Monthly Archives: February 2006

A wireless "document camera"

Today in a MysteryQuest presentation, I saw the most creative “document camera” I’ve seen yet! A class from Kenosha Wisconsin shared their clues in a “PowerPoint like” presentation. I suspect it wasn’t PowerPoint since it was on a Mac. And they had set a camera preset on their laptop screen. Amazingly, it came through very clear (as shown).

Wireless document camera! 🙂 Who would have thought of that?!

Ok, I know, you can’t present documents on it, but it worked great for their MysteryQuest presentation!

On another note, this was the last MysteryQuest World session for this year. Soon I’ll have dates online for the April MysteryQuest USA (5th grade) events.

H.261, H.263, H.264 La La Land

Is anyone other than me have a weird year with video protocols? It used to be that you just had to think about… is this call H.323 (IP) or H.320 (ISDN)? and connect accordingly. Now sometimes two video protocols (H.261, 263, 264) get in a call and have a fight with each other!

This year so far I’ve several strange things happening with calls with both Polycom and Tandberg units that can do H.261, H.263 and/or H.264. This morning I was troubleshooting a call with Andrea Israeli, NY and a ClicktoMeet site for Read Across America. Andrea and I have identical Polycom VSX7000’s on the same software rev and the ClicktoMeet site could call me but they couldn’t call her. Very strange. On a hunch, I suggested forcing the call down to H.261. Voila! It worked.

I feel like I’ve been sucked into 261/263/264 la la land. It’s a land where you never know if your calls will work. But it seems that forcing the call down to H.261 makes it work. Why is that???

I love the idea of H.264 working on low bandwidth sites with better quality. Another of my Read Across America connections is with a class in Alberta who called us at 128K. The quality was beautiful! Polycom People Plus Content came across great as well. I’d really like to see this work on a consistent basis. I guess we just have to weather this bump as the vendors work it out.

Crossing my fingers for 32 mostly Read Across America connections this week….

Great Backgrounds & Posters

Another MysteryQuest day. One of the best presentations today came from Wessendorf Middle School, Texas. I loved their use of backgrounds in their news show. Look at the artwork on the left and the wonderful wall map on the right. These add visual interest to the presentation.
 

This class also had posters that worked! It’s usually pretty hard to make posters clear enough. Here’s an example that worked really well. Note the huge letters and small amount of information on one poster. This made note taking much easier.

Troy Intermediate, Avon Lake, Ohio, also had a news show. My favorite part was a little advertisement from the Fruity Fruit Store, sharing a clue about local products and services.

On a side note, the Polycom mics are really good! During one news show, the announcers were whispering to each other and calling up the next students. We heard it. 🙂 And we almost always hear the whispers of “louder, louder” to the person who is presenting the clue. Just some of the fun quirks of MysteryQuest sessions!

The Greatest Generation

Today six classes from Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, and Virginia interviewed local World War II veterans in our Lest We Forget ASK program.

It was a wonderful experience. We started each session with introductions from each of the veterans participating in that session. Then Betty Bennett, who was part of the code-breakers, shared her experience and gave the students a code to work on. At the end we revealed the answer. Only one of the schools actually broke the code!
For most of the session we rotated through the participating schools taking two questions from each site. Between the two questions the veterans sharedpictures they had brought in such as the one shown.
Here is a sampling of the questions:

  • Were you ever afraid?
  • How did you feel about fighting in the war?
  • If you were given a chance, would you serve again?
  • What did you miss most overseas and why?
  • What was life like when you returned?
  • What feeling did you have knowing that you made it out just before the attack in Pearl Harbor?
  • We know that being in the war was tough place to be, but did you have any fond memories?
  • Did you ever feel that you were also fighting the war for a moral reason besides fighting for our country?
  • What was your mind on while you were fighting?
  • What was the scariest thing that happened when you were in the war?
  • How were you treated in the countries in which you were fighting?
  • Did any of you ever save the life of another soldier?

In the first session, the 112 students from Methacton High School gave our veterans a standing ovation. My eyes misted in that proud moment. As I told our veterans, they are an incredibly valuable primary source for students learning about our wars and understanding the contributions of our fathers and grandfathers to our freedom.

Keeping Organized

Organizational skills are probably the most essential skills needed for a distance learning coordinator at any level. Do you agree?

There are so many details to keep track of! Program requests from the teachers, scheduling procedures for each place you want to connect with, IP addresses or ISDN numbers, trouble numbers, dates & times, etc.

