Category Archives: Videoconferencing

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, so I thought I’d write about a few Canadians I’m thankful for today! Hope you all are enjoying your pumpkin pie! I had mine for Sabbath dinner. Yum Yum!

And, for the Americans reading this blog, check out a little history of Canadian Thanksgiving. Did you know it was celebrated before the pilgrims landed in Plymouth? Wikipedia concurs. Wouldn’t that make an interesting videoconference, to compare the history and celebrations of Thanksgiving in these two great countries?!

Test Call Turns into Planning Period

This afternoon I had a test call with Florida for an upcoming “presidential debate” between two classes on the energy policies of both candidates.

We tested, and then our media specialists chatted with the teacher in Florida for a while. Then they decided it would be easier to have the teachers talk to each other. Our media specialist went down to take our teachers’ class for a few moments so the teachers could talk to each other.

This worked out great because then the teachers compared notes on their students, what they were planning for the videoconference, and discussed the need to talk again about the debate questions etc.

I can tell this is going to be a great connection! The Florida class took the Democratic side, so our class took the Republican side. Our class has two students who are planning to impersonate McCain and Palin to welcome the FL class in the introduction. It should be really fun and a great learning experience all around. Stay tuned for a report on the actual connection on October 29!

MAGPI / Constitution Center Election Program

Check out this program from MAGPI and the National Constitution Center:

ISSUES FACING PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES: A New Exchange Program from the National Constitution Center!

DATE: September 23, 2008

TIME: 1-3 p.m. EDT

TARGET AUDIENCE: High School Students

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

In order to be an interactive videoconference site for this event, your site must have H.323 videoconferencing capabilities. Your site must also be connected to your national high speed research and education network (i.e. Internet2 in the United States).

DESCRIPTION:

The National Constitution Center is excited to invite your school to participate in the latest installment of its national student program, The Exchange: A Marketplace of Student Ideas. This event will take place on Tuesday September 23, 2008 from 1pm-3pm EDT. This installment of The Exchange, Setting the Student Platform 2008, asks students to consider the issues facing the presidential candidates in 2008 and work together to create a political platform for the nation’s students. This Exchange will follow up on the work done by students in May 2008 to create a student agenda. The discussion will be hosted by SuChin Pak from MTV and Dr. Michael Hogan from the Center for Democratic Deliberation and Pennsylvania State University.

The Exchange allows students all over the country to converse with one another about current constitutional issues using Internet-2 videoconferencing. It is an exciting way for students to explore issues with their classmates and peers in other parts of the nation.

Schools that participate in The Exchange will be asked to use the provided curriculum to prepare their students to be part of the conversation. Students will also have the opportunity to create and post their own media include art, video, and websites in The Exchange online community, which can be accessed from the National Constitution Center’s website at: http://www.constitutioncenter.org/ncc_edu_TheExchange.aspx. Some student created media may be selected to be displayed during the video conference. If your students decide to create any video or audio clips, we ask them to not exceed 2 minuets in length.

If your school chooses to participate in The Exchange, you will be asked to select one student to be part of the videoconference round table. During the videoconference, students will have an opportunity to interact with each other and share their thoughts on numerous issues facing the country. Students will use this deliberation to assess each issue, and create a student platform for the upcoming presidential election. Additionally, students who are not taking part in the discussion will be able to send questions and comments to SuChin and the participating students via a simultaneous online chat.

Participating schools must have connectivity to the INTERNET2 network and the ability to do H.323 videoconferencing.

While there is no cost to participate in this event, we do will ask schools to work to make sure this event is a success. Schools will be responsible for the following:

• Selection of student representative
• Preparation of students through the use of the provided Exchange curriculum
• Support student created materials and submit them to our new social networking site being developed for this project
• Participation and successful completion of videoconference testing prior to the event with the National Constitution Center

HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

I hope you are able to participate in this remarkable opportunity. If interested, please contact Jason Allen at either jallen@constitutioncenter.org or 215.409.6644 by September 12, 2008 for registration and information. Mandatory videoconference testing will be the following Friday, September 19, 2008.

