MysteryQuest Africa

First MysteryQuest World Geography of the year today. (I still have openings in the March sessions!)

MysteryQuest sessions are really fun to do because the students are so engaged and earnest about their work and learning. My favorite presentation today came from Bell Academy, NY, one of Andrea Israeli’s schools. The students had woven their clues into a mystery story about a special magical object. They even showed it – it looked like a beautiful silver teapot. I was too slow to grab a picture of it, but you can imagine.

At the end, when they revealed the answer of Morocco, we got to meet at student from Morocco and the city that they presented. She shared some information about the what life is like there. What a treat for our students!

We finished early because we lost two schools to snow days and other complications. So we spent some time asking questions at the end. A new question this year was, “What’s the price of gas?” We also had some lively rivalry about football and baseball teams.

Consider participating this year! Kids love MysteryQuest and they get deeply involved in their study of the region and motivated by the competition.

New VC Blog from London

I was delighted to find this blog from the Havering and Redbridge Boroughs of London, UK in my Google Alerts. Welcome, Dave Smith and Anthony Evans, to the VC blogging community!

It appears to be reporting on a partnership between two districts to form their own network and collaborative projects. A quick review of recent posts shows some really cool things happening that we can learn from. The pictures from their Uganda connection are exquisite! Check it out & leave them a comment!

Understanding and Troubleshooting H323 Networks Workshop

I’ve blogged about this Understanding and Troubleshooting H323 Networks workshop from the University of Wisconsin before here and here. It’s excellent. Now they are offering it again and this time via web/phone conference. If you can possibly scrape the dollars together, I highly recommend it for your networking and technical videoconferencing support staff. Even videoconferencing coordinators like me – educators turned MCU support – can gain something from the workshop, especially if you’ve done a lot of connections to sites outside your network and run into strange scenarios.

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.

KC3: Mound Builders

This morning one of my lucky classes is connecting to one of the KC3 programs as part of the competition. Our class is one of the test audiences.

This program is on the Mound Builders and is presented by a school in Oklahoma. Their program included a Moodle site with activities. All of our students got accounts in their Moodle site to participate in the pre activities. I didn’t get to see this, but from what I heard it worked out great.

The videoconference started off with the students in OK asking questions of our students in MI, some of which referred to conversations they’d had ahead of time in Moodle. They talked about the weather, driving to Chicago, sports, snow-mobiling etc.

Dr. Dirt, the lead presenter from OK, drew a name out of a bucket, and threw a t-shirt to Amanda, one of our students. He threw it at the camera, and our teacher threw it to the student. Very funny. The kids really laughed. The t-shirt had the numbers of the student presenters in their basketball team.

After the preliminaries, the students in OK gave a little geography lesson on their state and then moved into the presentation. It included some live presentation from the students, visuals in a PowerPoint, and a taped interview with a local expert on Native Americans. After the video, our students had an opportunity to ask questions, but they didn’t have any.

Next, students learned about excavations and looting that has happened at one of the mounds nearby.  After this, the students divided into three groups already assigned. Within those groups, a person was assigned to be the mapper, the reporter, and the excavator. They had planned to have a jello mold at our site, but it wouldn’t set. So they had to improvise and show the students their jello mold on the document camera. The activity helped students see how excavators and archaeologists map and document everything they find as they carefully excavate.

After this activity, our students talked to the archaeologist who was in the taped interview before and learned about how the jello mold activity is similar to an archaeologist’s actual work. He also talked about what he had learned about the Native Americans who lived in Oklahoma based on his work and research.

After a little blip in the technology, another student shared additional information on how the Spiro people lived along with pictures of artifacts found in one of the mounds. The neat thing about student presentations is the extra humor and interesting questions interspersed throughout the program.

After we got reconnected, the conference went down again due to scheduling on the TN bridge that’s recording this for the KC3 competition. Considering the stresses of the technology, the students in OK did a great job in just keeping on! Our class liked it enough to stick around even though there were difficulties.

At the end, our students asked several questions about the mound builders. Then the OK students asked our kids if they could do a virtual field trip for them and what it could be on. I think it was a stunning question for the kids on our end. But they started to brainstorm some ideas on Michigan. To close, our kids said thank you and all the presenting students got on camera and waved.

This was a neat connection. You could tell the students had built a bit of a relationship ahead of time in Moodle and that definitely made a difference in the interactions, especially at the beginning. I look forward to seeing the results of the KC3 program.

Lit Review: Bridging the Gap Between Formal and Informal Learning: Evaluating the Seatrek Distance Learning Project.

