Dive Brief:
- Michigan State University’s doctoral program in Educational Psychology and Educational Technology featured a course last spring that gave distance learners a presence in the classroom through either stationary robots mounted with iPads or one mobile robot.
- Students remotely controlling iPads could turn the screens to look at speakers from unique angles but they couldn’t see the entire room, which was limiting for some.
- Campus Technology reports that future work will determine the best ratio of distance learners to local ones as the first course consistently had just one student who attended in person.
Dive Insight:
As colleges and universities continue to strive for greater access to their programming, harnessing modern technologies is always a way to expand reach. Students who can’t make it to classrooms for weekly meetings may be able to further their education with more flexible location requirements. Many online courses let students access course materials anytime. Michigan State’s experiment required students to at least tune in during certain class hours so everyone, virtually or not, could be in the same place at the same time. Early feedback was positive from students, indicating that this method could become more common moving forward.