The Medium Rescues the Message
The Media Arts Academy at Los Angeles Valley College is a leader in bringing
both the teaching and the application of new media into the classroom. With
an emphasis on technical expertise, the program has trained many professionals
in the news and entertainment industries. Recently, LAVC began using video conferencing
not only to deliver a course in media studies, but as the medium for a collaboration
involving students, faculty, and institutions in two countries.
Alan Sacks, an Emmy Award-winning director and producer and chairman of the
Media Arts Academy, teaches a course called “Mind, Media, and Society.”
Although Sacks has always taught the course at the school’s Van Nuys, Calif.,
campus, a scheduling conflict prevented him from being able to do that last
year, because the film he was working on was shooting in Toronto. (The film,
The Color of Friendship, later won an Emmy Award.)
Not wanting to forgo teaching his LAVC course during filming, Sacks sought
a partner in Canada to help him teach his Van Nuys students using distance-learning
technologies. The collaborator he found—Derrick de Kerckhove, director
of the University of Toronto’s McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology—was
not only willing to work with Sacks, but wanted his own graduate students to
participate in the course.
Sacks and de Kerckhove redesigned the course to bring together media experts
and critics from both the United States and Canada in a series of joint lectures
delivered via video conferencing.
For three weeks, Sacks taught his course in real time from a studio at the
University of Toronto. Using a Tandberg 6000 video-conferencing system, he could
see and communicate with his students directly. Says Sacks: “At first,
students were focused on the technology, but within five minutes, the TV screen
disappeared for them and we were talking as though I was right there in the
room.”
Sacks, who had attended campus seminars on the use of video-conferencing equipment,
says he was able to use the cameras to zoom in on particular students, comment
on whether they were attending to the discussion or doodling, and address them
individually or in groups. In addition to conversing as though they were in
the same room, he and his students were also able to pass hard-copy documents
and software back and forth using the system’s built-in document camera
and scan converter.
Lou Albert, director of staff development at LAVC, notes that although the
school had used video conferencing in spot applications in the past, Sacks’
course was the first time the technology had been applied to several class sessions
over a period of weeks.
“It was a unique experience,” he says. “The technology is so
good now that students and faculty forgot it was there, and they talked as if
they were all together.” Albert points to developments in video-conferencing
hardware that improve transmission speeds to virtually eliminate audio delays
and technology that allows users to connect multiple endpoints at one time.
De Kerckhove notes that his university has used video-conferencing tools since
1994. “I have offered many of my courses to and from afar, in Europe, the
U.S., and Japan,” he says. “It is an ideal format to support face-to-face
contacts when the real thing is not available. The voice quality is usually
quite good, and that is what counts.”
The advantages, de Kerckhove says, outweigh the disadvantages. “The course
can be given to and from wherever there is a connection,” he notes. “We
often get access to world stars for free because it is fun for them, and they
do not have to travel to Canada or the U.S. to be heard.”
He adds: “Their contributions can also be—and usually are—archived.
We can then use the contents of the archives to create a final compendium with
all the best material, a good exercise for would-be filmmakers. This year, we
are introducing a new twist, which is to ask students on both sides to manage
lighting and sets and sound.”
But he notes that the technology is not perfect: “The disadvantages are
that the technology is still a bit shaky, with sudden drops, [it’s] not
reliable everywhere, and the image remains sketchy.”
In the Toronto/LAVC class, de Kerckhove became the primary instructor. His
students participated in lectures, researched guest speakers before their appearances,
and took turns introducing them to their classmates. McLuhan students also collaborated
with LAVC students on projects.
Despite the difference in their levels of education and experience, Sacks says,
the students worked well together. “It was beneficial to the LAVC students
to hear the views of the graduate students,” he notes. “Many of my
students are preprofessional and focused on the technology more than the theory.
The McLuhan students encouraged them to think about things on a different level,
and vice versa.”
In the fall semester of 2001, Sacks and de Kerckhove repeated the course, this
time focusing on how audiovisual and networked media represent and influence
the way individuals think. Guest lecturers included animators Robin King and
Donovan Keith; John Gierland, author of Digital Babylon; and Ted Nelson, who
came up with the concept of hypertext.
For more information, contact Lou Albert at [email protected].
