Here’s an interesting article on Skype in the Classroom in the School Library Journal.
My question is, who is writing articles on H323 videoconferencing for this journal? They need to know about ASK!!
Jazz as legitimate peripheral participation
Recently I’ve been learning about situated learning. Here are some thoughts connecting situated learning to Jazz.
Lave and Wenger (1991) in their book Situated Learning describe learning within a situation, within a community, as situated learning. A key component of situated learning is “legitimate peripheral participation”, which means that newcomers to a world of knowledge or skill begin by participating with an old-timer (expert learner), and by virtue of that peripheral participation they grow to become an old-timer. The peripheral participation is legitimate in that the relationship is either formalized (i.e. apprentice) or informally understood by expert and newcomer.
In Jazz, 5 lead facilitators each mentor a group of 3-4 facilitators. The lead facilitators organize the activities, delegate tasks such as leading a simulation, preparing materials, and mentor the facilitators in best practice. The work of preparing for the workshop and delivering the workshop is accomplished together. This way the newcomers have “access” to the old-timers and learning occurs as the work is accomplished. Preparation for the workshop includes several meetings beforehand where we walk through the each part of the workshop. During the workshop, newcomers may lead a section, with the lead facilitator on hand in case questions arise. After each day, the facilitators debrief with their lead facilitator. As we talk through how the day went, each facilitator is learning, reflecting, and refining their training practice.
Lave and Wenger suggest that in a learning community, there is a set of relations between the newcomers and old-timers through the cycles of learning. “The community of practice encompasses apprentices, young masters with apprentices, and masters some of whose apprentices have themselves become masters” (p. 57). The learning occurs across the layers of relationships, between near-peers, and across learning cycles (See Figure 2). Within the Jazz Workshop, the knowledgeable skills in facilitation, technology training, and collaborative technology tools move in and across each circle of learning. Everyone contributes to the continual improvement of the workshop and therefore our continued practice of implementing videoconferencing in the curriculum.
Another key component of legitimate peripheral participation is that participation is at first partial, and grows in scope and complexity. A new facilitator often is overwhelmed with the complexity of the workshop and the details to attend. The lead facilitator at first gives the new facilitator simple tasks, such as an introduction to a simulation or a debrief of a simulation using a PowerPoint overview already created. As the new facilitator gains in skill, and relationship builds that the lead facilitators see the skills, the facilitator begins to contribute knowledge, handouts, resources, to improve the quality of the workshop. As they learn the components of the Jazz workshop, they learn the culture of Jazz, the ways we integrate videoconferencing in the curriculum, and the foundational beliefs of constructivist learning and collaboration.
In the first year of facilitating Jazz, the newcomer is getting the big picture or broad view of what the workshop is all about. They have strong goals to learn how the workshop runs. Yet after they have the big picture, the learning can occur rapidly between peers and near-peers as the facilitators compare notes and learn professional development techniques from each other. Lave and Wenger suggest that the effectiveness of the circulation of knowledge among peers may be a condition for the effectiveness of learning (p. 93). Web 2.0 tools such as Skype chat, facilitator blogs, running conversations throughout the year on Twitter all contribute to the circulation of information and knowledge within the Jazz learning community.
What do you think? Are you in a learning community that includes situated learning?
7/8/09 update. Added some pictures!
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June Jazz Evaluation
Just received the evaluation data from the June Jazz workshop last week. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. All 72 participants said they would recommend Jazz to another teacher. I thought one of the open-ended questions on the evaluation form would make a great Wordle.
Please describe the most valuable experience you feel that you had while participating in the 123VC course.
Nice collection of words, isn’t it!? If you participated in Jazz before, feel free to comment with your interpretation.
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Ending Jazz, Ideas for Short MysteryQuests
In Jazz this morning, as we were debriefing from the week, the middle school and high school people really wanted to do MysteryQuest in one class period. Their class periods are 55 or 60 minutes. We brainstormed how it could work:
New Schedule
- 4 groups x 5 min presentations = 20 min. for group presentations
- 15 minutes for research (can use computers from the start)
- SKIP the Q&A and re-evaluate to increase the pressure, make it harder, and make it shorter
- 5 min. sharing guesses
- 5 min. sharing answers
45 min total with 10 minutes lee-way for technical difficulties and transitions.
