Warm Feelings From Megaconference

Did you participate in Megaconference yesterday? Did you stay the whole time? Did you get up early to see the presentations from Asia? What a treat of dance and music from the Chinese Academy of Sciences! First thing in the morning (EST) and then at the end of Megaconference last night (EST). The ending performance from Beijing, “The Greeting From Heart,” by the Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe was exquisite. One of the dances created a heart to share with the world.

Yes, there is incredible value in taking time beyond your usual schedule to connect to countries around the world. The Chinese message and theme of “Peace +Friendship +Harmoniousness +Advancement” came through strong and clear. Yes, we CAN feel connected and together even though we are geographically far away.

Leaving my office in the snow & cold last night, I had a feeling of awe and community. How close we are to each other. How much we can learn from each other. “The more we get together, the happier we’ll be.” Nothing compares to signing that song in a funny echoing round with 26 MCUs cascaded together! If you haven’t stuck around for the closing ceremonies of Megaconference before, plan your schedule so you can next year.

Megaconferencing Around the World

Today I’m enjoying the wonderful experiences of the 8th annual Megaconference. If you haven’t participated in a Megaconference before, you should definitely plan for next year’s. The next one is Megaconference Jr. in February. Megaconference is always a visually rich feast of experiences, pictures, and people.

This morning started with a beautiful music and dance from the Chinese Academy of the Sciences. Also we saw some neat role plays and skits from Taiwan explaining Chinese culture.

We learned about a new content provider in Texas, The Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

My favorite part of Megaconference is the roll calls. I love to see all the places that are connected. It’s a great geography lesson seeing all the places that are connected. And of course Bob’s hats are a treat to see!
My next favorite part is the choirs. Tim Poe’s songs are just perfect and set a fun and joyful tone to the conference.

I really enjoyed the Trans Atlantic Piano Teaching presentation. This reminded me of the MusicPath presentation at NECC a couple years ago. It looks like the same technology that allows you to play a piano remotely. Pretty cool.

I was intrigued by the North Dakota Telepharmacy Project. I also like to learn about real-world uses of VC outside of education. Bringing pharmacy services to rural communities VC is really creative and totally meets a need.

The conference is still going on, so if you’re reading this yet today and haven’t signed up, you can watch the streaming here.

Preparing for RAP: Read Around the Planet 2007

By now hopefully you’ve checked your email and received the announcement from Sue Porter from one (or more) of the listservs on the Read Around the Planet project, formerly known as Read Across America.

If you’re familiar with the project already, here’s what you need to know.

  • The project is sponsored by Polycom this year. This sponsorship allows TWICE to contract with Sue Porter as the main coordinator for the project. Sue is a “retired” TWICE Board member and one of the original founders of this event, so you’ll be in good hands. And I’m helping to coordinate the verification piece. So that’s how coordination is happening.
  • There’s a new registration system. Make sure your spam filter is allowing email from read@remc11.k12.mi.us. PLEASE READ the New Verification System Overview (1 page PDF).
  • The project is five days this year. March 1, 2, 5-7.
  • There’s a new World Language Day match on March 9 for language classes. Be sure you realize it’s very unlikely you’ll match with native speakers. It’s to practice with other classes studying the language. You’ll be matched by level and language as well as time & connection type. Read the WLD Teacher Packet.
  • International connections! Read Around the Planet means that we’re including countries other than the US in this project. But we still have a majority of US schools. So this doesn’t mean you will get an international connection. However, you have a chance of getting a Canada connection anytime you sign up for. If you sign up for early morning EST, you have a chance of getting matched with the UK. We made a timezone chart this year so you can see which areas are possibly participating at the time you’re signing up for. As other countries sign up for verification we’ll update this with their time zones too.

If you’re new to the project, here’s what else you need to know!

  • This project is monstrous! Last year 1042 classes participated, just in the U.S. So if the procedures in place for verification and registration seem complicated, it’s because of the large number of classes connecting and the complication of all the ways we can connect to each other. So get a good dose of patience and flexibility before you sign up! 🙂
  • Read Read Read. The materials that is. Start with the Tech, Coordinator, and Teacher packets. Please read them carefully. Again this project is huge, so understanding the scope & implications of participating is really important. Then review the steps on the project website. Become very familiar with the website & the steps/timeline of the project.
  • Watch a movie. This little overview of the project still refers to Read Across America, but other than that the info is still pertinent. Use this to share with your teachers too.

Regional Coordination
I thought I’d share how I’m coordinating this project locally. In the past I’ve connected my schools for everything they do. Control freak, you know! 🙂 But now that our usage has exploded (207 VC requests right now where I had 86 last year), I’m starting to teach my districts to do this on their own. So here’s what I’m doing for verification in November.

  1. I started by asking all my building contacts if they are participating this year and if they are ready to participate on their own. (Some have staff ready and some are so understaffed I’ll probably always help them.)
  2. Next, I’m going to meet with them in a few after school meetings. I’m going to help them login to the TWICE Registration System, enter information for their building, and explain how all that works. All my buildings that will connect on their own I’m verifying on their own. The rest that still need me I’ll verify under my bridge.
  3. I’m also going to talk to them in the meeting about managing the connections within the district. Most of my buildings are in districts with just one or two T1 lines and so they can/should only do one VC at a time. So in some cases we’ll be negotiating which day each building will participate in RAP. We’re going to make sure we have a good feel for the demand and interest in the buildings so we’ll be ready with a plan once teacher registration opens on December 1.

