Tag Archives: Streaming

Video Interviews

While I was out in Nebraska a few weeks ago, John Stritt, Distance Education Director at ESU 10 interviewed me for their video podcast series. There are three little clips, very professionally done.

Feel free to use these in your training sessions.

The Ultimate Gift Movie Interview

Today we have a special videoconference on the book and movie The Ultimate Gift, organized and sponsored by Polycom. Students from California, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas interviewed the author, Jim Stovall; the screen writer Cheryl McKay; and the lead actor, Drew Fuller. Macomb ISD provided the bridging and facilitation. Thank you for Jim Wenzloff, Macomb ISD, and Elaine Shuck, Polycom for the behind the scenes work that made this event possible.

The program started with introductions from the panel, and then students took turns asking questions. Here are some of them.

  • For Drew: Did you find it difficult to play the part of Jason in the movie?
  • For Jim: What impact has this movie had on your life?
  • For Jim: What was it like for you to be in the movie?
  • For Cheryl: Did you change any parts of the story and why?
  • For Cheryl: Did you find that you emphasized some gifts more than others?
  • For Jim: Did you get to have any say over which actors would be in the movie?
  • For Drew: Which was the most difficult scene to act?
  • For Cheryl: Was it hard to transition from the book to the movie?
  • For Jim: Are any of the scenes in the book things that happened to you in your life?
  • For Cheryl: What made you want to add characters that weren’t in the book?
  • For Drew: What inspired you to be an actor at such a young age?
  • For Jim: Since you are blind, do you find it hard to not be able to see the movie?
  • For Jim & Cheryl: Which parts do you wish you could have changed in the movie and which parts do you think changed for the best?
  • For Drew: What was it like playing Jason and how do you relate to the character?
  • For Jim: Did they use any actual quotes from the book in the movie?
  • For Drew: If you were actually in Jason’s position, what would you do with the inheritance?
  • For Drew: Do you think you’ve been impacted by the 12 gifts and changed in any way?

Students learned about the process of writing a book, writing a script based on the book, and then making it into a movie. They learned about how the book impacted the lives of each panelist. One interesting note is that in the credits at the end of the movie, there are little clips that show all 12 of the gifts from the book and how they were woven into the movie.

This event was live streamed and is now archived on the Polycom RSS 2000 we have on loan for these events. You can access it at streaming.bcisd.org; login (polycom) and password (special).

CBS Features VC Field Trips

Just received this tip from Bob Dixon via several listservs. CBS did a story on virtual field trips that is nice and concise and features several content providers we’re familiar with. Great student quotes too.

The clip also features Jody Kennedy, who has written several articles about videoconferencing. These are the ones I know of.

Content providers featured include Mote Marine, Reef HQ in Australia, and the Center for Puppetry Arts. The clip is only three minutes long and perfect for workshops and training sessions. Check it out!

Interviewing Congressman Fred Upton

This morning Coloma Jr. High, Marcellus Middle School, New Buffalo High School, River Valley High School, Ross Beatty High School, and St. Joseph High School participated in an interview with Congressman Fred Upton. Students had prepared questions ahead of time.

The discussion covered a myriad of topics including stem cell research, global warming, illegal immigration which affects our congressional district with farms depending on migrant workers, what its like to be in a minority in congress, social security, gas prices and the likelihood of a draft coming back.

Two questions really caught my attention:

  • As a high school student I’ve noticed more students who don’t value their education. What would you say to them?
  • We spend a lot of time taking very long tests. Some kids are not good test takers, but they know the material. What can we do about this problem?

We used the Polycom RSS to record this session and you can watch the streaming if you wish. This will allow the schools that weren’t able to participate the ability to still benefit from the interview.

Thank you to all the coordinators and especially Congressman Fred Upton and his staff for making this another successful videoconference!

MysteryQuest with Nicaragua

Today we have a special treat for MysteryQuest Western Hemisphere. We have a class from Nicaragua participating!

We are also using the Polycom RSS in a unique way. My local school’s system went on the fritz this week. We don’t know why it quit working and the problem seems to be network related. MysteryQuests are impossible to reschedule, so we connected them in via a speakerphone for interaction, and then put the streaming up on a projector with the sound turned down so they could get the visuals. Maybe the most unique way a recording device has been used so far, but it did allow my school to participate successfully in MysteryQuest today.

Since we recorded it, this is one MysteryQuest that you could watch if you want. (Schools participating in MysteryQuest have collected parent permission forms before hand.) The program will play in Windows Media Player.

At the end we had 20 minutes of Q&A with the American Nicaraguan School. It was their first videoconference and one of the questions they asked the other schools was, “do you like videoconferencing with us?” Of course everyone shouted out YES!! Other questions were:

  • What do you do for fun?
  • What is your home like?
  • How far do you live from school?
  • Some questions were asked in Spanish by students in the Michigan schools. That was really neat for both classes.
  • What is your school day like?
  • If we were to visit Nicaragua where should we go?

It was a great connection and everyone enjoyed the research and interaction with the other classes at the end.

By the way, registration is open for MysteryQuest USA in April. We’d love to have you participate.

Recorded ASK Training

I just finished recording my general ASK training from this evening. This covers the ASK programs available to our teachers, how to prepare for an ASK program, the ASK video done by Macomb ISD, and includes practice actually participating in an ASK program.

Here’s the streaming link.

Handouts referenced are:

Feel free to use this in your own VC workshops. Be sure to give credit to Macomb ISD and Dr. Raymond Kettel.

ASK Jim Stovall Training

Yesterday evening we had the training for the ASK Ultimate Gift Videoconference coming up in March. This is “ASK Deluxe” with the ASK process plus blogging. You can read about past ASK Ultimate Gift programs and view the December 14 session.

The training has been archived on the Polycom RSS (on loan to BCISD from Polycom for events like this one).

I Cloned Myself!

Since we received the Polycom RSS (on loan from Polycom for Polycom special events), I’ve had some ideas for how we could use it. One was to record the PD sessions I do for teachers. That way when I can’t do a VC for others, they can at least access an archive.

So today I tried it out with a projects workshop for Utica Community Schools. It’s about 40 min. long, with 20 min. of presentation and 20 min. of an interesting Q&A discussion. It’s an informal discussion, so not perfectly polished. But hopefully you it will be useful to you if you were hoping to have me talk for your workshop and couldn’t because I’m too busy with my own districts. Just click this link to access the archive.

I’ve also added a Streaming category to my blog so that you can find all the things that we have archived for streaming. Enjoy!