Tips for shorter preparation time:
- all the sections do the same city/country
- use the same visuals (posters/PowerPoint) for all the sections
Transitions
- put in the prep materials some tips for making fast transitions
- know the schedule and have kids up at the mic ready to go
- when you’re about to present, have some kids taking notes and the others getting ready to go
Whew! What an amazing week of Jazz June 2009. I love this workshop – everyone learns so much! In the words of one of my participants:
I feel very fortunate to be a member of this workshop. It’s like summer camp for adults, and the best part is, our “summer camp” travelled from state to state and overseas!
Well, I must say that I was very intimidated by technology in general. At the beginning of this week. I just thought that I would learn about vc and still let the librarian run the vc’s like in the past. Well, I am excited to say that thanks to Janine, I really will set up the vc. Actually, I have about 8 scheduled for next year. Thank you so much Janine for taking away my vc anxiety and introducing me to so many other online things.
You can review the blog reflections and the Flickr photos of this amazing workshop!
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June Jazz Day 3
3rd day of June Jazz. The week is going too fast!
Roll Calls
- Our roll calls today were just hysterically fun! We had fun cheers from each of the sites. We used @sparky1fan’s Cheer video clips and ideas to prepare.
We had a great time with MysteryQuest Beaches this morning. Everyone shared clues about a beach in their area. We had some very creative presentations, including clues given by Jhiymy Mhiyles, the Bondi Beach “caveman” in Australia (under the “table house”).- We also had a major tech glitch in the middle of one of the presentations. My bridge rebooted and we lost Internet in our room. But after 5 minutes of panic, we were back up and running again and kept going.
Guest Speaker: Global Nomads
- The Global Nomads Pulse simulation on Wed is always a highlight of Jazz for me. We tackled the tough issue of the economy with a discussion of questions such as:
- What would be a possible solution to the global economic crises?
- What other areas or issues have been impacted by the economic crisis?
- What changes have been made in your school due to the economic crisis?
Small Groups
- Small groups worked hard on writing their lessons today. Heard lots of good ideas and look forward to those projects being online.
One more day of instruction and simulations; then sharing projects and the celebration. Love this workshop!
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June Jazz Day 2
2nd day of Jazz all done! Here’s a few thoughts & comments:
Roll Call
- The roll call was really fun again this morning. Wales led it, and waved their flags and wished us “bora da” (good morning in Welsh). Everyone shared their weather forecast for today and the rest of the week, and we shared it in F and C so that Wales could understand the numbers. OH was very creative and included a song and dance!
Finishing up Read Around the Planet
- Yesterday Wales left us early because they had a thunderstorm that knocked out their power. So this morning we took a few moments to hear their Read Around the Planet exchange presentation from yesterday. They shared a very cute puppet show of the story of Billy Goat Gruff and the Baby Troll, complete with puppets and a backdrop!
Math Marvels
- For simulation time today, we solved math problems for Math Marvels. One of the problems involved tomatoes. As we gave the answers, we heard three different pronunciations of tomAtoes, tomahtoes, and tomaters.
Q&A with Wales & BC
- Two of the participants in Wales led our Q&A time. We did a round of asking questions with Wales. Each site asked two questions and then Wales asked them two questions. Then we did another round the same way with British Columbia.
- Nice set up of questions modeled by Dallas – I’m ___ from ____ and in our area _____, what is ______ like in your country?
- Everyone really enjoyed the conversation time with Wales & BC; and we learned about how to ask good questions.
Guest Speakers
- Our guest speakers were NASA DLN (Stennis) and the San Francisco Giants. We had a nice taste of the programs and got a flavor for how interactive their programs are.
