A is for Apple, A is for Art

Arielle demonstrates a pink reflection on her face from the paper.

Today we had three 1st grade art classes participate in a videoconference with The Cleveland Museum of Art. The program was A is for Apple, A is for Art.

Students looked carefully at three different paintings with apples (Renoir, Matisse, and Picasso) and answered questions by Arielle, the presenter. Students learned about shadows and named the girl and dog in a picture. They learned to notice other colors used to make shadows in paintings, and to notice colors that are reflections off of other colors. They learned to think about where the reflection might be coming from.

To take a break part way through the program, the students sang a little song about an apple (to the tune of Itsy Bitsy Spider), led by Kevin who usually runs the computer/visuals during the VC.

Once a little apple seed was planted in the ground…

Arielle does a great job at talking to the kids at their level. She asks them questions to get them to notice different aspects of the painting, interacting at appropriate grade level the whole time.

This was an awesome program, and I loved hearing it three times in a row!

Great VCs This Week

Now that September is over, my videoconference calendar has more programs. It’s getting busier! Here’s a flavor of some of the programs we did this week:

What are your favorite programs from this week?

Light Science with LEARNnco

Today a 3rd grade class is connecting to Andy Campbell at LEARNnco for his program on Light Science.

Andy always starts off with a great funny routine to break the ice and help students realize they are on camera.

Students used flashlights, a highlighter, a black light, glow sticks, and wintergreen lifesavers to learn about different sources of light (incandescence, florescence, chemiluminescence, and triboluminescence). Lots of laughter as students explore scientific concepts! Students also brainstormed different animals in nature that give off light.

In another set of experiments with baby powder and a flashlight, students learned about reflection, absorption and transmission of light.

Other experiments explored rainbows and refraction. LEARNnco’s programs are very hands-on and interactive and our classes love them!

Electricity with LEARNnco

This morning a group of 4th grade students are connecting to LEARNnco for a lesson on Electricity with Andy Campbell.

After a review of electricity terms, students engaged in several hands-on activities to explore and increase students’ understanding of electricity concepts.

In one activity, students used tennis balls to represent electrons passing from a power source to the power load (blender, TV, etc.) directly and then using a circuit.

In another activity, students created a circuit with foil, a clothes pin, a battery, and a light bulb. Fun to see kids reaction. Even though they predicted what would happen (light would turn on), they were still amazed. Wow! Whoa! Major excitement. This experiment was extended using a paper clip as a switch to learn about open and closed circuits and switches.

Students also learned about power sources, and how power plants work in an experiment with water, salt, pencils, wires and a battery. (Most of these materials are sent to you in a box of materials, with the exception of water!).

This lesson reinforced a major concept students were learning: energy transfer. Energy isn’t made or destroyed; only transferred.

We love Andy’s programs and this particular teacher uses at least one of his science programs every year!

Music in the Movies

Today we have a 1st and 2nd grade class of students connecting to the Cleveland Institute of Music for their program Music in the Movies.

They started out by watching a bit of a movie without any sound. Students learned what a composer does. They then discussed the ways that music is used in movies:

  • musicals
  • singing songs in the background
  • background music

Then students listened to some clips of background music, and thought of words to describe how it makes you feel. (Music helps tell the story.) Here are some of the words students thought of, and then the movie the music came from. Students found out about the movie AFTER they thought of the words:

  • heroic, dance, feels like I’m in a kingdom, kingly, powerful (Ben Hur)
  • magical, in nature dancing, in wonderland, beautiful, like it’s Christmas time, dance-able (The Boy Who Could Fly)
  • scary, like Rambo music, adventurous, frightened, like I’m going to get eaten by a shark in the water (The Omen)
  • circus-like, like you’ve seen a friend you haven’t seen in a long time, bouncy, fun, like a train (City Slickers)
  • like a band, like Indiana Jones, adventurous, excited, like the beginnings of Star Wars (Robin Hood: Prince of Peace)

Students also watched a clip where the music was tightly matched to the action (cartoons). Then students watched another clip without sound to see if they could figure out where the music should hit on the action. Finally, they watched a Teletubbies clip with happy music, then scary music, then Star Wars music to compare!

What a great program – to teach about music in storytelling and listening skills! We’ll be doing this one again!

