Read Around the Planet Day 10

Rural Hall kids teach their partner class in MI about the rainforest. Photo Credit: Linda McDermon.

Well, it’s the last official day of Read Around the Planet, a bitter sweet ending. I’m sad because RAP is an amazing two weeks, but I’m glad because now I can rest a bit!

As usual, it’s not really over! I had 70 Read Around the Planet sessions, and 56 of them are finished successfully. But I still have the reschedules:

  • 9 between now and the end of March (remember March is Reading Month!)
  • 5 that are still working on rescheduling

Here are some tips for rescheduling:

  • Reply to everyone involved!
  • Start by suggesting some dates and times.
  • Texas has spring break March 15-19 (I only mention because there are 400+ classes from TX doing RAP this year, so your odds of having a RAP with TX are pretty high.)
  • If you have a UK connection, don’t forget about daylight savings time! During March 14-28, US EST is only 4 hours off of UK time; not the usual 5!
  • Be patient and persistent! March is Reading Month! We’ve even had some RAP connections all the way into May! It’s ok. Just follow through with your partner!

And of course, don’t forget to do the evaluation!

Read Around the Planet Day 9

Day 9 of Read Around the Planet and I had 13 connections today – we went to NY, TX, PA, VA, and Alberta, Canada.

Pictures

Here are a few snapshots from today’s connections.


A skit about red riding hood. Lots of great props and costumes in the VCs today.

I love this background. It says: We (heart) Michigan.

One of our partner classes couldn’t hear us. So I switched to my computer (which was hooked up from MysteryQuest last week) and started writing to them to trouble shoot. It got solved in time!

Evaluation

Did you get the email about the RAP 2010 Evaluation form? Please make sure you complete it! This data helps provide continued support for the project!

Preliminary Report

The final RAP report will include the evaluation data, but an initial report of numbers is now posted on the TWICE Read Around the Planet website. Check it out here.

Read Around the Planet Day 8: Evaluation Strategies

RAP picture posted on Flickr and tagged RAP2010 by Linda McDermon (also in the Kid2Kid class).

So, how are you evaluating your Read Around the Planet connections?

One of my RAP teachers is also taking the Kid2Kid Videoconference Connections class. In this class, participants end by evaluating the experience. The teachers tell how they evaluated the students’ learning, and how they evaluated the VC with the students. Here is an answer from Nichole Dohm, Eagle Lake Elementary:

Monday morning was my videoconference with Moorhead Minnesota. The conference went well and the students really enjoyed themselves. Today I passed out a quiz on the information presented at the videoconference to evaluate what exactly my students learned from the videoconference experience.

The second activity I gave my students was a self evaluation rubric. We had discussed during our planning the expectations I had of each group before and during the videoconference. This rubric went along with the expectations discussed. My student did very well on the quiz that I gave them with simple recall of facts presented by the other school. A large part of my preparation was focused on “active listening”, so the recall of facts was a quick way to check if they were engaged.

I also asked students what they would like to do next for a videoconference. I was amazed by the enormous amount of feedback this question elicited. I had suggestions ranging from author studies, monster books, Tall Tales, and connecting with new and different schools. I was so excited to see their enthusiasm shine through the project.

Are you evaluating your RAP connections? In what ways?

Read Around the Planet: Celebrating Dr. Seuss

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

We’ve had so many Read Around the Planet connections in the last few days! How about you? To celebrate, I’ll share some pictures and favorite RAP tweets.

