Tag Archives: necc

Sign Up for Two Awesome ISTE Videoconference Workshops

It’s time to sign up for ISTE workshops! (Denver, June 27-30).

I hope you are planning to attend the ISTE conference this year, as there is a great line up of videoconference related content (both standards based videoconferencing and Skype videoconferencing). In addition, on Wednesday from 9 am to 1 pm there will be a SIG IVC playground that is bound to be an interactive, fun, and awesome experience, led by VC Rox and a team of talented and passionate videoconferencing educators.

There are two workshops that you don’t want to miss by award winning presenters. Perfect for integrating Skype or standards-based videoconferencing into your curriculum.

A Novel Hour: Extend Reading with Wikis, Skype, and Videoconferencing

Sunday, 6/27/2010, 8:30am–11:30am
Roxanne Glaser, Content Director of Whirlidurb, with Christina Hum and Rich Hum

Discover how to use wikis, Skype, and videoconferencing to create highly engaging learning environments for intermediate and middle school learners. Read more…

Roxanne GlaserAbout the Presenter:
Roxanne Glaser has presented at regional and state conferences in Texas, NECC 2008,and Elevate 2008 in Alberta, Canada. She was awarded the Excellence in Education Technology Award from COSI Columbus in May 2007 and the Don Foshee Memorial Grant Award from the Texas Distance Learning Association in May 2007 and 2008.

Glaser won two National Distance Learning Week Awards one for MysteryGuest Showcase for her work in staff development and one for Monster Match 2007 for best collaborative project. Texas Twisted Weather (www.texastwistedweather.com) was awarded second place in the 2009 SIG TEL Award.

Designing Quality Interactive Classroom Projects for Desktop or Room Videoconferencing

Monday, 6/28/2010, 12:30pm–7:30pm (an hour break included for dinner)
Janine Lim, Berrien RESA

Design your own videoconference projects using proven research-based instructional strategies. Engage your students in solving mysteries, sharing math and science problems, and more. Read more….

About the Presenter:

Janine Lim has been coordinating videoconferencing for 22 school districts in southwest Michigan since 1999, where her schools create and participate in over 300 projects a year. One of the co-founders of TWICE, Janine has spearheaded popular projects such as Read Around the Planet. Janine teaches two popular online class for using videoconferencing which have attracted participants from all over the world. Committed to promoting quality VC educational experiences, Janine writes a regular blog sharing experiences, curriculum thoughts, new resources, and technology comments related to K12 videoconferencing.

Lim won 2010 MACUL Educator of the Year, and USDLA 2008 Outstanding Leader in Distance Learning. Her videoconference program at Berrien RESA won the Computerworld Honors Program Laureate 2009; and her blog was nominated Best Resource Sharing Blog in 2008.

Register now for both of these workshops! Sign up before May 1 to ensure these workshops happen!

More Virtual NECC Goodies

Here’s my last set of snippets from virtually attending NECC 09:

Thanks to everyone who blogged (and will still blog) about their learning at NECC for those of us at home!

After this, a serious July studying! Which will mean two new series of posts applying communication research and mentoring research to videoconferencing.

Virtual NECC: ISTE Vision

This morning I found ISTE Vision and watched the debate while following the comments on Twitter. THAT was really fun! Lots of comments about change in instructional pedagogy whether online or in a physical location. I *think* it will be on ISTE Vision later so you can watch it if you missed it. Here are a few screenshots – the view from my office….

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Robert Siegel, from NPR’s All Things Considered, moderated the panel.

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A view of the full panel.

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Gary Stager delivers pithy punches amid applause.

It was great to be part of something big all happening at once, with interesting concise commentary on Twitter.

Virtual NECC Goodies for Monday

As I catch up on Twitter and blogs & Virtual NECC this morning, a few snippets stand out:

Looking forward to more snippets throughout the day!

What are YOU learning at or from NECC 09? Are you sharing in some form?

Virtually Following NECC Part 2

There are other ways that I’m planning to virtually follow what’s going on at NECC this year.

Twitter

I set up two searches in TweetDeck for following NECC.

  • One search for NECC related things: “NECC OR NECC09 OR NECC2009”
  • Another for the SIGIVC hashtag: NECCIVC

Also you may want to follow these people that I know are into VC and are tweeting and going to NECC.

Blogs

Virtual NECCers on Ning

  • There’s a group inside the NECC Ning for those participating virtually. Check it out!

Who did I miss? Please comment if you know someone blogging or tweeting about VC at NECC.

Virtually Following NECC Part 1

This year I can’t attend NECC due to a family conflict, so I’ll be trying to catch a taste of the action online. I thought I’d start today with a list of IVC and videoconferencing related sessions that I could find on the schedule.

H323 Videoconferencing (I think)

Skype Sessions

Other Videoconferencing
In these session descriptions, I can’t tell what VC technology they are using.

Did I miss any? If so, please comment and I’ll update the list!

Last Notes from NECC

I’m just cleaning off my computer desktop from NECC and a few scribbles here and there.

I lost two video clips due to somehow losing the sound on them. Very frustrating. But I wanted to mention these two poster sessions in case you missed them.

