Week 5: Just what I thought…
On all accounts, last week was just what I thought. Students indicated in their journals that they had a hard time with the topic, either because it was a delicate topic or because they were more interested in getting to know their partners than they were in accomplishing the task that we had assigned to them. It is good and bad. The good sign is that they are bonding, which will be useful later in the semester. Last week was what I thought from a technological standpoint as we do not seem to solve our problems with Camtasia. Problems seem to come in three different forms:
• we cannot record both sides of the conversation (we have the audio but only one of two videos)
• recording induces significant slowing down and choppiness of the video
• recording induces echo and/or feedback of the audio
If all else fails, we will have to call TechSmith.
On a positive note, the new headsets are working really well.
This week’s topic was about women in power. For the first time in history, both France and the United States have a woman running for president and, in both countries, they are on the more liberal side (Senator Hillary Clinton in the US, and Ségolène Royal in France). Students were encouraged to reflect on the issue of what women bring to the table when in position of leadership. Another difficult and controversial topic that seemed to have met with mixed reactions. Out of twenty ENSEIRB students in the French group, only four are women. At UT, by comparison, seventeen of my nineteen students are women. If anything, this gender distribution should make interesting dynamics…