Monthly Archives: April 2008

VC in Every Classroom

Unbelievably, I’ve been thinking about how we could get videoconferencing into every classroom. We’re still in the days of trying to get it into every school in our county (about 3/4 there). But in my districts where every school has it, now they want it in every classroom.

Why VC in Every Classroom?
First, here are the catalysts from the last few weeks that have set my brain spinning:

  • One of our local superintendents wanted to know if it was possible to buy cheaper cameras and have videoconferencing in all the classrooms, preferably connected to the projectors installed with the Promethean boards in all the classrooms. It’s not easily done nor seems to make sense cabling-wise with the current options out there.
  • I know of at least two of my local districts who are setting up “model classrooms,” and are including videoconferencing as part of the technologies featured.
  • My teachers are starting to say they want it in their classroom. Not just a mobile cart rolled into the classroom, but they want it there all the time. Here’s a sample comment from the current session of my online class, Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections. Of course this description assumes the need for fiber so any teacher could VC any time they want as well.

My hopes and ideas for using videoconferencing is to enhance my curriculum. I would love to have the equipment in my classroom, so I don’t have to mess with scheduling and compromising with others in my building. Since our students are growing up in a global community I would like for them to see more of the rest of the world and meet people from other cultures.

  • At the USDLA Conference last week, I heard several K12 educators describe dreams for VC: many more content providers (about 250-300 ish now if you count the local ones not ready to offer content nationally), and VC in every school.
  • I downloaded the latest version of XMeeting on my Mac and got up & running in two minutes with no NAT messiness due to a new cool little thing called a stun server. I’ll write more about that later.

Is It Possible to Have VC in Every Classroom?
I believe that VC cannot become mainstream until the cost is below $1000, even below $700 or $800. A school needs to be able to buy VC equipment without a grant. I don’t know very many places that have acquired their equipment without grant funding, and big grant funding at that. They should be able to get it with the district tech budget, or with little local grants like the MACUL grant (up to $2000 per grant).

A Paradigm Shift is Required
I also think that VC cannot become mainstream in schools until the vendors are selling it not just for teaching or for meetings or for traditional uses of VC. Schools need to see the value of curriculum videoconferencing – experts, authors, content providers, collaborations, projects, backyard content, the whole works! We need great VC experiences published in the popular edtech magazines. Schools need to know they can do a ton of videoconferences for minimal cost – i.e. lots of free ones in addition to the paid quality content from our favorite providers.

A Dream Curriculum Videoconferencing VC Kit
I’m hearing the term “VC kit” from my friends in Wales, England, and Scotland more often these days. I really like it. I think we need a “kit,” not a box that has to be rack mounted in a specially designed cart. If I were an engineer, here’s how I’d try to design it.

  • Runs on the computer already in the classroom (a high end one of course). Can be Mac or PC. Could it be built on XMeeting for the Mac? That would solve the Mac challenge easily.
  • Has classroom quality audio. I prefer the Polycom mic, not just because Polycom funds many of my ideas, but because it is so well suited to placement anywhere in the classroom: desk, stool, floor, chair, etc. We need something that is just above desktop videoconferencing. We need the echo cancellation for the classroom audio.
  • Can show slides etc. from the computer it’s installed on. Curriculum videoconferencing is primarily receiving content, but also collaborations and projects. Students need to be able to present clues and information about their town, among other things. This would eliminate the need for any inputs, hooking up VCR, document camera, etc. etc. Presentations could be shared from the computer. Also, preferably, not just H.239! Yikes, that’s driving me crazy. Hopefully the engineers could think of a way to make that work no matter what you connected to on the other end.
  • A simple camera with presets. A camera a little higher end than a webcam. We need presets for ASK programs, for collaborations, for presentations in projects. But not so high end that the cost is too much.
  • Hooks up to the projector already in the classroom. A kit that integrated well with the major interactive boards would be awesome. Certainly there must a way to do this. I think installing with the computer that’s hooked up to the board seems best to me.
  • Can do Skype and iChat too. Ok, now I’m really dreaming. But think about it. We really need a way to do VC – either Skype or iChat with our international buddies, or H.323 with content providers, colleagues, universities, other H323 sites etc. If it could work with Skype, why not iChat? If it was basically just a camera and a great mic with software for H.323, couldn’t the camera and mic be used for those too? Why not?! Since I’m dreaming! Schools need an all-in-one solution for all the curriculum videoconferencing opportunities out there.
  • EASY firewall solutions. I am so intrigued by the stun server that comes with XMeeting. Couldn’t it be this easy to make H323 work on school network? It has to be if we’re going to increase the use of curriculum videoconferencing.

