Author Archives: Janine Lim

TxDLA: Inspiring Teachers' Use of VC

Here are links and resources for my first TxDLA presentation today (Inspiring Teachers’ Use of Videoconferencing):

Other blog posts on working with teachers:

Feel free to comment or ask questions!

Exciting Changes in the VC Industry

Did you see these blog posts yesterday?

And, in other news:

All these changes raise several questions:

  • If schools want to connect to content providers and other classrooms globally, what should they buy?
  • If content providers want to upgrade their current systems or start providing programs for schools what should they buy? (Seems to me a LifeSize Passport might be an interesting choice for the ability to send high quality content to both H.323 advanced videoconference systems and to Skype. But does it have enough inputs for all the great visuals content providers share with us?)
  • Do all these changes make it so that teachers need less or more support figuring out how to connect to whoever they want to bring to their classroom? My gut is they need more. What do you think? Seems like full service support providers such as Whirlidurb can make this much more seamless for schools. The array of choices and options is getting dizzying!
  • If you were going to use videoconferencing for full length courses now, what kind of videoconferencing would you choose?

Your Turn

What questions and potential changes do you see from these developments? Please comment!

Lest We Forget: Korean War

Today we had a great group of Korean War veterans to talk to our students locally and around the country. This is part of our Lest We Forget series that occurs in collaboration with our local Lest We Forget veterans organization.

Panel members participating today:

Red Sage, Jim O’Malley, Jim Brinkman, Jim Ball

Here is a sampling of the questions from today:

  • What did you do in your leisure time?
  • What techniques did you use in interrogation?
  • How did the terrain affect combat?
  • What impact did the Korean War have on American citizens?
  • How did you feel about the firing of General MacArthur?
  • Did you share a lot of experiences with soldiers from other UN countries?
  • What lesson should we learn from the Korean War?
  • Were you drafted or did you enlist?
  • How often did you hear from home?
  • How were both sides of prisoners of war treated?

Our high school Lest We Forget Vietnam session in May is full; but we still have room in the middle school version based on the book The Wall. May 17. Would love to have you join us!

What's Up with SIP?

So, have you seen the rumblings of using the SIP standard instead of H.323 in schools?

I ran into this during Read Around the Planet.

Some schools with TANDBERG installations on the east coast gave out their address to dial as an email address! This caused some confusion and trouble for Read Around the Planet this year. They didn’t seem to know that most schools with H.323 couldn’t dial it or didn’t know how to.

I don’t really understand all the technology – but I see the effect on educators trying to connect “advanced videoconferencing” with other schools who have “advanced videoconferencing” (i.e. Polycom, Lifesize, Cisco-TANDBERG, etc.).

These are the questions that are raised in my brain. What about for you?

  • How does an old Viewstation connect to SIP?
  • What has to be in place for H.323 to connect to SIP?
  • Why is it that the school with the new TANDBERG HD installation couldn’t dial an IP address with the dial protocol on auto? They had to select H.323. That’s not very educator/user friendly. Most educators don’t know the difference between H.323 and SIP. I barely understand it!
  • Why is it that this school with new TANDBERG HD equipment couldn’t call older Polycom systems during Read Around the Planet? I think it might have been Viewstations they were trying to dial. Shouldn’t H.323 be able to call any H.323?
  • If a content provider buys a new system that uses SIP – who will advise them on how to connect to schools that can only dial out?
  • Is Cisco-TANDBERG really pushing SIP now?

I am trying to understand the ramifications of this for programs such as Read Around the Planet, collaborations between schools through CAPspace, connections between schools and content providers around the world, etc.

What do you think? Any ideas? Please comment!

How to Expand a Collaboration: Poetry with England

Note: This is a real post; even though it’s April 1. 🙂

This week we’ve had 14 classes in England and Michigan connect together to share poetry! We’ve had performances, recitations with actions and motions, and even costumes! What a celebration of words! Thank you to Heather Hadfield for collaborating with us!

Note the technology is used to connect the students and to see and hear each other; but print materials are very important! Love the book and the map in this picture!

