Desktop Video Conferencing

As a relatively new delivery medium, desktop video conferencing (DVC) promises to bring traditional face-to-face teaching to computer screens. Although ample literature covers incorporating technology into classrooms, little documents the experiences and perceptions of participants in DVC courses and DVC's effects on teaching and learning. A recent ethnographic study that examined incidental learning in five DVC courses offered at an American university found that incidental learning often overshadowed the planned curriculum and found a high level of participant frustration. The study's results reaffirmed the importance of incidental learning in a DVC course and of developing an environment that reduces faculty and student frustrations.