What do YOU think? Is it a worthy goal? Do we need it? How would you design a less than $1000 unit for all classrooms? Please comment.

ASK Author: Do Unto Otters

Ottawa Elementary, whose school mascot is the otter, is connecting this afternoon to author, Laurie Keller, to discuss her book Do Unto Otters. We also have Mars Elementary participating locally, and there are other classes across the US, too. This is a Polycom Special Event and the students have followed the ASK process to prepare.

  • What inspired you to write this book?
  • Which one of your books is your favorite?
  • Did you have a mean neighbor too?
  • Have you ever been to any Michigan schools to visit?
  • Do you always use the golden rule?
  • When did you decide to become a writer?
  • You used a lot of animals in this story. What the process you used to pick the animals to use in the story?
  • Have the rabbit and the otter finished the book about you yet?

Each school also shared their favorite classroom or school rule. Some them were:

  • I will always try to do my best.
  • I am responsible for my own behavior.
  • Hands are for helping, not hurting.
  • Don’t talk when other people are talking.

Laurie also showed all her materials used during the preparation of the book. It was a great experience and I’m sure we’ll do this again!

ASK Author: Scrambled States

This afternoon, Brown Elementary connected with author Laurie Keller for a Polycom Special Event based on the ASK format. Several other schools across the country were participating as well. Students had read Laurie’s book, The Scrambled States, and had prepared questions to ask her. Here are a few of the questions from today:

  • How did you get the idea for the book?
  • Where was the party?
  • Who is your favorite author?
  • Have you visited all the states?
  • What is your favorite state?
  • How long did it take you to write the book?
  • What did you do before you were an author?
  • As a child, what was your favorite book?
  • Why is there a penny on two of the pages of the book?
  • Why didn’t you scramble continents instead?
  • Since your favorite president is Lincoln, have you ever been to Mt. Rushmore to see him?

We got a peek look at the sequel coming out in August, The Scrambled States Talent Show, and we also saw some of the writing process and other books that she had written. The students each shared 3 facts from their state as well. Great connection!

Around the World: Misconceptions Resolved

This afternoon Coloma Middle School, one of our RUS grant schools, is participating in a 3 hour Around the World session with countries in Central and South America. The sessions focus on “misconceptions resolved” as misconceptions are part of the 7th grade language arts curriculum for Coloma.

Costa Rica
Lincoln School, Costa Rica started with a presentation with an overview of their country and their school and daily life. Next they presented their game show to quiz our students on their culture. Many of the questions were taken from their presentation. Some of the questions were:

  • What is the capital of Costa Rica?
  • What is the most popular sport in Costa Rica?
  • What countries neighbor Costa Rica?

Next, our class presented about Coloma, Michigan, and misconceptions about America. They created humorous skits about the misconceptions. We started the game show, and then ran out of time. Clearly, though the students were having a great time!

Nicaragua
Soon the American Nicaraguan School connected and we checked audio and video. Their students weren’t quite ready, so we played the “small town America” game for a few more minutes.

Then Nicaragua shared their humorous skits about misconceptions about Nicaragua. They were video clips liked the ones from Coloma. Both sets of video clips were a little hard to understand due to soft voices and background noise. We certainly learned a few lessons with those skits!

Then we played a Jeopardy game about Nicaragua Physical Geography, History and Culture, and Human Geography. We rotated between American and Costa Rica to compete in the game. Questions included the largest lake, types of food, etc. We just finished the Nicaragua game show in time.

We took a 20 min break for our Michigan students to eat since it was 5:00 p.m. here.

