IU Kokomo’s Kelz to direct technology for intercampus foreign language classes

By Lisa Denlinger

Hardware and software have improved greatly since IU’s first videoconferencing installations in 1995.

As a result, students may complete their first year of a language but then have to wait for two years before there are enough enrollments to justify a second year of instruction.

That’s where IU Kokomo’s Shelle Kelz, dean of the Division of Arts and Sciences, comes in. She’s been appointed coordinator of intercampus sharing of foreign language resources using technology.

Technologies like the Web and interactive video, said Kelz, can enable the campuses to pool enrollments and share instructors and other resources.

During a fall semester, for example, an instructor on campus B can offer an upper-level German course to a pool of students from campuses C, D, E and F. During the following spring semester, an instructor on campus A can offer another upper-level German course to the same students. “Everybody wins,” said Kelz. “Department chairs can serve all their students, faculty can teach the courses they’ve worked so hard to prepare, and students can study the languages they choose.”

What’s more, the university has made a huge investment in its technological infrastructure, said Kelz. Videoconferencing hardware and software have improved greatly since IU’s first videoconferencing installations in 1995, giving students at remote sites a richer learning experience. The new Polycom videoconferencing systems have an automated camera tracking feature that eliminates the need for a technician to steer the camera as the instructor moves. Instructors who felt constrained to “stay put” because of poor motion handling and hollow-sounding audio can now move about more freely.

Instructors interested in incorporating a Web-based component to their courses are welcome to use Oncourse, a user-friendly, university-supported Web course management software; or they may choose from the many commercial course management systems that are currently available. In addition, instructors can use a wide variety of computer software and multimedia.

Regardless of the technology instructors choose, promised Kelz, they will receive the ongoing training they need to develop and deliver their courses.

The possibilities are endless, but Kelz understands it may take some time before use of technology in language instruction is broadly embraced. Currently, two courses are planned for fall 2001: German 111 and Spanish 111. Kelz explained that these courses have the same content and requirements as courses numbered 100, 101 or 117 on other campuses. Both will originate from the IU Kokomo campus and will be offered statewide via the Virtual Indiana Classroom (VIC) Network and Oncourse.

Kelz is confident that the two fall courses will serve as prototypes from which other faculty can learn. In the meantime, she’ll continue to promote technology’s potential.

“We can look forward to a day when we offer dual-credit courses to Indiana high schools that have videoconferencing and Internet capabilities,” she said. “We can help teachers keep up with certification requirements without having to come to a campus. We can develop inter-institutional programs among Big Ten universities. And we can establish exchange programs with universities in other countries.”

Kelz welcomes department chairs and faculty to contact her by calling 765-455-9381 or by sending E-mail to Anna Kiser at alkiser@iuk.edu.

http://www.indiana.edu/~iude/campuscoord.html