developing a working relationship with high schools, and exposure of "what we do" to a new audience of students and administration were all positive outcomes. For the short term, we did not get any new students into our program, However, one student had decided to come to the Printing Management program, but did not because his parents moved out of the state.

Student Evaluations

For the Desktop Publishing class, the PSO students received a higher final grade than did their GSU campus counterparts. In the two segments of the class (lab and lecture) the PSO students had higher averages than the GSU students.