Guatemala
Soon Guatemala connected in. We started with quick intros from the participating classes, and then they started their presentation. They showed many pictures. Then we played their jeopardy game with American and Nicaragua competing. Guatemala had trouble with their skit video clips, so we played the jeopardy game about rural America with Nicaragua and Guatemala competing. This was a really fun format and the students in each class were really involved.

Finally at the end, we were able to watch the skits from Guatemala with misconceptions about their country.

Lessons Learned
We learned again that it’s important to slow down and speak clearly! It’s so easy to get excited and talk so fast! Laughing while talking makes it even harder to understand. We also had trouble with all of the video clips for the skits. They were very difficult to hear. We’ll have to think more about what could make these work better! I think that video clips probably can’t work unless there is a mic on the presentation. In a live skit, you can have the students come closer to the mic and speak slower. However in a taped skit, it’s hard to make it easier to hear.

Due to a comedy of scheduling problems, we didn’t connect to a country every hour for 12 hours as we originally planned. However we had a great connection with these three schools. We appreciate the hard work from all the students who participated in this set of videoconferences!

Thank you, thank you very much!

Last night I was honored to receive the 2008 USDLA International Distance Learning Award for Outstanding Leadership by an Individual in the Field of Distance Learning. Since many deserving people also received awards last night, there was not time to thank those who have contributed to my growth and learning.

First I’d like to thank Polycom, especially Russ Colbert and Elaine Shuck for nominating me for this award. Not only that, but for funding some of my projects and ideas: our VC Program Database linked on TWICE and Polycom., TWICE’s Read Around the Planet, and the new TWICE Collaborations Around the Planet site. I appreciate very much the support and promotion of my ideas and projects by Polycom.

Thank you especially to Jim Bembenek, who hired me at the Berrien County ISD in 1997 as an Instructional Technologist. He saw potential in me and provided so many opportunities for growth and learning. I remember when he said I should go to a meeting to “increase my statewide presence.” I didn’t even know what that meant! Then Jim had this vision for a videoconferencing network for our service area. I didn’t understand what it meant, but he convinced me to move into a newly created position to support videoconferencing. That first year he did the technical connections and I worked on the curriculum side. I remember watching with heart pounding as each ISDN line connected. We had this joke that the videoconference would connect if we ate chocolate while we were connecting. Thank you to Jim and the ISD for providing a work environment where I can excel and make my ideas happen.

It was Jim Bembenek, Sue Porter, and Connie Solis who thought we should have a videoconferencing organization in Michigan. We met in a restaurant and discussed how we could start TWICE. Just a few months later Sue and I started the videoconference celebration of Read Across America for TWICE. Sue taught me so much as we started our distance learning program, including the paper towel demonstration of how video and audio are compressed! Thank you, Sue, for all that you’ve taught me and shared with me!

When TWICE got started, I met Arnie Comer, distance learning manager at Macomb ISD. Arnie taught me about the ASK program started by Jim Wenzloff at their ISD. Arnie shared a few ASK programs with me and then he and Jim helped me get my own ASK programs going. Thank you, Arnie, for bridging connections for me that I couldn’t get to work on my bridge, and teaching me so much about best practice in videoconferencing!

Thank you to everyone who has taken my online classes (PICC & K2K), then created great projects and shared them back with me to benefit my schools.

Thank you to Bennie Tschoerner and Ken Conn, who took PICC, dreamed up Jazz, and “dragged” me into it. I wasn’t sure at all about the project at the first, but it’s been an incredible annual experience and provided opportunities for networking with so many people.

Thank you to Roxanne Glaser, for teaching me so much about best practice and underlying theory of our projects! You’ve contributed so much to my understanding of best practice and the constructivist principles underlying great videoconferences.

Thank you to Danny Maas, who wrote one of the supporting documents for my nomination. I really appreciate the opportunities and connections that came from presenting at the Broadband Summer Institute. Thank you to all the Albertans who have participated in videoconferences with my schools!

Thank you to all my local coordinators and teachers, without whom we wouldn’t have a successful videoconferencing program. Each of you have worked so hard to bring engaging learning experiences to our students in Berrien and Cass counties. I appreciate your time and effort!

Thank you to Congressman Fred Upton, for his support of our distance learning program and advocacy of the USDA DLT RUS grant and the e-rate program. Your vision for students in our area has helped create great learning experiences and opportunities. I appreciate your support of distance learning in our counties and nationally.