I’d like to share some of my tips & tricks for keeping organized. How do you keep track of your distance learning connections? Please comment and share!

Scheduling & Program Requests
The first area to organize is the requests from teachers. I started using FileMaker Pro very early on in our distance learning program to take teacher requests. Every request is a record in our database. Mostly I require the teachers to fill it out, but sometimes under special circumstances I do it for them. There are two forms that enter requests into the same database: Scheduling Request and Mini-Grant Request. I’m linking so you can see how they work.

This way, when a request comes in, I get all the information up front needed to schedule with a content provider or for a project or special event.

Then we have a back end entry (which I won’t give you access to! :>) where my scheduler and I keep track of our communications in scheduling the event. We record when we fill out the online form, summaries of emails/calls between us and the provider and/or the teacher, etc. This way we can quickly see the status of any request.
When the program is all scheduled, then a confirmation email goes to the teacher, the distance learning contacts in the building/district, and the principal.
Right now we are doing scheduling for all our districts. Originally with our V.35 network, they couldn’t connect on their own so they had to schedule through me. Now there is the possibility of them scheduling on their own, but usually I am funding part or all of the program, so I still need the records. So at this point, scheduling still all goes through me. As we expand, we may need to rethink this procedure. We have been doing about 200 or so programs a year. I’m already over that number this year, and next year we’re installing 35 new units (above the 24 we support right now).

Projects & Special Events
Another area that really takes organizational skills is running projects and special events such as ASK, MysteryQuest, Lest We Forget, and Read Across America. I use a trick I learned from Arnie Comer at Macomb ISD: Word tables. For example, the picture shows my Word file for my 38 Read Across America connections. Orange boxes are ISDN; light green are test calls scheduled; and darker green are completed test calls. Each row is a connection; each box is the contact information from the match email for both partners.

I keep Word files like this for the other events we run as well. That way I can easily pull up whatever contact information I need. Thanks Arnie for teaching me this trick!

RSS Calendar
I keep all the events on my own calendar (Palm Desktop), but this year I’ve tried, with imperfect success, to keep the events listed on our website as well using RSS Calendar. I learned about this tool from Dan Gross, SWING, Wisconsin. I haven’t done too well with keeping it current & accurate, but it has been better than how I used to manually enter our events on our website! I would like to do this better, because as we increase use in districts, my local distance learning coordinators will also need to make sure we don’t double book events within a district.

Email
As some of you razz me about, I tend to generate a lot of email. And of course, the more you send, the more you get! So I have lots of folders, organized within folders. I have a main level folder for content providers, with a folder for each provider within. I have a main level folder for state, province, and country folders of people I know doing VC in different areas. Very handy when planning a project! I also have a folder for each ASK program within an ASK folder, and a folder for projects with a separate folder. This way I can quickly find whatever contact/history I need.

Checklists
Finally, there are some great checklists out there for making a videoconference happen. This one, from Athena, UK, is detailed and easy to understand. See especially the checklist on the last page. Participants in my Kid2Kid online class love this list. Do you know of any other good checklists? Please share!

Please share
These are just a few of my strategies. I’m sure there are many other good ones. Please leave a comment so we can learn from your strategies!

January 19, 2007 Update. I’m no longer using the RSS Calendar. Now I have a way for my districts to enter programs they’ve scheduled onto the calendar, and a way for them to look up what’s scheduled on the calendar. These are all different entry points to the same Filemaker Pro database mentioned above.

Scrapbooking via VC

What’s the craziest way you’ve used videoconferencing? How about cropping (scrapbooking, scrapping) with a friend in another state? Elaine Shuck and I connected with Festoon and Skype on Saturday night for a couple hours to scrapbook together and share ideas. Scott Merrick popped in for a few minutes to see what we were doing. This is a screen shot from Festoon. Elaine was showing her scrapbook while Scott and I admired it.

You can also do this with just Skype as they just added video calls, or with GoogleTalk and Festoon. I like GoogleTalk better for the audio. It’s clearer and the interface is simpler. Also, I read in Wired Magazine a while ago that Skype uses P2P technology and uses bandwidth when you’re not in a call. However, I can’t find the reference online. Should have kept a hard copy. The online technical FAQs for Skype don’t mention this either. So I’m not sure if it’s true or was true and isn’t anymore. If any of you have more information, please correct me by leaving a comment!

