MPC Short Course A Hit!

While TEL8 videoconference classes prove themselves accessible and educational, the first Mountain-Plains Consortium short course proved to be a standout. In January, Dr. Peter Martin, with solid support from his colleague Dr. Joe Perrin, from the University of Utah Civil and Environmental Engineering Department prepared 89 students for the professional engineers examination.

He credits the successful blend of videoconferencing and web accessibility as the keys to successful distance learning. Graduate courses have had web-based support for about five years. For this class, the appeal of having e-mail, chat rooms and online resources available enhanced the offering.

It helps when the professor is energized. "I enjoy short courses, the challenge and excitement," Martin says. "It's easy to be jaded after 16 years of teaching and I'm grateful to have something new."

That something new created mounds of work, making a chalk and notes lecture into material that can work for electronic media and web-based dissemination. Martin calls the challenge fun. "For me, it means taking a chance to change and expand, to take a risk. It's not as safe as doing the same thing. I'm a natural communicator and this is much like broadcasting with cameras and an audience," Martin noted. "It's outside the cocoon."

Videoconference students have a personal contact that in many ways exceeds the regular classroom according to Martin. Students have access through the virtual office. On Saturday mornings he chats with students from his home computer, still in his pajamas.

He credits part of the enrollment in the prep course for the professional engineers examination to the availability factor. Some students cannot travel to conventional university settings for classes. With locations in several Department of Transportation offices and through Mountain-Plains Consortium universities, people's educational and professional needs can be met with little or no travel required.

Martin also teaches courses in intelligent transportation systems through TEL8, as well as other graduate courses. More students can be served through videoconference classes, making each MPC school better able to use its teaching assets.

Julie Rodriguez calls the growth in videoconference classes exciting and challenging, too. Some fancy footwork was needed to have 13 sites on 12 phone lines for Martin's examprep class. "It was all worth it, though. And things will be smoother next time," she adds.

These courses, demanded by DOTs, are reinforced by success Rodriguez says. "This continues to strengthen the relationship among DOT and MPC sites," according to Rodriguez.

As faculty continue to develop new ways to teach transportation courses, meeting the needs of students spread across the region, technology continues to be implemented for successful education.