Finally, I thank God for providing opportunities and blessings so that I can do my work. I give Him the glory for what I’ve accomplished, for without Him I can do nothing.

USDLA Guerilla Session

USDLA Guerilla Session: At lunch time today, I talked to the people at my table about the fact that the 1:30 timeslot didn’t have any good options for K12 videoconferencing folks. So I started asking a few VC buddies if they wanted to meet and have a conversation. When I asked Ken Conn, he offered to ask the USDLA program committee if we could have a room and make an announcement. Ken and I both thought that we would only have a 5 or 6 people, but we ended up with 30 people. It was pretty funny to see what someone referred to as the pied piper with a trail of people following to a room that the hotel graciously opened up for us.

After we did introductions, it was clear we had a group of online folks and a group of videoconference folks. So we split in two and just started to chat. Of course, I was in the videoconference group.

First we talked quite a bit about professional development. We discussed the difference between PD to teach about videoconferencing (technical assistance was the term suggested by Ruth Blankenbaker) and actual professional development about relevant teaching topics that just happen to be shared via videoconference. We talked about quality issues, possible topics, issues around training the presenter etc.

We also spent some time discussing bringing content, specifically experts to the classroom. We shared stories of experiences we had with various experts and content providers.

I heard from several people afterwards that they loved the conversation and were glad to network with each other. I didn’t have my laptop open so I didn’t catch all the great ideas, but it was wonderful to network and share with everyone. Many of us exchanged cards afterwards.

KC3: Kids Creating Content

USDLA: KC3 by Jan Zanetis

Showing the Stamford High School programs…

History of KC3 – Jan’s conversation with Alan November inspired it the start of the program.

15 schools signed up to create content; 100 schools indicated interested in being the test audiences for the contest.

The classes signed up and the KC3 team worked with them to prepare their presentations for the contest.

Then they did the program with a test audience and it was recorded on a TANDBERG Content Server in TN. The judges then accessed the programs afterwards and completed an online rubric to judge the program.

The project has snowballed where the classes are presenting their programs to other classes, and even generating additional projects and videoconferences with each other.

There were some great little clips of the students. It’s always fun to see kids present. We all laughed and enjoyed the students’ creativity!

Another clip showed the Q&A after the field trip was over. The classes brainstormed other VCs they could do with each other and what else they could teach each other about their communities. These are the same kind of amazing conversations that happen after Read Around the Planet and similar events.

In preparing their presentations, the students addressed a lot of NETS standards.

Jan has a pyramid of VC with distance classes at the bottom, then accessing content providers, then collaborative student projects, and at the top content creation in the classroom.

Comment from a student – “I didn’t realize that teaching was so hard.” That’s a great quote!!

The teachers said that it was hard work, but that the level of student engagement was incredible. Students had to dig deeper to really understand the in depth content to share it with the other class.

The teachers also said it was really eye-opening to see their students present the content – they saw their students engaging with the content at a different level than they usually see.

Remote VC with NASA

Since the collaborate session ended early, I popped over and caught the tail end of the NASA session by Greg Pitzer and Scott Anderson from the NASA Digital Learning Network.

From what I could gather, the session focused on the technology necessary to videoconference from remote sites. It was really cool to see the “behind the scenes” of what it takes to make programs like NEEMO and Desert RATS actually happen. I’m sure some of you reading this blog had classes participate in those events.

Some of the satellite VC systems they’ve used are: Immarsat and KU Band satellite and vsat.

They also showed the Tandberg Tactical system which was made for the military but is great for remote vc because it’s designed to be outdoors in sand and weather and anything else that could affect the equipment. Quite expensive though.

Another interesting piece of technology they showed was the NewTek TriCaster – which they said would be good for schools looking to start a local broadcasting / morning news show type program.

Don't Make Me Collaborate

USDLA Session: Don’t Make Me Collaborate by Kat Bailey and Samantha Penney

Some snippets from this session…

A lot of 30 second ideas of things you can do with your cell phone. What can you learn or do in 30 seconds…. well some of them you could post in 30 seconds, but if you were going to think reflectively about them, you couldn’t do it in 30 seconds.