Behind the Scenes
- It takes a lot of work and techncial expertise to pull off the connections for the Jazz workshop. Shane, award winning bridge dude at Region 12, TX bridges 8 sites together for guest speaker time. Look how many monitors it takes. The skype chats are for the facilitators to give feedback to Shane or solve problems.
Groups are working well together – there are 11 total groups across my four sites. Looking forward to some great projects on Friday!
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June Jazz 2009: Day 1
First day of the June session of 123 VC: Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with Videoconferencing (aka Jazz). I have nice group of 12 participants from my two counties, and a wide spread of grade levels from Young 5s to High School.
New Roll Call Format
- This year instead of just a video/audio check in the roll call at the beginning of simulations and guest speakers, we beefed up the roll call with more content. Monday we share our location; Tuesday weather; Wednesday a cheer or clap; Thursday local trivia; and Friday what we learned.
- I loved the roll call this morning. Each site had fun visuals about their area as well as a map. I loved the cowboy hat from Hays CISD TX; and the buckeyes from OH. This is a great addition to this workshop!
Exchanges
- In the first simulation participants experience four types of exchanges: Read Around the Planet, Animal Exchange, Community Exchange, and Monster Match.
- I have four high school English teachers who want to VC with Wales for British Lit. They did a Babbles with Bard game show and quizzed our Wales partners on Shakespeare quotes. Very nice! My animal exchange group didn’t just present an animal – they made clues for the other group to guess the animal! Nice modeling of more interactive exchanges. I’m glad to see examples of more than just “presenting” but also actually interacting and engaging the partner class.
Guest Speakers
- Our first guest speaker was Andy Campbell at LearnNCO. His “gross science” is always a hit with the teachers.
- James Tapankov shared The Seven Things. At a minimum, have everyone: Move. Write or Draw. Talk. Share.
Connections
- At least in this June session, we made a concerted effort to have less bridges in the call. The guest speaker time, with all 8 sites connecting together, we used just two bridges – my Tandberg MPS bridge with 4 sites; and Lori’s group on ESC12’s Codian bridge with 4 sites.
- The connection quality with guest speakers is gorgeous this year! (so far).
Whew! A great day, and mostly happy people seeing the possibilities for their curriculum!
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Jazz Tools
While I’m thinking about Jazz this week, I thought it would be fun to make a list of all the tools we use in this workshop. And I probably won’t think of them all! If you know of any I missed, please comment!
Videoconferencing
- H323, Polycom, Tandberg, LifeSize, Codian, etc.
- Skype
- TinyChat
Web 2.0
- Skype
- WordPress
- Wikispaces
- Pbworks
e-Learning
- Moodle
Content Creation
- Camtasia: For video tutorials
- GoogleDocs: Wordprocessing and spreadsheets used extensively
- GoogleSites: For Lead facilitators organization & for small groups final projects
- GoogleMaps: For a map of all participating sites
- GoogeEarth: For a map of all participating sites
What tools are you using in workshops this summer?
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Jazz Workshop Next Week
If you’re following several of us VC geeks on our blogs and Twitter, you’re about to hear a lot this summer about Jazz. So I thought a review of this workshop might be in order.
What is Jazz?
123 VC: Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with Videoconferencing (aka Jazz) is a grassroots workshop spread across three countries. This summer we have 3 weeks of sessions, 3 countries, over 500 participants getting training. To learn more about Jazz, review these links. You can learn what it is and how we work, lead, and learn together.
- Jazz Workshop Website
- History of Jazz
- Web 2.0 as the Vehicle of Community for Jazz
- Leadership Jazz
- The participant projects are posted on CollaborativeVCs.pbworks.com.
JazzIVC Twitter Tag
You can also follow our comments with the #jazzivc twitter hash tag.
Invitation to Comment
Have you participated in the Jazz workshop? Please comment and share you liked best?
Are you participating this summer? Please comment and share what you are looking forward to!
Do you wish you could participate? What questions do you have? Please comment!
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Vacation Pics
If any of you are interested, I’ve posted a few pictures from my Hawaii vacation on my personal website.