Some Pictures

Some Favorite RAP Tweets

  • @jodie_tech: New York school just asked us “do you eat a lot of beans” haha. #RAP2010
  • @mcdermon: RAP – Rural Hall, NC & Dallas, TX – photos @ http://moourl.com/RAP #RAP2010 — it’s Dr. Seuss’ birthday!
  • @amindthought: 12 RAPS down and 4 to go…thanks so much to TWICE for making this all possible! #RAP2010
  • @lcolwill: My group is an afterschool group and they are so excited. They are doing a skit about a Guatemala news event. #RAP2010
    Our kids just asked the Guatemalan students “Do you watch American Idol?” LOL #RAP2010
  • @lcolwill: My school is doing a cheer after every student presentation by the remote site. Very cute. #RAP2010

A Great Question

  • @lcolwill: Tchr communication btwn partners is such a challenge. How can we make it better? #RAP2010

What do you think? Have you had teacher communication issues this year? How are you solving it? What would help make it better?

MysteryQuest Feedback: Impact on Students

This month we had several MysteryQuest sessions, with the last session today. Here’s a great story:

One class had a really cool game show, and in passing, one of the participating teachers told me that their students loved the voice of the game show host.

I passed on the feedback to the game show host’s teacher, only to find out that this student is usually bullied and ostracized by the students in his class. The feedback from the audience class meant so much to that student!

Lesson: Compliment the students who present and interact in your collaborations! It means so much to them!!

If you want to participate in a MysteryQuest type session – we have several coming up in April and May: HistoryQuest8, MysteryQuest USA, and HistoryQuest5. Hope you can join us!

Read Around the Planet Day 4

It’s the fourth day of Read Around the Planet. Classes are still working hard on their presentations and asking great questions of their partners. Here are a few highlights of today:

Interaction

Today we had some great examples of how to get the other class involved in the presentation. It’s nice to see classes move beyond the simple two presentation format, and build in more interaction.

  • One school had skits of fairy tales: the partner school had to guess which fairy tale the skit was based on.
  • Another school shared information about famous people, followed by a quiz question on what was just presented.
  • Another school had a graph of their favorite Dr. Seuss books, and they asked our students questions about the graph.

Community Pictures

Many of the classes are sharing great maps and visuals about their community. Here are some pictures shared from E. P. Clarke Elementary in St. Joseph, MI.

Waiting…

Today I had my first connection that took 20 minutes to solve the technical problem. While the class was waiting, I put on my hat to show the students. I showed them our snow out the window also. The students waited so patiently, and the interaction ended up being a great experience.

Hope your RAP connections continue to go well! Feel free to comment if you have additional insights!

Read Around the Planet Day 2 and 3

Read Around the Planet continues with some amazing connections, and great prep work by students and teachers alike! Here are some more highlights:

Backgrounds

Usually I see the amazing backdrops or sets in the MysteryQuest sessions. But one of my schools is going all out for Read Around the Planet this year. It’s their first year, but the school has a Jazz grad, and a PICC grad, so they are well trained. Several of the classes are doing similar presentations, so they have the visuals incorporated into their back drop. Check it out:

Doesn’t that look sharp?! What tips do you have for visuals?

Encouraging Teachers

I have realized again that a very important role of the VC coordinator is the encourager for the teacher. Teachers doing a videoconference for the first time tend to be anxious about it. You can:

  • Listen to their great ideas for their presentation
  • Help them with visuals & testing the document camera / computer set up
  • Reassure them when they haven’t heard from their partner teacher (if the test call happened; they are planning on it!)
  • Let them know their preparation plans are great and that it will be a great learning experience

Rescheduling Etiquette

One of the fun challenges of Read Around the Planet is rescheduling. Snow days have knocked out quite a few connections this year, as well as the usual family illness, jury duty, etc. Here are some tips on rescheduling:

  • Give the Reason: When you need to request a rescheduling, be sure to tell the reason why you need to reschedule.  People are pretty frustrated about rescheduling if you don’t give a reason. However, if you have a legitimate reason like illness or a death in the family or jury duty, etc. then they are generally happy to accommodate you.
  • Be Specific: When emailing to reschedule, be really specific to speed the process. Tell all the dates and times that you can do within the next 3-4 weeks. Then they can pick a date from that list & you’re done!
  • CC everyone involved: Be sure to CC teachers, school VC coordinators, and any regional service staff involved in the connect so everyone knows what is happening. Use the Reply to All feature of your email program!