I’ve been using these tools for connections, especially for Christmas celebrations, with relatives in Taiwan and Canada. Pretty cool what you can do these days to connect with family and friends far away.

While these tools are great, they aren’t standards based like H.323. You have to have the same software as the person you’re connecting to. And you can’t use these tools to connect to all the content I’m usually writing about here. On the other hand, if you have an international contact without access to videoconferencing, this might be the best way to connect to them.

I’m not ready to recommend PC-based videoconferencing to my districts quite yet. We don’t have the bandwidth yet for multiple connections at will. Most of my districts have only a T-1 and in some it’s pushing the edges of quality to do one 384K videoconference. Some day maybe we’ll be ready for using these tools more often in our schools.

VC Database Updates 2-17-2006

Lately we’ve been updating and checking everything in the BCISD-Polycom VC Program Database. Here are two recent updates.

  • Many of you know one of our favorite providers, the Lake County Waste Management District, lost Rita, the great storyteller, as their distance learning coordinator. Lara Gonzalez, the new person, has been reorganizing and updating their program listing. We just updated ours based on the programs they currently offer. More new programs will be coming out on March 1st. So watch for those as well.
  • Also, a new provider, The Mariners’ Museum, in Newport News, Virginia, is now offering programs nationally. I’m really excited about their programs. Great for history classes! Reasonable cost too, only $50. I hope their other programs for onsite viewing can be converted to distance learning programs too as they look intriguing and excellent.

ASK: Harvesting Hope

Today we piloted an ASK program on the book Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez. Students read the book, journalled, and prepared quality questions following the ASK process. Then they interviewed a panel of former migrant workers at the Region 20 Education Service Center in San Antonio, Texas. We had local classes here and from Region 20 participate in the ASK program. A special thank you to Susan Altgelt and the bridging team at Region 20 for making this happen!

We had a wonderful discussion. Here is a sampling of some of the students’ questions:

  • Describe your feelings about Cesar Chavez.
  • How much do migrant workers make today?
  • Have you had to deal with a drought and if so, what did you do?
  • Describe the conditions at the camp where you worked and how long was your work day?
  • Did you or a member of your family witness abuse or death?
  • How have conditions changed since Chavez’s time? Is there someone who has stepped into Chavez’s shoes to lead migrant workers?
  • What was a typical day like for you when working as a migrant worker?
  • Why were some groups treated better than Mexicans?
  • Are migrant workers only in America? And do other countries use migrant workers? Do you think technology will replace migrant workers?

Sometimes little glitches come along the way. Today it was a fire drill at Region 20 ESC half way through the program. So while we were waiting for the panel members to return, we did a round robin sharing. Students shared what they liked about the book, and then students shared experiences they had had similar to what they read in the book, or other historical events they knew of that were similar to what they read in the book.

Even with the little interruption, it was a wonderful program. Students understand better the experiences of migrant workers and have a broader understanding of the civil rights movement.

Student Comments from Ben Carson Videoconference

I just received a package from Andrews Academy, the school that participated at my location in the Ben Carson videoconference on Monday. It included a picture of the event along with thank you notes from all of the students who participated! Here’s a sampling of their comments:

  • It was an awesome experience. And now I know that you don’t have to be “top” of the social part of school, but academically!
  • I was very inspired. I now know that I can do anything I put my mind to. I’m going to start reading more!
  • I really enjoyed the interview with Dr. Carson. He was really down to earth with a lot of helpful advice.
  • I really liked that he answered our questions in a way we could understand.
  • It was so great to learn about how Dr. Carson became who he is. It’s very inspiring to us high school students.
  • Thank you for letting us be able to learn something from one of today’s great people!
  • I really heard a lot of things that I needed to hear.
  • Thank you for the stories. I really needed some inspiration.
  • This was an amazing experienced and I will never forget the things the Dr. was talking about.
  • The videoconference with Dr. Carson was an incredible experience – to be able to listen to a man who’s gone through so much, and done so much for others, was inspiring!
  • I loved his stories and words of advice.

Yeah! It’s a wonderful thing to impact the lives of kids!!!

Two Extraordinary Videoconferences

I’m watching two videoconferences at the same time this afternoon (on two different Polycoms of course!) and both are sponsored by Polycom.