We’ll see how this plan works for support in our area. If you have tips for managing this project in your area, please share them here!

For more reading, check out my posts about last year’s RAA: Still Reading Across America, Spanish Read Across America, Some Great RAA Stories, RAA The Mitten, Singing Across America, RAA Day Two, and My Favorite Things.

RA Az & Arizona VC Blogger

Yesterday I stumbled across another VC blog, this one from Amy Chayefsky in Arizona. Amy is writing about Maricopa ITV videoconferencing. Not only that, but she’s running RA Az, or Read Across Arizona, in the next two weeks, to prepare classes to participate in Read Around the Planet. Very cool Amy! Thanks for sharing your experiences!

Cool Qlock

Today since I was stuck in my office for lunch due to VCs, I peeked into the ongoing K12 Online Conference. The session at the top of the list was from Joseph Papaleo, Around the World in 80 Minutes. I noticed he was talking about videoconferencing, so I listened. Of course we can always learn something new! Joseph had a nice overview of Google Earth and VC in the classroom. And then, the gem!

Qlock! Check out this tool. I installed it right away and set up the cities that I’m doing VCs with in the next few months. Very cool. Considering I had a timezone oops today, it was just in time learning! Try it out for yourself!

I Survived the Onslaught

Every year I can tell when MEAP, our state testing, is over. All of a sudden I have an onslaught of videoconferences. Most of you know I’m the tech and the coordinator in our service area, so it can get crazy. Today was one of those days! Last week’s ASK Ice Bear & Little Fox program got rescheduled to today, the same day I did ASK Stellaluna. Plus I had three schools connected to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago for their Live From the Heart program this morning. I’m also starting to finally get the hang of making gatekeeper calls work within my districts and to my bridge. Today’s videoconferences impacted 20 classrooms and about 570 students. Plus 8 RUS Grant buildings did their first VCs.

Of course with that many sessions, there’s always oopses. We had a timezone oops for one of the sessions. And I accidentally connected the wrong building for another. But other than that all the connections worked & the kids and teachers are happy with the learning.

Now that these connections are done, I can breathe again. Whew. I made it!

Principal Support of VC

Last night when testing with one of my new RUS grant buildings, I found out an interesting way one principal is encouraging VC. At the school board meeting, each principal shared their 3 goals for their building. This particular principal set one building goal that each teacher would do a videoconference! Imagine the support and encouragement those teachers get from that principal!

In another of our successful buildings, the principal encourages teachers who don’t use VC to write it into their professional development plan for the school year.

So there are two ways principals strongly encourage VC in their buildings: setting PD goals with individual teachers, and setting building goals.

What did it take for these two principals to decide to require use of VC for all teachers? In one building, the principal came with a teacher to our week-long summer workshop 123 Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with VC. This experience cleared up the concerns about VC from past bad experiences in the building/district. Now she’s requiring VC. In the other building, a history of teachers using VC often for clear curriculum goals and having successful experiences convinced her that each teacher should be using it, especially after they acquired the equipment in the building.

So, how do your principals support VC? What experiences and training help them get to the point where they are highly supportive? Share a comment please!

Monsters Monsters Monsters

This morning two more RUS grant buildings (Washington El and Three Oaks El) are doing their first videoconference. We’re lucky enough to have a couple of classes participating in Monster Match, a project coordinated by Roxanne Glaser, ESC 12, TX.

Before the videoconference, the classes made monsters and then emailed each other descriptions of their monsters. Then they tried to make the same monster. Roxanne facilitated the videoconference as the students checked their monsters to see if they matched.

I learned a new idea from Roxanne today! As the classes were connected waiting to start, Roxanne had a PowerPoint playing monster jokes. Cool idea!

Roxanne was appropriately dressed to facilitate too. Nice hair Roxanne!

As a first connection, this one is simple and low key. The connection is short — 20-25 minutes — and the classes get to talk to each other and practice zooming in on their camera. A great start for these buildings.

First RUS Grant Videoconference

This morning Marcellus Elementary is participating in the first videoconference with students at one of our RUS Grant Buildings. They are participating in the very fine LAPS programs offered by EDCO and Macomb ISD. This one is about Mitchell State Park.

Each of the classes introduce themselves. Then there are video clips of the park, presentations from each of the classes, a drawing activity and more. LAPS programs are highly interactive and require preparation on the part of teachers. But they tightly fit the 4th grade Michigan curriculum, so teachers love them. Thanks, Macomb ISD, for offering this program to our students!

How Your Students Will Work

So, why should you videoconference? One reason is that students will use this in business in the future. Check out the Cisco Telepresence tool – thanks to Scott Merrick for pointing this out!

On the tech side, it’s going to be a while before we get this kind of quality down to the K12 level – at least in my county! I want to know how much bandwidth it takes to make the meeting rooms look that good!! It probably is a Cisco end to end solution too – which ain’t gonna happen with VC anytime soon the way I use it (connecting to everyone under the sun).

Still. It’s interesting to see how business is using VC and the ways our kids will be working when they graduate…