A few more VC articles

While exploring on the web, I ran across another review of a NECC session from this summer. Global VOICES : Videoconferencing Opportunities, Information and Cultural Encounters. Another great example of international VC collaborations.

Also, here’s an article just added to the TWICE VC Bibliography page.

Bennicoff-Nan, L. and Schenck, M. “Broadening the Vision and Eliminating the Barriers.” California School Library Association CSLA Journal, vol. 29, no. 2, Spring 2006, pp. 7–29.

Great reading for your weekend!

8th grade students plan VCs

Here’s a little tidbit you might find interesting. I received an email from someone looking for videoconferences. She said,

I am now starting an options class where my students in grade 8 are planning Video conferencing sessions for other classes in the school.

This was for a K-8 school. What a unique idea! We all know that good VC programs require someone in the building to assist the teachers. Having students research and find programs for the other classes/grades is such an interesting idea.Reminds me of a computer support club. Have any of you tried something like this? Seems like we should try whatever ways we can think of to support teachers!

Polycom Remote Practice Causes Laughing

Last week I conducted the first two days of training for my new building distance learning contacts as part of our USDA RUS DLT grant.

I scheduled four days of all day trainings over the fall, and each of the 35 buildings with new Polycoms has to send at least one person to the training. Many of my buildings are sending two people. Since many of the buildings are small and rural (the population targeted by the USDA RUS grant), we have a wide variety of positions that were assigned support of the new system. In some buildings there is a media specialist or library aide, in others, a secretary who has a knack for technology, in others, one or two teachers are the new distance learning contacts.

The agenda for the day was:

My favorite part was the Polycom practice. I gave them an overview and an “assignment” sheet with different kinds of calls to make (IP, ISDN, multipoint) and things to practice (muting, moving the camera, setting presets, etc.). Then I divided them into groups and sent them off to our VC rooms around the ISD to practice. And I left them alone! But I could hear lots of giggling and laughing going on as they played with the remote. In about 30 minutes they came back to the main room excited and ready to go. They said the remote was easy to use and they felt very comfortable with it.

This was the first time I’d used this strategy and I was very pleased with the results. One of the participants said in the evaluation,

This was a great conference!!!! I’ve learned so much and I can’t wait to “play” with the equipment. I’m so looking forward to the first videoconference. I know it’ll be worth it.

So this is another reason demand is high! Many new building contacts who were concerned about their new role of supporting VC caught the big picture of possibilities, are comfortable with the tech, know they can call me if they are stuck, and are ready with tools & resources to support VC in their building. Yeah!

Partnerships and Project Planning

It seems I got quite a few emails this past summer from people wanting their classes to do projects with my classes. Usually from a coordinator level – county, district, or building, but rarely teachers.

So I’ve been mulling over this for the last several months. What is the best “next step” when two coordinators want to have their schools do connections? What are the starting points?

Here’s what I’ve come up with. Please comment & share your ideas too!

Starting with Enthusiastic Teachers
One way to start is to contact teachers who love VC already and see if they have any ideas for connecting to this particular location. Often they can come up with a curriculum based idea that works and that the other location woud want to do.

 

Coordinators Designing Projects
Another way to start is for the coordinators to suggest some possibilities to their teachers. For example, one of the locations I’m working with is in the United Kingdom. I know that I have high school classes studying British Literature. It seems logical that we could think of some projects the classes could do together. We can ask each other questions to start brainstorming. Things to think about are:

  • What is the curriculum locally?
  • What curriculum covers communication/presentation skills?
  • What curriculum covers information that is geographically outside your area?
  • What curriculum might be similar between our two areas?

Plan a Workshop Together
A crazier idea (logistically) is to do a VC project planning workshop together. I got this idea from the 123 Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with VC workshop from this summer. If the two locations could connect two VCs at a time – and have a group of math/science teachers and a group of language arts/social studies teacher together – they could talk to each other about projects. I haven’t done this yet so I’m just thinking out loud! An overview of VC projects could be shared with the whole group and then they could split into groups to plan. The projects workshop resources on my VC projects wiki would be helpful for doing this.

I’m still mulling this over, trying to think of how we can take advantage of the opportunities to connect with each other in a logical organized fashion. If you have any ideas, please share them by commenting.

 

Megaconferences

Do you know about the Megaconferences? If not, then you should sign up & participate this year! Here are announcements from the Megaconference listservs.

Megaconference

Everyone in the world is invited to participate in the Megaconference, 2 November 2006, from the comfort of his or her own office, classroom, or conference room. Registration is now open via the web site http://support.osc.edu/cgi-bin/veventreg/megaconf8. Like any professional conference, presenters and audience members will discuss current projects and developments. Unlike other conferences, hundreds of participants will gather simultaneously from all continents of the world using advanced networks, from universities, K-12 schools, and organizations. This year’s theme — Breaking Down the Barriers: Global Connections– focuses on improving understanding between individuals and cultures, using video conferencing tools. The event runs from morning until evening (EST) that day, to allow participation from around the world. But you can be there as long as you wish.

Megaconference Jr.

The NEW date for Megaconference Jr. 2007 has been set for February 22, 2007, and planning committees need your help to make this year’s event even more of a success than the previous Megaconference Jr. events. This year there will also be several new additions to the event – like a new Virtual Battle of the Bands where musical groups will audition to be part of the grand finale based on the highest number of votes from the international community – which will give participants the opportunity for even more interaction leading up to the event itself. Volunteers are needed in several areas. Please distribute this call for participation widely in your communities.

Also, Megaconference Jr. is looking for student VJs. You can read about how to become a VJ on the Megaconference Jr. blog. (Yet another VC blog you can follow!!)

