Category Archives: Professional Development

Professional Development, Training, Faculty Development, Workshops

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.

The Coolest VC Training Ever

Ok, I just finished the coolest training with Roxanne Glaser, ESC 12 in Waco, TX. Roxanne and I participated in the 123 VC Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with VC workshop last summer. We both have K-2 buildings wondering what the best use of videoconferencing is for their grade levels.

So we adapted the Jazz format to 1.5 hours! Tonight we connected 6 K-2 schools with 4-8 teachers at each site. 3 Michigan schools and 3 Texas schools.

We started right off with introductions. Every school did a cool introduction with the components we required: school name, location, mascot, weather/climate, and a unique town tidbit. They were really creative with songs, costumes and chants. Teachers who hadn’t done VC yet were on camera having fun!

Next we had several teachers share the videoconferences they had participated in before so the new teachers could hear the possibilities.

Then we really got into the fun part. We gave teachers 10 minutes to brainstorm some potential projects. They made a huge letter poster with the school name, topic, time & time zone, grade, and the preferred month. In the picture you can see the posters with the ideas. Then we did a round robin sharing the ideas, and then sharing which ones the teachers wanted to do. Voila! In about 45 minutes we had 10-15 project ideas and partners! Incredible! More later as we implement and move forward.

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!

Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections Starts January 22

My online class, Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections starts January 22 and runs four weeks. This class is always a wonderful experience of networking with others interested in videoconferencing. We’d love to have you join us! Read all about it and how to register here.

Trading PD for Project Partners

Here’s an interesting model for finding partners. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’ve been working on finding partners for our 6th grade classes studying Canada. This week I found the last set in an interesting way.

In August at the Alberta Broadband Summer Institute I collected business cards of several schools willing to connect to our 6th grade classes.

In following up with one of them, I discovered that this particular district, Peace River, has used VC mainly for high school classes. So while they were interested in connecting to us, they need more info on enrichment VCs.

So on Tuesday I did an hour workshop for them with an overview of field trips, resources, examples of projects, MysteryQuest, and more. And then in the last 20 minutes, I sprung my request on them! By the end of the hour, I had partner teachers for the last four slots I needed to fill! So we traded PD for project partners and it worked great for both of us!

I think we all like to compare weather at the beginning of a VC, and when you’re in Michigan and the snow just melted and it’s raining, you want to know the weather in northern Alberta! So I asked them to show me the snow out the window. Listen to Fred Churchman’s description of that moment in our training:

It’s the little things that sometimes stick in my mind: I think I’ll always remember looking out your window at the wet mess, and then going to the trouble of moving the monitor and camera to make sure you got to see the snow outside our window. Thanks for that memory!

By the way, above the picture is from the Confluence Project.

Thank you, Peace River, Alberta, for yet another VC and the promise of more to come!

Why it's been quiet here…

Yes, my blog has been a little quiet lately. Here’s a quick run down of some interesting things happening…. So much to write… so little time!

November 15 we did an awesome Operation Montserrat Training with CET Challenger Learning Center. Teachers were excited and jazzed and we’re scheduling 9 sessions with them this year. Stay tuned on the results of those VCs.
November 16 I finished the last all day training of building contacts for our RUS grant. 60+ teachers and local staff trained over 4 days! Lots of excitement about VC keeping me busy. The new building coordinators are so excited. Tonight one building is presenting to the board connecting between two buildings in the district to show how it works. With students showing a sample of what they could do in the Read Around the Planet project (and they haven’t participated yet!!).

November 17 we had two sessions of ASK: Monkey Island in celebration of homelessness awareness week. Andrea Israeli blogged an excellent summary!

I’ve been scouring high & low for Canadians to connect to in January & February for 6th grade classes studying Canada. Things are coming along on that custom project.

November 20 TWICE hosted Margaret Willey for ASK: Clever Beatrice. Wrote about it last year.

The Read Around the Planet project has been expanding insanely, with a not-so-smooth ride on the new database this year. But everyone has been patient with the process and we seem to be in for another record year of participation. Thanks to TWICE and Polycom for making the expansion possible this year!!

Requests for VCs from my 18 districts are coming out of the woodwork! Last year at this time I had 102 requests for the year, and totalled 279 programs for the whole year. Today I already have 245 and I haven’t advertised RAP to my schools yet! Yikes! I’ve hardly advertised anything at all. Usually I’m emailing them constantly with things they could do. This year we’re swamped and it’s a great feeling to know everyone is interested in using VC.

