ABSTRACT

Videoconferencing is increasingly used in education as a way to support distance learning. This article contributes to the emerging interactional literature on video-mediated educational interaction by exploring how a telepresence robot is used to facilitate remote participation in university-level foreign language teaching. A telepresence robot differs from commonly used videoconferencing set-ups in that it allows mobility and remote camera control. A remote student can thus move a classroom-based robot from a distance in order to shift attention between people, objects and environmental structures during classroom activities. Using multimodal conversation analysis, we focus on how participants manage telepresent remote students’ visual access to classroom learning materials. In particular, we show how visibility checks are accomplished as a sequential and embodied practice in interaction between physically dispersed participants. Moreover, we demonstrate how participants conduct interactional work to make learning materials visible to the remote student by showing them and guiding the ‘seeing’ of materials. The findings portray some ways in which participants in video-mediated interaction display sensitivity to the possibility of intersubjective trouble and the recipient’s visual perspective. Besides increasing understanding of visual and interactional practices in technology-rich learning environments, the findings can be applied in the pedagogical design of such environments.

摘要

视频会议越来越多地用于教育中，作为支持远程学习的一种方式。本文通过探索如何使用远程呈现机器人来促进远程参与大学水平的外语教学，为新兴的以视频为媒介的教育交互的交互文献做出贡献。远程呈现机器人与常用的视频会议设置不同，它允许移动和远程控制摄像机。因此，远程学生可以从远处移动基于教室的机器人，以便在课堂活动期间在人、物体和环境结构之间转移注意力。使用多模态对话分析，我们关注参与者如何管理远程学生对课堂学习材料的视觉访问。特别是，我们展示了可见性检查是如何作为分散在身体上的参与者之间交互的顺序和具体实践来完成的。此外，我们展示了参与者如何进行互动工作，通过向远程学生展示和引导他们“看到”材料，使学习材料对远程学生可见。研究结果描绘了以视频为媒介的交互参与者对主体间问题的可能性和接受者的视觉视角表现出敏感性的一些方式。除了增加对技术丰富的学习环境中的视觉和交互实践的理解外，这些发现还可以应用于此类环境的教学设计。我们展示了参与者如何进行互动工作，通过向远程学生展示和引导他们“看到”材料，使学习材料对远程学生可见。研究结果描绘了以视频为中介的互动参与者对主体间问题的可能性和接受者的视觉视角的敏感性的一些方式。除了增加对技术丰富的学习环境中的视觉和交互实践的理解外，这些发现还可以应用于此类环境的教学设计。我们展示了参与者如何进行互动工作，通过向远程学生展示和引导他们“看到”材料，使学习材料对远程学生可见。研究结果描绘了以视频为媒介的交互参与者对主体间问题的可能性和接受者的视觉视角表现出敏感性的一些方式。除了增加对技术丰富的学习环境中的视觉和交互实践的理解外，这些发现还可以应用于此类环境的教学设计。