InsideUVA: June 9, 1995
TELE-TUTORING WILL ALLOW U.VA. TEACHERS & STUDENTS TO
KEEP IN TOUCH -- VIRTUALLY
Many students won't have to leave home to meet with
instructors, tutors or discussion groups when Computer
Science Professor Jorg Liebeherr's Grounds-wide
Tele-Tutoring System (gwTTS) goes on line late this year.
Electronic Office Hours, the real-time tutoring sessions over
an electronic network, is one of four programs Mr. Liebeherr
will develop in the pilot phase of gwTTS, thanks to a teaching
and technology fellowship.
For faculty and teaching assistants, what Mr. Liebeherr called
"the notion of tele-presence" will mean more efficient use of
instructional time and the ability to wield an array of
educational tools including video tapes at a computer
workstation to reach students throughout the area.
It'll take just a phone call to link gwTTS to participants'
desktop computers, which will then display live images of
tutor and student plus a whiteboard that shows notations as
they're made by either person. Except for the small-screen
focus, it will be as if the discussion is face-to-face rather
than by an electronic link between offices, homes and
dormitories.
Other gwTTS programs being developed for potential
widespread use in the University community include:
A prototype of gwTTS is scheduled to be completed this
summer, and by the end of the year, Mr. Liebeherr and his team
hope to have completed field tests and installation at selected
points throughout the Grounds. Two professors in the
Department of English, Jerome McGann and Michael Levenson,
are interested in using gwTTS and will offer information and
ideas to help in the design of the system, he noted.
--Written by Tom Doran