BATON ROUGE – LSU is leading the way for education in the 21st century, offering two courses taught via video streaming to give students broader choices in their college curricula.
The LSU Department of Computer Science will offer both courses, using networking and high-definition (HD) access capabilities through the LSU Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, to export and import them.
LSU Department of Computer Science Professor Thomas Sterling pioneered this teaching method in the Spring 2007 semester after working with a team of researchers from the CCT, MCNC in North Carolina and Masaryk University in the Czech Republic to develop HD streaming and Access Grid applications for educational purposes.
Sterling’s course, CSC 7600 -- High-Performance Computing: Models, Methods and Means, was the first of its kind in the United States. Sterling taught the course at LSU, and broadcast it across the 10-Gigabit-per-second Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI) to sites in Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina and the Czech Republic.
Sterling will teach his course again in the Spring 2008 semester, with four additional universities – Louisiana Tech University, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and Little Rock campuses and Masaryk University in the Czech Republic -- signed on to participate.
Sterling will teach the course on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 a.m. until noon in Johnston 338, and will broadcast the course in real-time to the partner sites. The students at those schools will take the course through LSU, following Sterling’s syllabus with professors on site at each partner school to monitor coursework. Students will receive course credit through their home universities.
After the first run of the course, Sterling and LSU researchers received National Science Foundation funding to distribute the material through other media, including a DVD series and iPods containing the lectures.
“This teaching method gives college students more options than they ever had before,” Sterling said. “Previously, students were limited to taking whatever courses their universities offered, and if a professor at that university did not teach a certain course, the students just did not have access to it. Now, we are leveling the playing field in college education, and making a subject broadly available to a much broader audience.”
LSU also will offer a course in Spring 2008 that will use the same setup in reverse. Students will be able to take the University of Illinois – Chicago’s video game design class, offered at LSU as both a computer science course (CS 4700) and an arts course (ART 4020.)
Jason Leigh, a computer science professor at UIC and director of the university’s Electronic Visualization Laboratory, will teach the course from Chicago and broadcast it via LONI to students at LSU, who will follow the same syllabus and requirements as the UIC students.
Through HD streaming access, the students will attend Leigh’s class in real time each Friday from 2 – 5 p.m. during the spring semester. LSU Department of Computer Science Professor Gabrielle Allen and School of Music Professor Stephen David Beck will monitor the students’ work and progress.
LSU offered the video game design course for the first time during the fall 2007 semester, and Allen said it was so successful, the University will offer it again in the spring.
"In organizing these two classes we have an opportunity to rethink how to provide the best education to our undergraduate and graduate students, not just at LSU but across the nation,” Allen said. “We have a chance to offer a broad, deep and up-to-date curricula in computer science, making some of our classes available externally and bringing some excellent teachers at other universities right into our classrooms here."
For more information, please contact CCT Manager of Public Relations Kristen Sunde at 225-578-3469.
The LSU Department of Computer Science will offer both courses, using networking and high-definition (HD) access capabilities through the LSU Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, to export and import them.
LSU Department of Computer Science Professor Thomas Sterling pioneered this teaching method in the Spring 2007 semester after working with a team of researchers from the CCT, MCNC in North Carolina and Masaryk University in the Czech Republic to develop HD streaming and Access Grid applications for educational purposes.
Sterling’s course, CSC 7600 -- High-Performance Computing: Models, Methods and Means, was the first of its kind in the United States. Sterling taught the course at LSU, and broadcast it across the 10-Gigabit-per-second Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI) to sites in Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina and the Czech Republic.
Sterling will teach his course again in the Spring 2008 semester, with four additional universities – Louisiana Tech University, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and Little Rock campuses and Masaryk University in the Czech Republic -- signed on to participate.
Sterling will teach the course on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 a.m. until noon in Johnston 338, and will broadcast the course in real-time to the partner sites. The students at those schools will take the course through LSU, following Sterling’s syllabus with professors on site at each partner school to monitor coursework. Students will receive course credit through their home universities.
After the first run of the course, Sterling and LSU researchers received National Science Foundation funding to distribute the material through other media, including a DVD series and iPods containing the lectures.
“This teaching method gives college students more options than they ever had before,” Sterling said. “Previously, students were limited to taking whatever courses their universities offered, and if a professor at that university did not teach a certain course, the students just did not have access to it. Now, we are leveling the playing field in college education, and making a subject broadly available to a much broader audience.”
LSU also will offer a course in Spring 2008 that will use the same setup in reverse. Students will be able to take the University of Illinois – Chicago’s video game design class, offered at LSU as both a computer science course (CS 4700) and an arts course (ART 4020.)
Jason Leigh, a computer science professor at UIC and director of the university’s Electronic Visualization Laboratory, will teach the course from Chicago and broadcast it via LONI to students at LSU, who will follow the same syllabus and requirements as the UIC students.
Through HD streaming access, the students will attend Leigh’s class in real time each Friday from 2 – 5 p.m. during the spring semester. LSU Department of Computer Science Professor Gabrielle Allen and School of Music Professor Stephen David Beck will monitor the students’ work and progress.
LSU offered the video game design course for the first time during the fall 2007 semester, and Allen said it was so successful, the University will offer it again in the spring.
"In organizing these two classes we have an opportunity to rethink how to provide the best education to our undergraduate and graduate students, not just at LSU but across the nation,” Allen said. “We have a chance to offer a broad, deep and up-to-date curricula in computer science, making some of our classes available externally and bringing some excellent teachers at other universities right into our classrooms here."
For more information, please contact CCT Manager of Public Relations Kristen Sunde at 225-578-3469.
Publish Date:
01-08-2008