Roosevelt Elementary is connecting to Mt. Rushmore for another session (continuing yesterday’s series). Today the students are hearing the story of a man who worked on the mountain and how he carved, what tools he used, etc. Mt. Rushmore does a good job of showing visuals along with the interview to add interest. Some of the student questions included:

  • Where you ever afraid you would fall?
  • What keeps the rocks from eroding? (Great answer on this one. The rocks will erode about 1/4 of an inch in 10,000 years. Mr. Borglum (designer of the monument) said that he took care of that by making the faces 1/4 of an inch larger. )
  • What inspired you to write your book?
  • Did you drop any tools when you were working on the mountain?

One neat thing about this videoconference was the class connecting from Texas had Mr. Borglum’s granddaughter in the class. That was a neat connection.

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Also New Buffalo High School is connecting to Global Nobads Group in a discussion on Islam led by David Macquart. He asked the students the following questions – and each school had a chance to give answers. One of the classes participating has 6 Muslim students, so this is definitely enriching the conversation.

  • Do you think the media portrayal of Islam is positive or negative?
  • Are the demonstrations against the cartoons justified?
  • What are the limits to freedom of expression?
  • How can we diminish the clash between the two cultures?
  • Each class also had a chance to ask specific questions directly to the Muslim students. The Muslim students were clear in expressing that the extremists are not following Islam. An analogy was shared by one class – Islamic extremism is to Islam as the KKK is to Christianity. The students participating all agreed that was a good analogy.
  • How do you think that polygamy affects the treatment of women? Out of this conversation came several comments from the Muslim girls in New York that they didn’t want to share a husband with any of each other. Everyone had a great laugh at this. Another great comment that came from this conversation was that the Muslims think we in the U.S. don’t respect our women by how we treat them or how we let them dress or allowing prostitution.

David did a good job of facilitating the conversation. Sometimes you could hear the tension and nervousness in the students’ voices as they commented. David helped the students temper their views and understand the perspectives of others.

This was the first student videoconference I’ve seen with the “extended continuous presence” layout with the speaker in the top left larger box, and the other classes around the right and bottom. We use this layout for the TWICE board meeting all the time and it’s great for conversations. It was definitely the best layout for the conversation today.

On a lighter note, we had a class in Buffalo, New York participating, as well as our local class, New Buffalo, Michigan, which was pretty neat knowing the history of the towns.

These were two great conferences. I wish I could have duplicated myself and watched all of both of them!

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March 1, 2006 Addition. Tina Keller, the New Buffalo High School teacher who participated in the Global Nomads videoconference is also taking my Kid2Kid Videoconference Connections class. I am sharing her reflection on the videoconference here with her permission.

The videoconference that I completed for the month of February was sponsored by the Global Nomads Group out of New York City.  The title of the program that my high school world studies class participated in was “Bringing the World Into the Classroom”. 

The conference had a moderator/ David Macquart from the Global Nomads Group.  Four schools participated:  2 from New York, one from Indiana, and us (New Buffalo HIgh School/ Michigan).

I found that this video conference for me was a reflection on one of the articles that I read for January regarding connecting the classroom to the global community.  As a group we were able to discuss the topic of Islam/ particularly the Political Caroons published by many European newspapers depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

All schools had the opportunity to answer the questions and reflect on the following topics: Muslims in the media, Political Cartoons, justified violence?, generalizations of groups of Muslims, the clash between Western values and other religions / proposed solutions to the clash, pologamy, and the Quoran.

It was beneficial for all students to address the above-mentioned topics and answer questions posed to them.  Of particular interest for our school was that one of the New York schools who participated had a Muslim population. It was an awesome global connection for students in Michigan to hear what Muslims thought and believed from a primary source.  My students left this conference with greater understanding of the Muslim faith and of the culture of Islam.

As a teacher I am greatful to have an opportunity such as this. We were able to accomplish more curriculum in one class period on Feb. 15th than I could have in 3-4 days on a block schedule.  I had my students complete an evaluation regarding this program, and they had tons of compliments.  One remark made by a non-Muslim student from another school really stood out to my class.  The individual made a remark that “they” meaning the Muslims from the New York school “must be idiots”. Unfortunately, this individual didn’t understand that the school in New York was simply having audiory interference and thus they couldn’t hear well at some points.  Several of my students commented that racism and prejudice is alive among their generation!

For my students at New Buffalo this was “case and point” that racism is alive.  The topic of generalization that the conference addressed “all/ they” was made on this day, and my class learned from it. (as well did I)