Heather Weisse Walsh
MAGPI Applications Coordinator
3401 Walnut Street, Suite 233A
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6228
phone: 215-573-6417
email: hweisse@magpi.net

Sessions I Wish I Could Attend

The bummer about presenting a half day workshop here is that I’m missing some really cool presentations! Look at these two in particular:

Gord Smith, Bev Knutson-Shaw, Belinda Crowsen
Family Treasures – Museum Project
Videoconferencing is allowing schools and museums to work together in new and creative ways. Expanding on a 2006 pilot program with County Central High School in Vulcan, seven classes from across the Palliser Regional School District worked in cooperation with the Galt Museum & Archives to research and present their Family Treasures. This year, Grade 7 and 8 students from Vulcan, Champion, Arrowwood, Milo and Coaldale began their work on October 18 and presented their findings to fellow students, Galt Museum staff, parents and community members via VC.

Jocelyn Littlefair, Cathy King
VC Circles: People, Culture, Language
This session will focus on the use of videoconferencing in second language instruction. Tools, tricks, and techniques for using videoconferencing and supportive technologies in full course delivery, as well as examples of multipoint videoconference events involving French Immersion, Francophone, and French as a Second Language students will be shared.

Though they are during my workshop, they are in the same general area. So maybe if I give everyone a break I can sneak over and grab a handout!

Creating Connections: Cool Collaborations

In Julia Heighway‘s keynote this morning, she featured some interesting collaborations. Both of these ones here are using other Internet technologies to support the videoconference.

Human Rights Club

Several high schools videoconferenced about genocide and the holocaust. The students decided they wanted to start a Human Rights Club. They created a wiki to support their work together. Check it out at The Human Condition

Hong Kong
We videoconferenced during the keynote with Chun Fung from Hong Kong who posted this project request on CILC. Roxanne’s school, Clifton Elementary, did one of the first videoconferences with his class. Isn’t the world small!?

They started with cultural exchange, dances, group games, etc

Now they are looking for longer lasting collaborations. “To obtain the full benefit of VC, it must be used as a wholistic program.” They combine VC with pen pals to establish relationships ahead of time. Videoconferencing as just a “one-off” is just a pity. It’s better to establish a long-term relationship. They did a children’s art festival to raise money for an AIDS orphanage.

Now they are working on long term programs in computer science, ICT, and math. They are doing a project with Google Sketchup. They emailed the models to each other, and then videoconferenced with each other to explain their model.

Now they are doing projects with Scratch – where the students are learning programming with icons. The students will create games, send them to each other, play and dissect each other’s games, and then videoconference with each other.

“There’s so much more to gain from a sustained collaboration vs. a quick “one-off” collaboration.” – Chun Fung

First International Math Olympiad for elementary students. There’s one for high school, but not for elementary. So now they want to focus on specific subjects instead of just cultural exchanges or practicing English. All of their projects are open and they are looking for long term partnerships.

As a sidenote, I was sitting next to Roxanne in this session and it was pretty interesting that her class did the To Kill a Mockingbird project featured, the connection with Hong Kong, and my class was the audience for the winning KC3 project featured.

Listening to Carol Daunt Skyring

What a thrilling experience this morning to listen to Carol Daunt Skyring’s keynote! It was a presentation that couldn’t be blogged very well – you had to be here! Carol used a lot of amazing video clips, visuals, and even silent reading to get across her points. Her videos are on her blog (or she said she’d post them soon). In fact, if you’re really interested in videoconferencing, you should be following Carol’s blog if you aren’t already!

Just a couple things that I jotted down that caught my attention:

  • in the history of VC: “stuttervision” when the eyeballs moved first and then the mouth.
  • funny promises of VC: “go where you’ve never gone before. without going anyplace.”

And one number really caught my eye. The Las Vegas prison videoconferences 2500 times a month. Does your school use it that much?!!!

Roxanne blogged this session too so read her comments here.

What's the Hardest Thing about Making Collaborative Projects Happen?

I’m still getting ready for Elevate 2008, and I’m considering revamping my “Designing Quality Interactive Collaborative Projects” workshop. It’s time for an upgrade, I think!

So, help me out and answer this question if you have a moment:

What is the hardest thing about making a collaboration or videoconference project happen?

Just to help get you thinking, here are a couple answers from some of the coordinators and teachers I serve:

  • Middle school teacher: I haven’t done a collaboration yet because of the preparation involved.
  • Two elementary coordinators: It’s so frustrating when your partner doesn’t follow through.

What do you think? and let me know your perspective too – coordinator at what level? what level teacher? Please comment! Then I’ll post later about how my workshop went…

Running Your Own ASK Programs

I’m on a mission today to get all my materials ready for the Elevate 2008 conference. Nothing like a conference presentation to motivate a person to get a few extra things done! For a while I’ve wanted to post these notes online about how to run your own ASK program. And now it’s done! So if you’ve been thinking about running ASK programs for your schools, check it out!