Double Classes

Sometimes your partner teacher might cancel on you. Frustrating for sure, but what can you do? This morning, one of our partner classes had two classes in the videoconference. They graciously explained the situation to us, and my teacher was totally fine with it. This way all three classes were able to participate in their RAP connection. If you do this, be sure to explain to the partner class so they aren’t stressed or anxious about the large number of students they see on their screen!

Your Turn

How are your Read Around the Planet connections going? Running into any issues? How are you solving them?

ISTE 2010 Conference: Videoconference Sessions

Are you going to ISTE 2010 this year? Here is a tantalizing list of videoconference sessions. Hope to see you there! I hear rumor also that there will be a videoconferencing playground. Should be fun!!

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Monday, June 28, 2010

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Did I miss any? Please comment and let me know.

  • Which session(s) are YOU looking forward to?

Read Around the Planet Day 1

Today is the first day of Read Around the Planet 2010! We have 70 classes participating. The total project participants is 1950 this year! The next couple weeks, I’ll be sharing some of highlights from each day.

Rescheduling

We started the day by putting four of our ten videoconferences today in the reschedule pile. Snow days knocked out 3 of the connections, and family illness made another one necessary to reschedule. One of the four is already rescheduled. We still want to meet with our partners!

Snapshots of Sharing

Sharing an ABC book

In a third grade connection this morning, the teachers began by comparing today’s weather. It’s always fun to compare weather when we are loaded up with snow and it’s 70 degrees in Texas.

Both classes shared a state ABC book, which fits nicely into the communities and regions curriculum for both classes.

  • Texas: A is for the Alamo; B is for bluebonnet, the state flower; C is for Davy Crockett…
  • Michigan: A is for apple blossom, the state flower; B is for blue trout; C is for capital of Michigan: Lansing…
Student drawing of the apple blossom, Michigan's state flower

The Q&A part is always fun:

  • TX asked our kids: Do you go outside at recess? Only if it’s above 10. In TX, they don’t go outside if it’s below 30.
  • MI Q: What makes your community unique? A: Everybody knows everybody.

This pair of teachers had prepared questions and sent them to each other ahead of time. Students at both sides read questions and answers ahead of time, and even prepared some visuals to go with the answers.

Using the document camera to share snow pictures

In another connection today, we were also matched with a class in Texas. Our class shared pictures of putting on snow pants and coats to go outside to play in the snow; and then pictures of playing outside in the snow – on the swings, on the slide, and making snow angels.

Sometimes interruptions happen. During our 1st grade connection, one of our students lost a tooth! Our teacher apologized for the disruption and the classes kept right on going.

In that same connection, teachers had split up the lines of Green Eggs and Ham and traded off reading the lines back and forth in a choral reading format. Great interaction and involvement on both sides.

Favorite RAP Tweets

I’ve also been following the tweets about RAP2010 this year. You can follow the #RAP2010 hash tag, or check the twitter fountain. Here are some of my favorites from today:

  • Hairynomas: Just overheard our schools teachers setting up a Pen Pals collaboration between their classes. Gotta Lov RAP! #RAP2010
  • Hairynomas: Another RAP Pen Pal match between classes. The RAP project is like the cupid arrow of collaborations this year. #RAP2010
  • CherylTice: i’m in my office all day and have lots of books, so if there’s a class that needs a #RAP2010 partner & no one else can, i will do it 🙂
  • LColwill: Watching Q & A. Students from VA just asked if we ride horses to school? LOL! #RAP2010

It’s going to be a fun two weeks. Read Around the Planet weeks are my favorite time of year. It’s awesome to listen to all the great learning and sharing that happens in all the connections!

Dragging Participants from "Entry Queue" to Conference

I just figured out something on my Tandberg bridge, and have been urged by VC friends to share. So here goes.