How to Run an Extended Collaboration

I thought it might be helpful for you to learn how we set this up so that you also can do more collaborations. I’ve used this strategy for many collaborations in the last few years. It’s one of the ways we provide programs to our schools.

Step 1: Preparation

  • Pick a partner: I started with someone I knew who also supports several schools using videoconferencing.
  • Pick a curriculum topic: We picked a topic that is in our curriculum and theirs: poetry.
  • Pick dates: This one was fun because our spring break is April 4-8; England is off for Easter from April 11-22; then they are off again for the royal wedding. We didn’t want to wait till May, so we picked this last week before our spring break. It was a little off because our schools do poetry in April, but we still had interest.

Step 2: Get Organized

I really prefer a wiki for this type of collaboration so that all the information is in a place where all the partners can access it. In 2009, I standardized all my project websites to make my work flow more efficient (anything to get more VCs!).

We worked together to set up a wiki with these essential components:

Step 3: Advertising and Registration

Next, Heather and I advertised to our teachers and schools.

  • Registration: When one of us found an interested teacher, we entered all the details on the scheduling page.
  • Pairing: If the teacher matched with one already listed, we matched up the pair.  If not, we made a new pair table on the page.
  • Confirmation letter: After a pair was complete, I used our confirmation letter template to send an email introducing the teachers to each other and giving additional directions.

Heather and I both subscribed to changes on the wiki, so we knew when new registrations came in that needed to be partnered.

Both of us reached out to particular schools and teachers to finish all the pairing.

It took us about two weeks to get every interested teacher matched.

Step 4: Test Calls

Sometimes when I do this type of collaboration, I’m collaborating with a region that we already know. Then we skip test calls entirely! This time though, we tested.

  • Set a date & time window: We picked a Friday morning my time; afternoon in England. Heather made sure the schools had their equipment on; I tested dialing out to them.
  • Skype: We talked on Skype. This removed the international phone calls from both sides; and made it easy to troubleshoot any issues that arose. We did have a few things to solve – mic cables, muting and unmuting, etc.

Step 5: Videoconference!

Finally, make the actual connections. We still stayed in touch this week.

  • Skype:We used Skype to solve any connection issues – and to communicate when the schools were up & running.
  • Feedback: We also shared with each other – mostly via Skype and email – any feedback or comments from the participating teachers.

Your Turn:

Have you done collaborations like this? What tips and tricks do you have to make it go smoothly? Please comment!

Career Interviewing Collaboration Idea

From the files and archives from our old website, I found this collaboration idea. It was written in our first year or so of doing VC in 2000-ish. Sharing here to archive it. Maybe you can build on this idea for your career classes?

Teacher Author of This Lesson Idea: Lisa Brady
School: Galien High School
Course: BST Core
Grade level: 9
Topic: Interviewing (a component of Career Planning)

Background: At Galien BST is team-taught by two teachers. We do very little with the interviewing portion of career planning. We sometimes will video tape the students interviewing with us. They are expected to dress as they would if they were on a real interview. They don’t take it very seriously—they know the two of us too well. We would like to have them interview with someone they don’t know and to see/critique others being interviewed.

Implementation: Students at participating schools would create a business and job opening to be advertised. They would need to create a background for their company, a job description, and then interview questions. Students at the other school would have to look at the job openings, fill out applications and submit resumes and letters of application, and then interview with ‘the boss’ from the other school. They would be expected to dress appropriately.

Additional comments: The research students do earlier could be used to develop their company. Applicant students would have to taylor their resume for the job they apply for.

Timeline/organization: Initial meeting to introduce companies/bosses-these should be prepared ahead of time with copies sent to the other school so students can look at them. After some intervening time, then we would have the interviews.

Issues to discuss/plan with participating schools:

  • Would we do this for every student?
  • Would each student develop a business/job opening and a job application/resume/interview (to be on both sides of the process)?
  • To do all students would require this to go on for several days. It might be better to somehow limit it to have it for 2 -3 days with maybe 3-4 interviews per day. Perhaps students could develop their business in small groups; although the interviewee would be alone but could be interviewed by a panel of interviewers.
  • Would we allow for a follow-up critique live or written; same day or later?

