Monthly Archives: November 2006

ASK with Janie Panagopoulos

Today we are starting two days of ASK sessions with Janie Panagopoulos: 8 sessions, 24 classes. We are focusing on the books Traders in Time (6 sessions) and Little Ship Under Full Sail (2 sessions).

I love the questions with a comment at the beginning. Janie likes to hear what the students think about her books too. Here are just a small sampling of the comments and questions from today.

  • I noticed that you focused on the theme of teasing at the beginning of the book. Did you get teased a lot in school?
  • We caught ourselves laughing out loud in parts of the book.
  • How would you like to go back in time and visit with your ancestors?
  • Describe how you’d feel if you had to get up in the middle of the night and go canoeing.
  • How do you think of the characters?
  • What made you want to write historical fiction?

We were going to connect to Janie from her home. This summer we worked hard to get her set up with a Polycom PVX on her cable connection at home. Everything was perfect and ready to go, until she came home from travelling and found the cable connection out at her house. So she had to drive her anyway. But we are still very hopeful that soon she’ll be consistently connecting from home and we’ll get her in the Polycom-BCISD / TWICE VC Program Database as well. She has many wonderful writing workshops she can do with schools as well as the ASK program on her many books. So stay tuned for more details!

Why it's been quiet here…

Yes, my blog has been a little quiet lately. Here’s a quick run down of some interesting things happening…. So much to write… so little time!

November 15 we did an awesome Operation Montserrat Training with CET Challenger Learning Center. Teachers were excited and jazzed and we’re scheduling 9 sessions with them this year. Stay tuned on the results of those VCs.
November 16 I finished the last all day training of building contacts for our RUS grant. 60+ teachers and local staff trained over 4 days! Lots of excitement about VC keeping me busy. The new building coordinators are so excited. Tonight one building is presenting to the board connecting between two buildings in the district to show how it works. With students showing a sample of what they could do in the Read Around the Planet project (and they haven’t participated yet!!).

November 17 we had two sessions of ASK: Monkey Island in celebration of homelessness awareness week. Andrea Israeli blogged an excellent summary!

I’ve been scouring high & low for Canadians to connect to in January & February for 6th grade classes studying Canada. Things are coming along on that custom project.

November 20 TWICE hosted Margaret Willey for ASK: Clever Beatrice. Wrote about it last year.

The Read Around the Planet project has been expanding insanely, with a not-so-smooth ride on the new database this year. But everyone has been patient with the process and we seem to be in for another record year of participation. Thanks to TWICE and Polycom for making the expansion possible this year!!

Requests for VCs from my 18 districts are coming out of the woodwork! Last year at this time I had 102 requests for the year, and totalled 279 programs for the whole year. Today I already have 245 and I haven’t advertised RAP to my schools yet! Yikes! I’ve hardly advertised anything at all. Usually I’m emailing them constantly with things they could do. This year we’re swamped and it’s a great feeling to know everyone is interested in using VC.

And I have to mention Andrea’s blog on the Cisco ad. Did you see it? While it’s cool that VC in classrooms is getting ads on TV and the quality looks cool, I wish that the example was a bit more educational. And more realistic on the time zones. It implies an Asian connection during the day for both schools which is impossible. Still it’s a step in the right direction of helping the general public understand what we do!

Hope things are hopping in your VC land too!

First After School nonVC PD

Tuesday we had our first after school professional development VC about something other than videoconferencing. We’re doing a series as part of the RUS grant. I know you’re wondering, so, sorry, I am only offering this for our county this year. But feel free to take the idea and do it locally! The Lorain County Distance Learning Consortium is offering programs like this too (for their members).

Tuesday’s session was on Best Tech Tools. Kevin Clark, Berrien County ISD Instructional Technology Consultant, facilitated a discussion of various tools and ways they are used or could be used in the curriculum in each participating building.

We had 28 teachers from 7 buildings in two sessions. Not bad for the first time. We switched between full screen showing Kevin’s computer, and the discussion format for sharing between the buildings. It was a neat low key informal conversation and worked well.

Here are some participant comments on how the VC part of the workshop worked for them:

Thanks for the great hour! I have heard of and played with many of the sites you showcased tonight, but I was madly making notes for myself as you went through things. Sitting in on sessions like this even when the particular sites aren’t new to me give me so many ideas.