Background

I have had a Tandberg MPS 200 and Tandberg Management Suite since 2005. When we purchased our infrastructure, Tandberg didn’t have the Border Controller. So we do not have one.

I have written before about my struggles dialing other schools who are “off  my network” and “not on my dial plan.” For example:

Since most of my calls are off network, I cannot run my videoconference program without the ability to have people dial into just an IP address of the bridge and drop into a conference or get dragged into the conference where they belong. Because of that, I have not been using my Tandberg Management Suite, because it will randomly assign conferences into conference 1, and I need to keep conference 1 open for the people who can’t dial into conferences and who I can’t call from my bridge (for technical reasons).

But, last week I just figured out a way around this conundrum. Here’s how I have it set up.

Disclaimer: I totally understand that I’m not using this the way Tandberg designed it or prefers that we use VC. However, I need to be able to have schools outside my network connect to my bridge, so this is what I figured out.

Default Conference 1 & Scheduled Conference 1

  • On the bridge, a long time ago we telnetted into the MCU and set the default conference to conference 1. (Ask your tech support for the exact info as I don’t have it anymore.)
  • The MCU is set up with single dial in OFF. This means that there is no entry queue. If someone dials the IP of the MCU, they drop into conference 1.

Now, what I figured out two weeks ago, is that I can set up a conference from TMS to start at 8 am and close at 4:30 every school day from now until the end of the school year. Since nothing else was scheduled when I started, that reserved conference 1 for the rest of the school year. I made the conference with 4 dial-ins, so when I have a MysteryQuest like yesterday where 4 out of 5 classes had to just dial the bridge IP, there is lots of room for them.

This set up then allows me to schedule all my other conferences as normal with TMS.

Dragging Over

So, whenever someone can’t get into the right conference or I can’t dial out to them, they drop into conference 1.

Then, I use the MCU web interface (instead of TMS) to drag that participant over to the conference where they belong. See the screenshot below. It’s under the Change tab (shown), and then I select other open conferences from the menu (not shown).

Other Dialing Notes / Disadvantages

Now there are some ramifications to setting it up this way; but dialing just the IP to get into the bridge is worth it for me.

  • Codian MCUs can call in with my MCU IP as a gateway and using the conference alias.
  • I have to call other Tandberg MCUs; haven’t figured out how to get them in.
  • Tandberg endpoints can’t call into my conferences. They drop into conference 1 and I drag them over; or I dial out to them.
  • Polycom endpoints can call in with the IP## format. Since it seems Polycom has about 70% of the K12 market that I connect with, this format works well. (Numbers from 2010 Read Around the Planet statistics.)
  • The Polycom RMX & MGC can call in with the IP and the extension in the party alias field.
  • I haven’t yet run into a LifeSize unit that I need to connect, so I’m not sure on those.
  • I have my gatekeeper set up with GDS, so I can easily place and receive calls with anyone else who is on GDS.

Other MCUs

The ability to “rescue” participants who can’t get into the right conference is one of the most important features I check when I consider purchasing an MCU. I need a bridge that can help me make calls that don’t work point to point.

Codian: Right now, as far as I understand it, only the Codian actually has a built in feature to drag participants from the entry queue to the conference where they below. To me, that’s a big score for the Codian MCU; hopefully Tandberg won’t consider that a “hack” and take it away in future software revisions.

Tandberg: Now I’ve figured out this major work-around for the Tandberg MPS. Yay!

Polycom: As far as I understand, you can’t do this with the Polycom RMX. And of course the MGC (if set up the old way instead of with meeting rooms) uses the IP address of the incoming participant to drop the participant into the right conference.

Please Comment & Read the Comments

I don’t claim to be a certified videoconferencing technician, and am still learning how to make my calls work. Please comment and share additional information and opinions. I realize there are majorly differing views on this situation. So be sure to check the comments to get any additional information or views on this issue.