Lest We Forget Veterans Day

Today we had a several classes interview a panel of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam Veterans. Students had prepared questions and expressions of gratitude for our veterans.

One highlight from today was World War II veteran Arden Pridgeon sharing his “vmail” and explaining to the students how the letters were sent on microfiche and then printed in the U.S. saving several thousand pounds in postage.

Mr. Arden Pridgeon reads a snippet of one of his letters home.
On the document camera, we showed the small vmail letter compared to the original.

For the veterans, the highlight is always the thanks from the other classes. This class made posters to share with the veterans, which they really really appreciated!

We have more sessions coming up the rest of the year. December 7 is next. Hope you can join us!

 

Day of the Dead for Spanish Classes

Today I’ve been listening to four connections that are a result of the Jazz workshop. The lesson plan was written in the workshop this summer.

One of the pairs were two of the teachers in the workshop this summer; but my teacher needed 3 more partners, so we used other contacts to find the rest of the partners needed.

Our students were 7th graders, and our partners were 5-7th grade classes in TX and NY.

Hands-On Activities!

This is one of the first collaborations I’ve seen where BOTH! classes sent materials to each other to do hands-on activities during the videoconference.

Our class taught the partner classes how to do papel picado artwork with tissue paper. Students explained about the art, the history, and how it fits into the Day of the Dead celebration. Then some of our students led both classes in making their own papel picado tissue artwork.

Our partner classes shared different things with us.

  • One partner class was a music class. They sang a Spanish song and then taught it to our students. They had sent a hand-out with the words to our students so they could follow along and learn the Spanish words. The song was Yo Te Vide. With this partner class, our students wanted to share their Spanish alphabet song.
  • Another class shared their paper plate skeleton faces and popsicle stick art projects. They explained how they made it.
  • The other partner classes shared with our students their sugar skulls. They taught us the history and meaning of the sugar skulls. Then taught our students how to make sugar skulls and our students followed along. It was kind of like a student-led cooking show!

These connections were neat to watch. Students were actively engaged on both sides. Fantastic experience for all the students!

Updating my VC Confirmation Letter

Here’s something I’ve been meaning to share with you since the beginning of the school year! I’ve been inspired by Roxanne’s work to polish my own work.

One thing that I looked carefully over in August was the confirmation letter I send to my schools. Just about every VC my schools do is scheduled through my office. And when it is scheduled, we send a confirmation letter. It used to be really long!!

But not everyone needed all the information all the time. So I moved several chunks of the letter online to my new preparation page:

Then I added these resources:

As well as some tried and true classic preparation resources:

Moving this online allowed me to majorly tighten up my confirmation letter. Now it looks like this:

To: teacher
CC Principal and VC Coordinator(s):

Subject Line: VC Confirmation: *title*: *date*

This letter confirms that your videoconference program has been scheduled.

*title*, *content provider*
*date & time*
## students attending (please correct if inaccurate)

The total cost of this program is $XXX.
Your district will be billed $XX after the program. The remaining funds are paid by REMC.
If you must cancel, please do so at least 5 business days before the event, or you will be charged for the event.

Preparing for Your Videoconference
Please be ready to start 5 minutes early.

You may contact **content provider** to discuss the content of your presentation.
Phone: *****
Email: ****
Please remember that any scheduling changes need to go through Berrien RESA.

**Content provider** will send you materials for this program. If you’re not sure what to do with materials or the materials don’t arrive, please call me right away!

Additional preparation resources are online here (worksheets, student letters, questioning lesson plan, ASK prep info, and more):
http://www.berrienresa.org/technology/vc/vcscheduling/preparation/

If you have any questions, you may call me or email me. Thank you.

Short & sweet! I think this works much better. Additional resources are there for those who need them, and the email only contains the most critical information.

What about you? Have you recently polished your communication for teachers who are busy speed readers?

Monster Mayhem Ends with a Bang!

Today was the last day of Monster Mayhem for this year (although we have two rescheduled ones next week!). XX classes participated in a collaboration between Berrien RESA, Dallas ISD, REMC 1, and Whirlidurb. Here are a few more pictures of 4th and 5th grade monsters from today. I heard great comparisons and lots of learning about respective communities, too!