Ten minutes after you finished up, three of the five of us had to be at the high school gym to play volleyball for a charitable function. Had we had to have gone anywhere, even to the ISD, we wouldn’t have been on time to play our first game. Just going to the library in your buildin beats the heck out of taking time out of the classroom to travel elsewhere to attend conferences.

Of course I enjoy videoconferencing. And I feel it makes learning more convenient and less expensive for everyone.

Seems we’ve hit on a format that will work well. Stay tuned for reports from future sessions. (And feel free to leave comments on how you’re using VC for PD in your area!!)

ASK: Daniel's Story

On Monday, Marcellus Middle School participated in their first ASK program. Students read Daniel’s Story and prepared questions for Charles Sacavage, a holocaust expert from Intermediate Unit 29 in Pennsylvania. The classes were also studying World War II.

Mr. Sacavage is a perfect expert for this ASK program because he has a wealth of knowledge and photo resources to share based on the questions the students ask.

If you’re thinking of starting your own ASK program, this works well with both Anne Frank and Daniel’s Story.

New RAP Verification Instructions

New Read Around the Planet Verification Instructions were posted online at the TWICE website this week.

Just a reminder that if you want to participate in Read Around the Planet this year, make sure you have started the verification process by November 22! That’s 12 days away. Time is ticking away!
For more reading, review previous RAP blog entries: RAP 2007 Announcement and Preparing for RAP 2007.

Unique Admin Use of VC & a Wiki

This week I reviewed a project submitted for my class Kid2Kid Videoconference Connections. Gord Smith is a videoconferencing coordinator for Palliser Regional Schools in southern Alberta, Canada. The district is large and just getting started with VC. So Gord has set up regular informal “drop-in” VCs for his administrators to share and discuss issues in their district. He’s also using a wiki as part of the project. It’s a great use of VC and is meeting a unique need in his district. Read more about the project plan here.

[This project shared here with permission.]

Greetings to LT 2006

Thank you Learning Technologies 2006 for inviting me to present with Elaine Shuck. LT 2006 is a blended learning conference in Australia. It was wonderful to talk to you and I look forward to connections with your classes! You can read our full paper here. Browse around here for more resources related to what we talked about. Ah, the beauty of VC that allows us to connect across space and time!

International Wolf Center

I just did a test call with the International Wolf Center in Minnesota. This is a new provider – they just started offering programming this fall. Last Friday I heard a report on their programs from Aaron Schippert, Saginaw ISD (and a TWICE board member). Aaron raved about the quality of their programming and the connection. They have several cameras out in their facility so they can show you the wolves. So I grabbed a quick snapshot to share with you. Looks like another great new provider!

Gingerbread Boy

This morning we have the second class from Marcellus Elementary participating in The Gingerbread Boy from the Center for Puppetry Arts. This wildly popular program is getting to be as hard as the heart surgery programs to get into!! In late September we thought we’d schedule this for December. But the closest we could get to December was this week (November 8)! So if you want to do the Gingerbread Boy during December next year, you’d better plan ahead!

I love the intro the Center for Puppetry Arts does to help students learn etiquette and how to behave in a VC. It helps students know how to talk, ask questions, and “put on their listening ears”.

Students learn about all the different books with different gingerbread stories. They see puppet shows with the gingerbread story. Students get involved verbally in the story, making the sound of the animals in the story. They learn about what goes in the bowl to make gingerbread, and other information about gingerbread ingredients. Students also make a gingerbread boy puppet during the program. Another great hands-on program from the Center for Puppetry Arts!

Feedback from a RUS Grant Building

Today in reading the discussion in my online class, Kid2Kid Videoconference Connections, I found a quote from Jeanne Carter, Three Oaks Elementary, one of the RUS Grant buildings. I’m sharing it here with permission.

I feel like the VC equipment we got was like a life ring thrown out to us. I’m thrilled to be on the receiving end of some great VC equipment.

This building of 11 teachers already has 17 programs requested/scheduled for the year and are quickly taking advantage of the ability to bring quality learning experiences to their rural students. Thank you USDA!!