Dissolving Boundaries in Ireland
Nigel Metcalfe, from the National University of Ireland, dissolvingboundaries@nuim.ie, was presenting about their project to connect kids via videoconference from Northern Ireland and Ireland. The students got to know each other and then worked on projects together in all content areas. You can read more about the project at  dissolvingboundaries.org. I was particularly interested in the research (peer reviewed published research!) section. While the organization supports specifically this project, some of the schools are using VC for other activities as well.

Synchronous at a Distance: Bridging the Gap
The other clip I lost was of Shirley Pickle and Leesa Potts sharing about the Arkansas shared classes distance learning program. The state offers programs to meet the needs of high schools that can’t offer those classes on their own. Leesa is one of the teachers and shared some tips for getting kids to know each other early on with introductions, presentations and other strategies. Be sure to check out the website for the Arkansas Distance Learning Center as you’ll find many tips and tools.

A Tale of Three Cities: Poetry, Performance, Teamwork, Technology, Learning

This presentation at NECC 2008 is by Global Writes. The program brings a writing workshop to the classroom. The teaching artist spend several weeks in the classroom and serves as a professional poet role model in their classroom. The technology is used to bring students together to perform their poems. It’s 4-12th grade students.

Authentic assessment. They have rules for critiquing, praise and respectful criticism. Students feel safer to share because there is a careful structure for feedback.

All of the classes participate in a competition over 2 weeks; 4 sessions a day and then finals. There isn’t a fee (so far) to be in the tournament.

Students give feedback on the writing as well as their presentation of their ideas – body language, pace, gestures, spoken word.

Blogs and podcasts are used to support the writing and reading too. The SlamFam blog is used both by current students and those who have moved on and still post and comment on the work on the blogs.
In some of the cases, the younger siblings came into the class and contributed to the same blog their older siblings were posting to.

Student outcomes include improved attendance, increased motivation, increased self-esteem & self-awareness, enhanced communication and social skills. (A story of a kid who stuttered all the time except when he was performing his poems.)

Teacher outcomes include extended literacy instruction options, collaborative teaching skills, arts integration skills.

They got funding from AEMDD to do some actual research on their program. Three classes at each school studied over 3 years with 4 treatment schools and 4 control.  75% of the kids are still writing poetry. During the research grant the students jumped from 40% planning to go to college to 85% planning to go to college.

The teachers felt more skilled in teaching writing – so the program also mentors the teachers. The data is all just from the Bronx. Now they are collecting data and expanding the program to Chicago to see if the program is replicable.

They are working on creating a replicable and sustainable model.

Shivers up and down my spine while the kids recited their poetry. Incredible!!!!

Model Lesson with Linda McDonald

Wednesday morning at NECC. I’m at Linda McDonald‘s model lesson session. Before the session started, Linda gave the students a lecture on how to behave on a videoconference. It was great to hear her tell them to behave as if their mom or grandma were watching.

A quality videoconference partnership includes three things:

  • higher order thinking
  • all students included and engaged
  • design based on curriculum need

Higher order thinking – focus on application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation. Open ended questions stems. If you push kids to the higher level thinking, they will master the knowledge and comprehension level. Teacher as facilitator – don’t answer for the kids.

All students engaged – students in small groups, think time for small group discussion (just mute & talk in groups!!), “learnin’ ain’t quiet”. Keeping a fast pace. Addressing multiple modalities.

Curriculum need – math marvels came from weaknesses on the standardized tests. Timely – has to fit the time that they are doing the book or content. Aligned to how the teachers teach the skills, but still pushing them to the higher level thinking skills.

After the intro, we did several little examples of projects.

I Have, Who Has game. The group is in charge of the clues. The cards have an answer at the top and a question on the bottom. The answer and questions don’t match. The first student reads what they have, and then reads the question. I.e. I have Ulysses S. Grant. Who has the turning point in the Civil War? If you google “I have who has,” you can find examples of how this works. The cards are mixed up amongst the two sites. The answers bounced back and forth between the sites so it’s really easy and really interactive. This is great for a test review.

For Math Marvels
A challenging problem is given to both sites. Both sites mute and small groups try to solve the problems. Then a hint is shared. Then the groups share their problem solving strategies.

Collaborative Writing
The ABCs of writing. Have words that start with a letter, and then write it into a sentence. Here’s an example.

  • America
  • Against taxation without representation
  • Armed
  • Anti-monarchy

Americans armed themselves against taxation without representation and afterwards set up an anti-monarchy government.

Then both classes supply B words, and together write a sentence – one site writes the first phrase, and the other site writes the second phrase. Then, does it match what you know about the topic? Did it stretch your time?

Novel Projects
Kickoff session is before we start reading. The book for this model lesson is Number the Stars. While you’re watching the video clip, make a list of words that come to mind. They activate students schema, make lists of vocab words, etc. to prep for reading the book. After the video, the two sites create a group word wall and share all the words they came up with. Since this class is 8th grade, Linda pushed them to come up with more 8th grade words vs. just sad. So they came up with disheartening, overwhelming, depression.

In the example of the after session, students then work on a story map together. A shared file is created with the two classes.

More Info
See the NECC page to see the resources that go with this presentation.

Components of Linda’s challenge videoconferences: strong lead teacher, pushing the content and instruction to a higher level. Hardly any “talking” or “presenting”. Instead everyone is interacting on the content, with each other at their site, with the teacher, and the students at the other site. Each one is really focused on the content.