Next week we finish off the Halloween theme with 8 sessions with 3 classes each connecting to the Cranbrook Bat Conservatory for ASK Specialist: Stellaluna. Then it’s time to plan for turkeys and holiday videoconferences!

Monster Mayhem Day 2

Another 6 Monster Mayhem connections today (along with 4 TWICE ASK programs). Here are some highlights from today’s Mayhem!

Whiteboard Similarities and Differences

This teacher used their interactive whiteboard to display the PDF comparison sheet. Then while both classes were muted for 2 minutes, they made a list of similarities and differences. Then in sharing these observations with the other class, they zoomed in on the whiteboard to share.

More Pairs

Here are some more monster pairs from today.

Lots of Learning

Sometimes the pairs seem very different. This is where much learning occurs. In this pair, the original monster is on the left. The copy is on the right.

Below is the description that was written for the original monster. Does the copy match the description?! Pretty close – even though the monsters don’t look too similar. This comparison caused a lot of discussion on descriptive words, materials used, and what could have been done differently.

Beef the Schugl caused the toughest Marines to scream!
On top of her head is a 3 inch pink bow made of silk.
Her beady silver eyes (1 inch each) were ringed in white eyeliner and her nose was barely visible under her thick coat of brown, dusty hair.
Beef’s teeth (1 inch long and 1 1/2 inches wide) always stick out at odd angles from beneath Beef’s straight line of a mouth (4 inches), and are as silver as her eyes.
Her dress is so blue it almost makes you blind and has a shiny pink heart in its middle.
Her tiny feet (4 inches each), compared to her whole body (13 inches tall), make her fall over a lot.
Beef can’t wait for the fashion show!

New Extension Activity Idea

I listened to two third grade teachers discuss how it would be great to have the students write comparison paragraphs on the differences and similarities between the two classes. They decided to email each other pictures of the monsters so that they could study it further in class and write their paragraphs.

Monster Mayhem, Tornado Warnings, and More

Today was our first day of this year’s Monster Mayhem with Whirlidurb and Dallas. We had a busy, but learning-filled day! In addition to our monsters, we also had classes participating in the TWICE ASK programs on bullying with author Dana Lehman, and two connections with the Cleveland Zoo and the Lee Richardson Zoo. Here are some highlights and lessons:

Tornado Warnings

At about 9:15 when my first calls started coming up, the whole county was under a tornado warning. Originally it was till 10:00 am, but then extended to 10:45 am. Six of my videoconferences were affected.

I spent a goodly amount of time on the floor under a desk away from the window with my phone and laptop/Skype texting and messaging to rearrange, reschedule, and calm down involved educators. Four of the VCs we were able to reschedule for this afternoon.

Reflection question: What is the craziest thing you’ve done to make sure your videoconferences happened?

Monster Mayhem

Here are some of the monster pairs from today. Lots of great comparisons and discussions: what is the same? what is different? what could we have written better?

4th grade

5th Grade


1st Grade (I only caught pics for one pair of their monsters.)

TWICE ASK: Adventures at Walnut Grove & I Double Dare You

We also had several classes in the TWICE ASK program with author Dana Lehman, on two of her picture books: Adventures at Walnut Grove and I Double Dare You. Students asked questions about bullying and teasing, as well as the writing and publishing process. Great program!

The Cleveland Zoo

Another class connected to The Cleveland Zoo for their Boo! I’m a Bat program. Great session. Had two classes participate in last week’s program as well. Great visuals & costumes!

Desktop Videoconferencing

Finally, due to the tornado and a couple other problems, in one of my sessions, the teacher did the videoconference on her own! with a desktop videoconferencing solution that we are currently testing (and will remain unnamed). The software was installed on the teacher’s computer. Check out the video we received from them. Can’t tell the difference between this and a regular codec! Yay!

What a day! How did your VCs go today?

Online Class on Videoconferencing Starts Nov. 1

21st Century Communication Collaborations

Course Description: Videoconference (VC) connections between classes open up a whole new world of collaborative learning for students! These 21st century communication collaborations bring the world to your classroom. Immerse yourself in videoconference connections with partner classes. Learn about structures/templates for projects with other classes and implement them with your students and a partner classroom. During the class you’ll reflect on exemplary student-to-student projects, receive support during your own project connection(s), and apply your learning in your classroom.