Wikinomics by Tapscott covers these areas:

  • sharing
  • acting globally
  • openness
  • peering

Collaborative culture

  • ceding some control
  • sharing responsibility
  • embracing transparency
  • managing conflict
  • projects take on a life of their own

These are described in this session in the context of teaching online – letting your students experience a collaborative culture. Suggestions for managing group learning online like having student contracts for their work in it.

Vision of Students Today – digital ethnography. When I searched that, there’s a K-12 version of it. Did you know? I’m surprised how many of the participants here haven’t seen this video. Does that mean I’m going to too many conferences?? or reading too many blogs?

Suggestions include – create an infrastructure for collaboration in your class. I think this is what Jazz does – creates an infrastructure for collaboration. I can think of some other groups I’m in where we use collaborative tools to create the infrastructure for collaboration.

The conversations about cell phones at this conference is really intriguing. There was a Marc Prensky quote about learning anything on a cell phone.

There were some hints at constructivist learning – “leave out the piece you want the students to learn” and let them find it.

It seems like the new “must have” for conference presenters is a clip from YouTube. Hmm. There was a cool one with flowers and poetry that was a sample of student work.

Reference to Classroom20Wiki – with a recommendation of using these ideas in the classroom. It’s really about integrating technology in the curriculum, but with a Web 2.0 twist, a distance learning twist, and focusing on higher ed classrooms. Interesting perspective

Engaging your “waiting collaborators”: use the collaborative tools to create surmountable challenges and let them have fun with it.

I think we’re doing well with using the Web 2.0 tools to support our collaborative projects, as well as training such as Jazz. How are you using collaborative tools to support your work?

Mashup or Crashup?

USDLA The Intersection of Real-time Learning Tools with Learning Management Systems by Alan Greenberg from Wainhouse Research. Snippets of ideas and wisdom.

What’s a mashup? Media types, code, data sources, etc. from different sources.

Which of these do you use? vc, web conferencing, whiteboards, wikis/collaborative tools, LMS/CMS, other…

“videoconferencing was the hot technology in the 90s”

A crashup can be the blue screen of death or cars crashing together.

Alan has a great chart with the learning activity down the left and the tool (LMS, VC, streaming, web conferencing, interaction enables). Then whether or not that learning activity is possible in that tool.

Technology creates latency – it’s between you and the learners. You want that to diminish.

The crashup/mashup is happening because you need all those learning activities whenever you need them, not just in this tool or that tool.

A unified collaboration environment has a nice mix of synchronous and asynchronous tools. IM / Web conferencing / interactive writing tools / recording / streaming / classroom vc / web vc / virtual worlds / collaboration portals / audio threads / LMS CMS etc. All these things come together in one environment with infrastructure services.

Interestingly, he asked the audience if they have tried GoogleDocs. 15 people raised their hands. Then he asked, who is using it still? Only 3 raised their hands. I wonder how many people actually seriously collaborate for their work on documents with other people. And of those, how many stayed with GoogleDocs?

How can you take your content and make it for mobile devices? All these tools will converge onto mobile devices. The iPhone broke down the display tech and usability barriers for using mobile devices.

Comments from the audience about Second Life “I don’t have time for my first life”

mlearning – mobile learning. Convergence of educational, consumer, prosumer, enterprise markets based on the Smartphone.

The barrier of broadband and devices is melting away. I wonder about rural areas that don’t have the services offered with the cell phone plans that the more urban areas have. Is that barrier also melting away?

A report referred to: The Distance Education and eLearning Landscape

The silos of videoconference vs. online tools are breaking down. The VC has to connect to the LMS. Greenberg’s prediction: LMS platforms will include IM, presence and VC as a matter of course by 2012. This is interesting because it’s the best of both worlds – VC for the human interactivity and online for the reflection.

Context sensitivity is going to be more important – moods, polls, ways to know the context of the learner.

Check out WRPlatinum as well.

From an audience member – in Afghanistan, everyone has a phone but they can’t afford food. They aren’t learning on a computer, they can learn on a mobile phone.

The session ended with Q&A and sharing from the audience.