Monster Mayhem, Tornado Warnings, and More

Today was our first day of this year’s Monster Mayhem with Whirlidurb and Dallas. We had a busy, but learning-filled day! In addition to our monsters, we also had classes participating in the TWICE ASK programs on bullying with author Dana Lehman, and two connections with the Cleveland Zoo and the Lee Richardson Zoo. Here are some highlights and lessons:

Tornado Warnings

At about 9:15 when my first calls started coming up, the whole county was under a tornado warning. Originally it was till 10:00 am, but then extended to 10:45 am. Six of my videoconferences were affected.

I spent a goodly amount of time on the floor under a desk away from the window with my phone and laptop/Skype texting and messaging to rearrange, reschedule, and calm down involved educators. Four of the VCs we were able to reschedule for this afternoon.

Reflection question: What is the craziest thing you’ve done to make sure your videoconferences happened?

Monster Mayhem

Here are some of the monster pairs from today. Lots of great comparisons and discussions: what is the same? what is different? what could we have written better?

4th grade

5th Grade


1st Grade (I only caught pics for one pair of their monsters.)

TWICE ASK: Adventures at Walnut Grove & I Double Dare You

We also had several classes in the TWICE ASK program with author Dana Lehman, on two of her picture books: Adventures at Walnut Grove and I Double Dare You. Students asked questions about bullying and teasing, as well as the writing and publishing process. Great program!

The Cleveland Zoo

Another class connected to The Cleveland Zoo for their Boo! I’m a Bat program. Great session. Had two classes participate in last week’s program as well. Great visuals & costumes!

Desktop Videoconferencing

Finally, due to the tornado and a couple other problems, in one of my sessions, the teacher did the videoconference on her own! with a desktop videoconferencing solution that we are currently testing (and will remain unnamed). The software was installed on the teacher’s computer. Check out the video we received from them. Can’t tell the difference between this and a regular codec! Yay!

What a day! How did your VCs go today?

2 replies on “Monster Mayhem, Tornado Warnings, and More”

  1. Craziest thing for a video conference….I think we need to all collaborate on a book, blog, or ????

    From the top of my list…..

    Doing a test call from my car, in my pajamas, with crazy hair. When I scheduled the test, I forgot it was a school holiday, and didn’t have the heart to reschedule.

    Troubleshooting a VC in my car, while babysitting my dear friend’s 4 & 5 year old boys. They were watching Scooby Doo and eating popcorn in the back seat.

    Our first Megaconference, 5th graders gathered data on genetic traits. There was a great screen shot taken of one of the boys’ bare foot displayed on our document camera – world wide!

    Sitting in my back yard, participating in a VC debrief. Dogs running around and kept unplugging my power cord. Thank the Lord for great wireless connectivity and battery power!

    I know others have great stories to share…..

    • Grins! Nice list, Linda! And thank you for adding to it!

      I remember the bare foot on the document camera!!! Megaconferences were such fun. I miss them!

      Thanks for the stories! Anyone else? 🙂

      Janine

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