Megaconferences are great experiences for you & your students, so I encourage you to participate this year!

Demand is High

This morning I read Andrea Israeli’s blog entry, Hit the Ground Running, with interest. She says,

This year our schools are videoconferencing in September. I think this is a first. It used to be don’t even mention the “V” word until October and even then it wasn’t until late October that things got going. Now I find schools have dusted off the monitors, hooked up the Polycoms and started making test calls and school just started on Tuesday! What’s going on?

I agree! Something is happening! Last year at this time I had 25 requests for VCs for the year; this year I have 91 already and they are pouring in! I talked to another colleague in Texas who is also having increased demand. Gone are the days of a quiet September prepping for VCs for the rest of the year.

It’s a great problem to have, really! Training and advertising has paid off. Increasing access to the equipment clearly has made a difference already. Now the new problem is how to manage the increase and begin transferring more responsibilities to media specialists and building level coordinators. Already I’ve sent some media specialists off to do everything for some upcoming programs. So here we go for another exciting school year with wonderful learning opportunities brought to our kids via videoconferencing!

35 New Polycoms Installed This Summer

This summer 35 Polycom VSX7000s units & carts & TVs were installed in many of my elementary and middle school buildings as part of a USDA RUS DLT grant. During most of the installation time I was travelling, so now I’ve come back to lots of work testing and training! We still have some networking issues to work out in many of the buildings, but the equipment is there and the excitement is rising! This grant is unusual in that most of the buildings know what it is and what they can do with it. They are very anxious to use it. Unlike some grants were technology is purchased and the districts don’t know why they need it. Of course there is still lots of training to do, but it’s exciting to see the interest and anticipation.

Last week I got a chance (finally) to run over to one of my buildings and get a picture of the cart put together.


Here’s the whole cart. I was happy to feel how easy it is to push around. Many of our buildings will be using it as a mobile cart. I’ve heard several comments from my buildings on how cool they think it looks.


The principal who took this picture for me said, “Only techies want a picture of the wires!” But I thought this mount was pretty cool for putting the Polycom above the TV.

And my favorite feature – only two cables to plug in! Easy for teachers to use! Network & power.

We are looking forward to a great year of videoconferencing!

Sept. 18 Update.

Thanks for the comment Danny! Here’s the answers – and I’m putting them here because others may have the same questions.

1. The cart is the VFI C2736-42-VSX (with the cutout for the Polycom VSX speaker). It’s very likely your reseller is familiar with the cart. Our installation was through AVI Systems, and their installation included putting the cart together and mounting the TV & Polycom.

2. Document camera. The RUS grant funding has to be staggered across the 3 years of the grant, so we are buying the peripherals for these units next year. Our plan is to get a small document camera that also converts computer inputs to SVideo. It will be kept on the shelf of the cart and have a long S-Video cable to bring out into the classroom for presentations.

Thanks for asking the questions!

Misc. Articles & Resources

Here are a few articles & resources I’ve collected over the past few months.

Time to catch up on your reading!

Summer's Over

Well, the summer is over and it’s time to start blogging again! I have quite a little list of things to blog about. So here’s the first.

The TWICE Board retreat the end of June met at the St. Clair RESA nature center. After the meeting was over, we got a quick tour of the “gator,” a videoconferencing unit on a tractor for presenting programs from the nature center. Very cool. Enjoy these pics, compliments of Anne Thorp, photographer.


Anne Thorp, Ottawa ISD, drives the tractor.


Yup, it’s a Polycom!


Camera mounted on the front of the tractor.


Mike Maison, St. Clair RESA, gets ready to drive.


The trailer.


Inside the trailer.

What other unique setups have you seen for VC?? Please comment & share!

Communications Research Centre

The last session I’m attending here at the Broadband Summer Institute in Canmore is by John Spence from the Communications Research Centre.

“Relationships are everything.” This technology is about “connecting brains to brains”. It’s not about the technology, it’s about the people you can connect to.

CRC’s role is research the future uses of this technology, forming communities, “connecting brains to brains.” To work with end users at all levels to determine requirements and the R&D agenda.

They do virtual classrooms with long units connecting 3-6 classrooms. Connecting groups across the sites, doing jigsaws across the sites.

It’s interesting that John said specifically that they aren’t a content provider. But they do arrange high level high quality experiences for students each year – international and within Canada.

John was behind the MusicGrid project. There’s a great article online on this project. They keep an online archive of their video music lessons as well. John imagines a digital music portfolio. In this example, teachers defined the research agenda. John works with the researchers and software developers to develop what the teachers need.

Next, John invited a teacher to come up and share about an environmental project. The students connected to experts via phone and videoconferencing. One of the culminating projects was a dramatic presentation of listening to what the beavers are saying about the environment, presented via videoconference.

John showed a video clip of programming from the Canadian Space Agency. High school students mentored middle school students in the videoconference with CSA. Then the students worked in small break out sessions facilitated by the high school sessions and connected back up with CSA to share what they learned. The facilitators “challenge the students to use their collective knowledge to equal the intelligence of the astronauts.”

In another video clip, students from various high schools from around Canada researched and presented what various faiths (Islam, Jewish, etc.) believe about stem cell research. As part of the connection the students were also connected to experts in the field.

Another video clip showed students learning how to play the violin – a small school 500 miles north of Montreal – mostly Inuit students who didn’t speak English or French. As the kids learned, 400 students in the auditorium in Montreal clapped for the students. How powerfully affirming and exciting for the students.

In another clip, the famous Canadian violinist Zukerman teaches a Russian student at the Manhattan School of Music.

Cool stuff. John had more video clips than time. What a treat!

Written Aug. 15. Just couldn’t get it to post online til now.