Lest We Forget: World War II

Today we had several schools from MI, NJ, and TX interview our World War II veterans for our Lest We Forget program.

Today’s panel included Captain Jimmy Butt, Sgt Arden Pridgeon, Sgt Val Ripsco. In the first session we also had a new veteran, Captain Rex Welch, who was a paratrooper.

Students learned about rations, v-mail (victory mail), and perspectives from both the European and Pacific theaters of the war.

Here are some of the questions students asked today:

  • Do you think the the war was inevitable? or that the U.S. involvement was inevitable?
  • What new military techniques were developed during WWII?
  • Do you have any good memories from the war?
  • What did you think of the New Deal?
  • What was it like to live during the Depression?
  • What was your inspiration or motivation during the war?
  • Which front do you think was the most difficult?
  • Do you think it made a difference in your experience if you were drafted or volunteered?

By the way, we still have a few openings in the April Korean War Veteran interviews. ($50 each – scholarships available; high school; everyone is welcome).

We also have a similar program but using the ASK process on the picture book: The Wall, where middle school students interview our Vietnam veterans. We have room in that session too! We’d love to have you! $50 or request a scholarship. Everyone is welcome!

Registration for both programs is in CAPspace. Let me know if you need assistance.

Hope you can join us!!

Troubleshooting a Timeout Problem

Ever had a videoconference drop after a consistent amount of time (i.e. 15 or 20 minutes) all the time? I have two districts struggling with this problem right now.

Timeout by deovolenti

How do YOU troubleshoot a time out problem?

Here’s what I do. Remember that I’m not a network person! I don’t know exactly how to fix the router or firewall settings. But I can help our district network techs know what to look for!

Check the Settings on the Endpoint

First, almost all videoconference systems have a maximum time in call setting.

On the Polycom VSX 7000, it’s under System, Admin Settings, General Settings, System Settings, Call Settings, Maximum Time in a Call. I usually set this as high as it can go.

Check the Settings on Firewalls & Routers

Next, if that didn’t fix it, I talk to the network techs and give them some ideas of what to look for.

Since I really have no idea how to change settings on a firewall or router, I can really only explain what happens during the videoconference call.

  • The call is set up on port 1720. The two codecs do a caps exchange (capability exchange) and negotiate the media ports to use during the videoconference. (If a gatekeeper is involved in the connect, ports 1718 and 1719 may be used also.)
  • Then after the call is set up, the traffic switches over to the ports that are used for the media traffic. We usually have our Polycom VSX 7000s set to “fixed ports” which means it should be communicating in the range of TCP 3230-3235 and UDP 3230 to 3253. You can find a fairly comprehensive list of ports used in VCs here.

Sometimes if the router or firewall isn’t seeing any traffic, it may close the ports thinking that the call has ended when really it hasn’t.

This info usually helps my techs enough to figure it out from there.

What about you?

Have you ever run into a problem with videoconferences ending after a specific amount of time consistently? How did you solve it?

6th Blog Anniversary!

Wow! Today is the 6th anniversary of this blog! Thank you to all the readers for your comments, partnerships, and collaborations over the years!

Been pretty busy with VCs the last two months, so it’s been a little quiet around here. I apologize for that. But here are some links and posts to consider today:

Read Around the Planet in the News

Did you know this year was the 10th anniversary of Read Around the Planet / Read Across America celebrations via videoconferencing through TWICE? Here are some blogs and news articles from RAP this year:

Today’s VCs

Upcoming VCs

I’m still trying to fill the following videoconferences:

Celebrate with me and sign up for a VC! 🙂

    21st Century Communication with TWICE

    Cross-posted with the MACUL conference blog.

    Here are the resources and links featured in my session at MACUL, 21st Century Communication with TWICE.

    We connected to Eagle Lake Elementary in Edwardsburg, for a feature of Where in Michigan; the ASK programs, and Read Around the Planet.

    Next we connected to Mars Elementary, in Berrien Springs, for a feature of the Holiday Hoopla Snowman Swap.

    Finally, we reviewed the TWICE Discounts with Content Providers / Field Trips, and the CAPspace website.