Buckle Bear Teaches Us Car Safety

This afternoon I have two classes connected to Whirlidurb for a Community Helpers session with Buckle Bear to learn about car safety.

First the students shared some different community helpers, and saw some pictures of community helpers.

Then we met Buckle Bear, who taught our students some rules about staying safe in the car seat in a cute and humorous way.

Students learned three rules: Be Quiet, Stay in the Back, and Buckle on Hips, along with the actions. Students did the actions a few times to make sure they’d remember!

This was a cute and grade-level appropriate session. Our kids loved it! Thank you, Whirlidurb!

Three Main Ways I Find Partner Classes

This morning I had a great conversation with Tim Boundy, who coordinates videoconferencing for JANET in the UK. We compared notes on projects we’re running, the trials and challenges of scaling collaborations, and the different ways to partner classes. In the course of the discussion, I realized there are three main ways that I make my collaborations work.

Matching Events in CAPspace

One of the easiest ways to have a lot of classes participate in an event is to participate in a project that’s coordinated by someone and matched in CAPspace.

  • Read Around the Planet is an obvious one. I usually have 70-80 classes participate annually.
  • Partners are assigned by the project coordinator (randomly matched by the system in CAPspace).
  • I have to do test calls with 70-80 different places (unless I’m lucky to get some overlap in who we matched with).
  • Materials for the project are already created for the teacher.
  • Other examples include TWICE’s We the Kids, Michigan Week Exchange, and Monster Mayhem that we do with Whirlidurb.
  • These matching events account for about 125 of our collaborations annually.

CAPspace Collaborations

Another major source of partner classes is the Collaborations option in CAPspace (create or search collaborations).

  • I post 7-10 collaborations a year looking for partners for various ideas by my teachers. On most of those I need one or two partners.
  • I have a few schools – maybe 5 out of 70 – where the teachers respond to collaborations on CAPspace or post their own collaborations. In most cases they then ask for help on connecting the videoconference.
  • These account for maybe 20-30 of our collaborations annually.

Asking VC Friends

The final major way that I find partner class is to ask friends.

  • For some projects (like EcoConversations), I have a list a people we partner with every year.
  • For some projects, I pick someone I know at a regional level (i.e. Dallas ISD) and try to get all the partners from that region. It makes it super easy because then I don’t have to do any test calls!
  • For some teacher ideas that are just one or two connections here and there, I may also ask friends. I also have some VC friends who email me and ask for one or two partners for this or that idea.
  • These types of collaborations probably account for another 30-40 collaborations annually.

My Email List

Want to get on my email list? Sometimes I use that advertise for partners just for people interested in specific projects that we run (MysteryQuests, etc.). Sign up here.

What about you? Do you use more than one method to find partners for your teachers? Which works best in which situation? Do you have a favorite method? Please comment!

Constitution Day Reflections

On Friday we had 17 classes participate in a Constitution Day program. It was a smashing success and super busy, so I didn’t get to blog it last week. Here’s a bit of information about what we did.

First Some History

We’ve tried a few things with Constitution Day.

This Year’s Inspiration

This year, I have a graduate student intern from Andrews University who aims to teach history and social studies. He really wanted to facilitate a VC, so I thought we could try again. We aimed to:

  • Meet the 4th/5th grade Michigan curriculum on the Constitution; using a lesson idea from the Michigan Citizenship Curriculum.
  • Have no prep: the prep would be built into the program. (Since Constitution Day came only 9 days after school started.)
  • Include a collaboration idea: students presenting to students. The prep for that part was DURING the program.

It Was a Hit!

We were going to just do 4 sessions with 3 classes each (12), facilitated by my intern. But we had so much demand that I facilitated three sessions with 2-3 classes also.

  • We started with each class sharing a classroom rule and a fact about the constitution.
  • We had a 10 minute overview of the Constitution, the branches of Government, and the Bill of Rights.
  • We played a great little YouTube video rap about the Bill of Rights and students listened for all 10 to check off on their handout.
  • Then students worked in groups for 10-12 minutes to generate 3 amendments to their classroom rules that were inspired by the Bill of Rights.
  • Then we spent the remaining time rotating through the classes as they shared their amendments.