And I have to mention Andrea’s blog on the Cisco ad. Did you see it? While it’s cool that VC in classrooms is getting ads on TV and the quality looks cool, I wish that the example was a bit more educational. And more realistic on the time zones. It implies an Asian connection during the day for both schools which is impossible. Still it’s a step in the right direction of helping the general public understand what we do!

Hope things are hopping in your VC land too!

First After School nonVC PD

Tuesday we had our first after school professional development VC about something other than videoconferencing. We’re doing a series as part of the RUS grant. I know you’re wondering, so, sorry, I am only offering this for our county this year. But feel free to take the idea and do it locally! The Lorain County Distance Learning Consortium is offering programs like this too (for their members).

Tuesday’s session was on Best Tech Tools. Kevin Clark, Berrien County ISD Instructional Technology Consultant, facilitated a discussion of various tools and ways they are used or could be used in the curriculum in each participating building.

We had 28 teachers from 7 buildings in two sessions. Not bad for the first time. We switched between full screen showing Kevin’s computer, and the discussion format for sharing between the buildings. It was a neat low key informal conversation and worked well.

Here are some participant comments on how the VC part of the workshop worked for them:

Thanks for the great hour! I have heard of and played with many of the sites you showcased tonight, but I was madly making notes for myself as you went through things. Sitting in on sessions like this even when the particular sites aren’t new to me give me so many ideas.

Ten minutes after you finished up, three of the five of us had to be at the high school gym to play volleyball for a charitable function. Had we had to have gone anywhere, even to the ISD, we wouldn’t have been on time to play our first game. Just going to the library in your buildin beats the heck out of taking time out of the classroom to travel elsewhere to attend conferences.

Of course I enjoy videoconferencing. And I feel it makes learning more convenient and less expensive for everyone.

Seems we’ve hit on a format that will work well. Stay tuned for reports from future sessions. (And feel free to leave comments on how you’re using VC for PD in your area!!)

Unique Admin Use of VC & a Wiki

This week I reviewed a project submitted for my class Kid2Kid Videoconference Connections. Gord Smith is a videoconferencing coordinator for Palliser Regional Schools in southern Alberta, Canada. The district is large and just getting started with VC. So Gord has set up regular informal “drop-in” VCs for his administrators to share and discuss issues in their district. He’s also using a wiki as part of the project. It’s a great use of VC and is meeting a unique need in his district. Read more about the project plan here.

[This project shared here with permission.]

Indispensable Media Specialists

Yesterday I team presented an all day pre-conference workshop at MAME with Diane Nye, media specialist at E. P. Clarke Elementary, our local building who consistently uses videoconferencing most often every year. We did much of the content from my RUS grant training, with extra emphasis on the Voices project, and quite a bit of time on the role of the media specialist in supporting the videoconferencing.

We had great discussions on managing the equipment location / cart, supporting teachers, knowing how the connections work, etc.

I know a big part of the success of our implementation in our area is due to the building level coordinators who make it happen.

They are the ones who help take the edge of disappointment when a content provider cancels a program due to technical difficulties. (Happened to us yesterday.)

They are the ones who help a teacher adjust to the frustration caused by what their partner teacher did for their project. (Happened to us this week.) Calming the teacher & helping them model flexibility and resourcefulness, and respect for the other site.

Media specialists already have a relationship with their teachers and often have a good grasp of their curriculum as well. They are already well skilled in helping teachers find resources to meet their curriculum.

I realize that this is a position that is getting cut in many places, but from my point of view, media specialists are an indispensible piece of successful videoconferencing!

PICC Ending

My fall session of Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections ended Friday and we are finishing up last details. I just had to share with you this quote from one of the evaluations. The class is set up in Moodle with a high level of interaction and discussions between participant from all over.

This is the first time I have used Moodle. The previous on line class I took from a major university now comes off as lame – more lame than it appeared at the time. I likened that class to lecture with written reponse and questions submitted in triplicate 3 days after the lecture. This class has been like a large party where I can move around and participate in any number of discussions or I can just listen.

You too can join the next party! Another session runs January 22 – February 16, 2007. Registration is open now.