Building Educational Partnerships through Virtual IT

Abstract

This paper reviews the authors’ experience in creating and implementing four educational videoconferences (VCs) for a three-week English language education program in 2004, and our proposal for VCs in 2006. The focus of this paper concerns the building of partnerships to enable the delivery of educational VCs. The VCs were established with four presenters: a professor specializing in Telecommunications at Ball State Univ.; the Dean of the Undergraduate College at Harvard University; a specialist at NASA on "International Business Etiquette"; and a playwright at the Indiana Repertory Theatre. The required partnerships were each developed on unique paths: building on previous contacts at a Global Media Network (GMN) Symposium at HKBU, facilitated through alumni and organizational / fundraising networks to reach high-level educational administrators, the use of online VC discussion forums to contact free US-based government resources, and the exploration of online catalogs offered by non-profit organizations devoted to the coordination and delivery of VC presentations. The three week English language program was organized by a non-profit charitable organization, and co-hosted by HKU. It invited volunteer Harvard students to lead small groups of disadvantaged secondary students from schools in HK and mainland China in a range of language-oriented leadership activities. In 2006, we plan to simultaneously operate two such three-week programs, one hosted by HKU, and the other by Fudan University in Shanghai. VC technology will be utilized to virtually import real-time educational presentations from Harvard and other top universities, and also to enable cultural exchange between the students in all three locations. In addition, we are implementing an "Observer" status, where staff and students at other remote locations can get the VC feed one-way, and watch the language program presentations and cultural exchange interactions. The development of symbiotic partnerships is key to the implementation of educational VC-based distance learning and cultural exchange programs. This paper presents the methodology of a successful recent implementation, and our plans for future development of increased technology-based interaction.