Lit Review: This is a post in a series focusing on the research studies on videoconferencing.

Ba, H., & Keisch, D. (2004). Bridging the Gap Between Formal and Informal Learning: Evaluating the Seatrek Distance Learning Project. Retrieved Febuary 11, 2008, from http://cct.edc.org/report_summary.asp?numPublicationId=177

Author: Harouna Ba and Deborah Keisch
Title of article: Bridging the gap between formal and informal learning: Evaluating the SeaTrek distance learning project.
Publication year: 2004
Source: Center for Children and Technology
My Codes: VCContentProviders

Main Point: This article is an external evaluation of Mote Marine Laboratory’s SeaTrek program.

Methods:
The evaluation study examined “the impact of SeaTrek on students’ perceptions of science as an engaging discipline and student reaction to inquiry-based learning approaches” as well as how the project is usable within school settings. p. 1.

Data was collected via interviews, focus groups, observations and surveys from two Florida schools that participate in the project. The schools have different profiles. Observations were collected on seven sessions at the schools, and three sessions from SeaTrek. Online surveys were send to all educators who had participated in SeaTrek programs.

The data was anaylzed for emergent themes to provide a detailed report of the experiences.

The qualitative study cannot be expected to be representative of the target population, nor can them be generalized to the entire population of SeaTrek teachers, not to mention teachers connecting to content providers in general.

Findings:
The programs seemed to target teachers with a high level of technology access and literacy. Maybe not target, but those are the teachers most likely to use these programs and probably more likely to fill out a survey about it. In addition, there was generally a “school-based Instructional Technology Facilitator” who worked with the teachers and with Mote Marine. Sound familiar?! There’s the critical role of the coordinator again!

Teachers felt that the videoconferences motivated students to learn more about how scientists work, and increased their interest in science. The instructional materials helped them better understand the field of science (p. 5).

Some of the teachers found the materials really helpful for helping the students learn, and other didn’t. The reviews were mixed on this. Maybe because some teachers find time to use the materials as a preparation for the VC, and others don’t. p. 9 The teachers who used the materials to prepare were enthusiastic about the program as a whole. Interesting lesson on preparation isn’t it?!

The evaluation contains specifics on preferences for this program over that program, and teachers’ reactions to the materials.

Teachers reported scheduling as a critical factor. They need to schedule programs when they are studying the program not whenever the provider can offer it. The teachers wanted to pick their own time slots for the programs. It sounds like SeaTrek used to schedule their programs in sequence and schools participated in several in a row. Now you can mostly schedule them when you want if they aren’t booked up already.

The program offers students a chance to interact with real scientists which is highly motivating for students and encourages their interest in science. Sounds like a worthy result to me!

Issues to address included scheduling, age appropriateness of programs, identity of the content provider. That’s an interesting one. I see the evaluations come in from my teachers and they often forget which place is offering the program. Hmm. What are the implications for content providers? These results would be helpful to all content providers hoping to improve their programs.

It’s interesting that the study recommended the content provider provide more tech support to schools. This one is interesting too. Can content providers really do that?

Author/Audience: This report was written as an evaluation for Mote Marine and I’m sure they used it as a tool to continue improving their programs. It’s posted online so we can learn from it too.

Cross References: This is quoted in the new textbook on videoconferencing by Newman, Silverman, etc, but not in the Alberta Lit Review or any of the earlier ones, because it wasn’t published yet.

Questions/Thoughts:
I wonder how many other content providers have commissioned this type of evaluation and if it’s posted online.

I like the title – the idea that content providers bring informal learning to the classroom formal learning.

Relevance: This article is right on target for my literature review of curriculum videoconferencing and the videoconferences described are targeted to a K-12 audience.

Kid2Kid Videoconference Connections Starts Feb. 11

If you are interested in doing collaborative projects, you may want to join my online class, Kid2Kid Videoconference Connections, starting up on February 11. Get assistance planning and implementing a videoconference collaboration from start to finish! Discounts available for bulk purchases. Click the link for more details. Hope you can join us!

ASK Author: Trapped in Ice

08-02-05trapped.jpgToday we’ve had four sessions of ASK with Canadian author Eric Walters. This program is the fulfillment of about 3 years of trying to find a book and author or specialist for our 6th grade students who study Canada. I am ever grateful to Gillian Patrick of York Region District School Board in Ontario for partnering with us to make this ASK program a success. We split the cost of the author, and they hosted him at one of their schools, and we shared the sessions between our schools. A great partnership!

The students read Eric’s book Trapped in Ice and prepared for the conference using the ASK process. Eric definitely beat the records of all our other authors and specialists, averaging about 65 questions per session. Incredible!