Dates: November 1 – December 17, 2010 (we’ll take Thanksgiving week off)
Time Commitment: 5-8 hours a week
Cost: $150 (same price for everyone)
Optional tuition additional: 2 graduate semester credits available from Andrews University, Grand Valley State University, or Western Michigan University. OR 6.0 Michigan SB-CEUs for $25.

Online: This course is taught online via Moodle. Class assignments are posted in the discussion board. Participants are required to login regularly during the class.

Videoconference: Participants will implement a project videoconference with another class. Assistance will be given throughout the course in best practices for videoconference collaboraitons.

Technology Featured:
Participants can choose which method of videoconferencing to focus on within this class.

  • Standards-based videoconferencing carts like Polycom or LifeSize or Tandberg
    Skype

More info: Course Website and Syllabus

Register Now

Questions? Email janine.lim@berrienresa.org.

Sustained Collaborations: Weather Buddies

This is our second year participating in the Dallas ISD’s Weather Buddies program. While we do many collaborations, they are usually just one meeting between the classes. I’m just never sure how to make a long term collaboration work.

However, Lori Colwill at Dallas ISD has been running the year-long weather buddies program for two years now. It’s very popular and I’ve seen several copycat projects on CAPspace.

We had a couple connections last week, and we have two today as well. This October meeting is the first meeting between the classes. In the October session, they are learning about each other and about the weather in their respective locations.

Classes shared weather forecasts, and pictures from the community to show raking leaves, colored trees, etc.

Classes also like to turn the camera out the window to show what the weather is like right now. Today it was grey in Michigan and blue skies in TX, so of course our kids reacted excitedly!

Another class shared their weather bear – to show he just had a jacket on, but not a scarf, hat or mittens.

Last year I only had one class participate all year; but this year I have several more.

I’ve never really had an idea on how to make a long term sustained collaboration work on a scale. It’s easier when the teachers decide to keep connecting. But I’ve heard a lot of teachers say “let’s connect again” and they never do. It seems they need a nudge to schedule the next connection. Otherwise life gets busy and it doesn’t happen.

What I like about Weather Buddies this year is that each class has committed to a specific day of the week and time; and there is a specific week for Weather Buddies all year – October, December, January and May. This way it’s on the schedule! I find that if a VC gets “scheduled”, it will likely happen. But if it’s just an idea, often it doesn’t get past the idea.

I appreciate learning how to do sustained, long term, multi-connection collaborations from Lori. Maybe soon I’ll be inspired to think of my own. In the meantime, we love Weather Buddies!

Upcoming H323 Network Training

From the megaconference listserv, information about this upcoming training from the University of Wisconsin:

Understanding and Troubleshooting Videoconferencing Networks, November 2-3, 2010

I took this workshop a few years ago, and it is excellent! Even if you’re an educator (like me), learning to be a VC technician as well, it is definitely helpful. Teaches you the language and concepts you need to talk to your network people. When I attended, I thought I didn’t know enough to be able to learn anything from it, but suprisingly, I did! You can read my past blog posts about this workshop here and here.

When I participated, a whole group in Michigan organized to have the workshop at one site and then we split the cost between all the attendees.

They don’t pay me, or even ask me, to advertise this workshop. I’m just sharing it with you because it was such a benefit to me.

Character Education with Brad Tassell

Today I have a class connecting to a new provider: Brad Tassell, who is a comedian/author specializing in bullying and character education. I have a kindergarten class participating in his Character Education program.

Brad is a comedian and very entertaining with a powerful message. His program consists of songs, magic tricks, and discussion with the students.

He read to the students part of his book, Billy Fustertag Learns Comedy and asked them great questions throughout the program.

He also worked with students to help them understand the difference between tattling and telling the teacher when someone is bullying. Great questions, age appropriate, and he elicited good comments from the students during the discussion.

He sang a funny song about a girl with a pickle in her ear and had students try to figure out why she had a pickle in her ear.

Finally, he ended with an I Love School song and questions from the students. Students really enjoyed the program – full of silliness, fun, and important lessons!