Kids made great connections between the Bill of Rights and their classroom. Some were humorous and entertaining! For example:

  • We should have access to Twitter and Facebook (Freedom of Speech).
  • We should be able to whisper quietly to one another if it doesn’t disturb anyone else (Right to Assemble).
  • We should be able to bring squirt guns to school (Right to Bear Arms).
  • We should be able to have our cell phones on (Freedom of Speech).
  • If someone hits me, I should be able to hit them back (Right to Bear Arms).

Of course, some of their ideas started a discussion of balancing my rights and the rights of others!

We also reminded students that their classroom is not a democracy, and so their teacher would be the judge and decide which (if any) of the amendments would stand.

Comments from Teachers

  • [Students] were able to think of how they would like to change the rules of their classroom and see how those people who helped to create the Bill of Rights had to think. They enjoyed having “a say” in how they would change our classroom.
  • Since we haven’t covered the Constitution yet, our students went from having little or no understanding of the Bill of Rights to having a grasp on what it is and its purpose.  I hope this will help them to have a foundation to build from when we actually study it.
  • Participating in the Constitution Day fulfilled the federal requirement.  We had built prior knowledge in the morning on the Promethean Board which facilitated understanding of the Bill of Rights.  Your activity gave the students an opportunity to put that knowledge into action in a meaningful, realistic way.

Next Year

Since I won’t have this intern next year, and we had such a great demand for it, I would like to figure out how to do it without the facilitator. This way it could scale more easily. Adaptations I’m considering include:

  • The teachers could team-teach the overview at the beginning. I heard some great teaching going on as the classes connected before it started.
  • Do the prep ahead of time; and share the Bill of Rights activity only during the VC.

What do you think? How did you celebrate Constitution Day? Can you think of another way to do a low prep classroom-to-classroom collaboration?

Continuum of Videoconferencing Collaborations

We’ve looked at a continuum of equipment/software solutions for videoconferencing, a continuum of interactivity, and a continuum of depth of learning. Today, let’s think about a continuum of collaboration. We can think about it on several levels.

Continuum of WHO Collaborates

Continuum of Collaboration

The level of collaboration in a videoconference is closely related to the continuum of interactivity. Think about this:

  • The simplest level of a collaboration is where both classes present to each other; then ask each other questions. This is the most common method and the easiest way to get started. Many Read Around the Planet connections start at this level; and most of the collaborations in CAPspace are at this level too. The Around the World with 80 Schools uses this simple format as well. Is that bad? I don’t think so! Teachers have to start with something simple and easy; not too threatening and with a low commitment/preparation level. I am reminded of Jen Wagner’s concept of puddle projects vs. well projects. It’s ok to do puddle projects!
  • Involving the other class in your presentation. You may still present, but figure out a way to involve the other class in the presentation. Roxanne Glaser shared many ideas in the Read Around the Planet teacher guide, and in this blog post: Lights, Cameras, Interactions.
  • Students collaborate within the classroom. There are many collaboration or project formats where students work in groups to collaboratively solve a problem: MysteryQuests, preparing ASK questions, Math Measurement Riddles, etc.
  • Students collaborating across classrooms. This method of collaboration seems to work best when supporting technologies such as wikis as used to provide asychronous support between videoconferences. These collaborations tend to be longer term as well. One example would be the novel in an hour format Roxanne Glaser used in her ISTE workshop this year. See the results on the wiki here. Another example would be the CILC Vistas in depth projects, where students work collaboratively to solve community problems.

Have you experienced this continuum? Where do most of your videoconferences fall along the line? Any other insights to share? Please comment!

Depth of Learning Continuum with Videoconferencing

We’ve looked at a continuum of equipment/software solutions for videoconferencing, and yesterday a continuum of interactivity. Today, let’s think about a continuum of depth of learning…

Depth of Learning Continuum

Depth of Learning

  • Some videoconferences require no preparation at all.
  • Some videoconferences are only 5 minutes long! (see the suggested agenda here for Skype calls)
  • Some content providers send a PDF of materials or a kit with materials for hands-on in-depth learning.
  • Some projects, like Read Around the Planet, allow the teachers flexibility on how in-depth the videoconference really is.
  • Some projects, like Hometown Holidays, require research, connect rigorously to the curriculum, and integrate multiple subject areas and required standards.

Have you experienced this continuum? Where do most of your videoconferences fall along the line? Any other insights to share? Please comment!