  • In the book, the children were shielded from bad news. When you were growing up, did your parents not tell you something you wanted to know?
  • How would the story be different if they had a metal boat instead of a wooden boat?
  • What is the most challenging part of writing a historical fiction book?
  • Who designed the cover and how did they do it?
  • Why did you decide to write historical stories?
  • Why did you pick Helen to narrate the story?
  • Do you like your book or do you wish you could go back and touch it up?
  • Do you have advice for us when we’re writing our stories in class?
  • How did you choose and develop the characters in the book?
  • Have you ever disagreed with an editor?
  • Do you have any books with characters based on you?
  • Do you use a graphic organizer to write out your books?

Students learned about the writing process and some Canadian history with many laughs and jokes interspersed throughout the program. I look forward to hearing feedback from my schools and I’m sure we’ll be doing program again in the future.

In the words of a teacher

I’m running the Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections class again. Here’s a comment you’ll enjoy. This from Karen Ennesser, Dowagiac Middle School, who participated in Eco-Conversations in December. Dowagiac Middle School is one of our RUS grant buildings too.

I personally feel that every school should use VC. The benefits to my special education and Title 1 students were absolutely amazing! They played a big part in drawing the backgrounds…and felt very successful! These students were on equal ground with the “A Students” and did a better job!! It had an educational impact on EVERY student that I teach!

I hear this often – the impact that VC (and even just technology in general) has on special ed students. We need to keep collecting these stories and comments on the impact that curriculum videoconferencing has on our students.

Polycom's New Lost Packet Algorithm

It’s been quiet here because I’m living RAP matching night and day at the moment. But…. check this out!

Wainhouse Research has just reviewed Polycom’s new Lost Packet Recovery capability that’s included in the new HDX units. It’s propietary right now, but Polycom is pushing the industry to accept this as a standard. It sure would be helpful in some of my districts!! I hope it comes out soon on the VSX 7000s!

Is Synchronous Distance Learning Worth the Trouble?

Roxanne’s post on the Face Time article in THE Journal reminded me that I wanted to blog about it. The article covers collaborative videoconferences such as Read Around the Planet and Monster Match, as well as the new Collaborations Around the Planet site. Overall it’s a great article, and you should read it.

I, however, wanted to express my angst on how the article ended. It closed with this from an e-learning vendor (emphasis mine):

Real-time communication technologies like videoconferencing, Ericson points out, require synchronous interactions, which rob users of one of the most valuable qualities of web-based networking: the ability to time shift—to interact with others whether or not they’re online with you at the same time. E-mail, blogs, and wikis all allow for time-shifted interactions; online chat rooms and virtual communities such as Second Life require you be there at the same time as those with whom you are communicating.

“One of the big advantages of virtual education and learning,” Ericson says, “is that you can do things on demand, when you want to. We do believe that chatting and videoconferencing have a place. But in our model, it’s not as valuable as allowing students to participate in the community on their own terms, whenever and wherever they are. The idea of forcing a synchronous model, where everyone is on at the same time, well, that’s what a classroom is for.”

!!!!

First of all, you should know that not only am I crazy about VC, I also have taught nine different online classes several times each since 1999. I am taking two online classes right now, and will start teaching two next week. I love the reflection and thoughtfulness in online classes.

But, I don’t think it’s fair to compare synchronous vs. asynchronous distance learning and say one is “more valuable” than another. I also think it is definitely not fair to have a vendor with a vested interest in asynchronous distance learning critique the synchronous medium.

So, here’s the question for you. Is synchronous distance learning like videoconferencing worth the trouble? Is it worth staying up in the evening to connect to places half way around the world?

I can think of a few benefits to real-time – besides the learning that goes on – think of these:

  • motivation
  • enthusiasm
  • engagement levels (think of the posture when kids watch a video vs. participate in an interactive VC)
  • accents & dress differences (can’t see that in a discussion board)
  • body language & face time
  • the feeling of being together and connecting (they are the same as us!)

When I read Roxanne’s list of Read Around the Planet ideas I was encouraged. I’m deep in the challenges of dealing with the RAP leftovers. The ideas reminded me of the kids’ enthusiasm in these events. When you’re tired and stressed with too many videoconferences to suppport, think of the kids. When you get all your matches next week and have a ton of RAP test calls to do, think of the kids. When you’re frustrated with the pain of scheduling, think of the kids. Imagine the faces of the kids in the last VC you did.

What do YOU think? Please comment. Is synchronous distance learning worth the trouble? Why?