Listening to High School Teachers

This evening I did an ASK workshop for my local teachers. I had two high school English teachers in attendance. They’ve come to other workshops on videoconferencing. One of them has done a couple ASK programs; the other wants to but hasn’t found the right fit yet.

After the workshop, we talked for quite a while about the situation in their school and their wishes for a videoconference for their curriculum. I realized again that we cannot just be frustrated with teachers who won’t use videoconferencing. We have to listen to their concerns and situations and see if there is an appropriate, helpful way to integrate videoconferencing in their curriculum. And if there isn’t, we should accept that!

Some of the concerns were:

  • New schedule. The school switched this year from a block schedule to trimesters. This is a huge jump and is causing all kinds of frustrations.
  • New curriculum. The updated state curriculum has ramifications for their curriculum. In addition, due to the trimesters they are teaching classes they didn’t teach before.
  • Less prep time. With the new schedule and new curriculum, they are also dealing with less prep time! More preps of new classes crammed into a smaller amount of time.

With challenges like that, who would even consider using VC? However, these teachers see the value. They are struggling though to see how to fit it into already crammed schedules.

So I asked some questions. I think the most important question was, “what do you already do to teach that curriculum”? In this case, British literature. In the course of the conversation, I discovered the students act out scenes from Shakespeare’s play. Voila! Here’s a perfect way to insert a videoconference. The students will already act out scenes. Just add a videoconference to up the ante with an outside audience. We’re hoping for UK or Canada when we get around to scheduling this. The students will already be practicing the performance.

We also discussed how stressed and freaked out high school kids are when they do collaborative connections. It’s really hard for them. I remember an 8th grade class last week in an ASK program. I overhead a kid saying, This is really creepy, before they muted the microphone. Creepy! How do you get kids to overcome their fear and concern about the videoconference? It’s different with high school kids! There’s this whole “body image” thing going on that’s really tough for kids.

So in our discussion we came up with this idea for an agenda:

  • Introductions
  • Insults – both classes prepare 5 Shakespearean insults for the other class. The two classes share insults back and forth – one from each class at at time. This should break the ice and get them laughing and more at ease.
  • Scenes. Then the classes share scenes from a Shakespeare play. We’ll have to see how long the scenes are and how many can be shared in one class period.
  • Question & answer. It’s critical to include the “fun” questions. They want to know about each other: what they do for fun, what music they like, etc.

What do you think? How do you listen to the teachers you serve?

MysteryQuest World Geography

It’s time to sign up for MysteryQuest World Geography. I have less openings this year, so hurry!

If you want to see examples of past MysteryQuest presentations, browse through the MysteryQuest category on my blog.

Hope you can join us this year!

Videoconference Jokes

When I used to teach Word, Excel, email, etc. workshops, I had a PowerPoint of technology jokes that I’d run before the session started.

I’ve wished for a while that I had a set of videoconference jokes to do the same. But there aren’t that many online that are appropriate for educational use.

Here’s one that I found once (the original source is no longer online):

Video Conference Pranks
Arrange with everyone in the room to freeze and quit talking all at the same moment.
Look directly into the camera and move your lips as if speaking, but make no noise.
Have someone off-camera talk while someone of the opposite gender lip-syncs on-camera.

Wainhouse Research Forums include a forum for videoconference humor.

Do you know of any appropriate VC jokes? Comment & share.

Short on Bandwidth? Problem or Dilemma?

Do any of your schools struggle with managing bandwidth so that videoconferences can happen? Mine do. I was reading Doug Johnson’s blog, and realized that his post Problem or Dilemma may assist with this issue:

[Dilemmas are] conditions that can only be managed, not solved because they involve conflicts in values. Because of individual priorities and “problem frames,” it is impossible to deal with these issues so that everyone gets what she/he desires. So how are these situations best dealt with? Personally, I like using my advisory committee (or a task force) comprised of all stakeholders effected to fully air the issue, suggest actions, and make a recommendation. Does everyone always like the result? No. But everyone knows why it has been made and has had a chance to have had their concerns heard.

Read the full post. How is bandwidth a dilemma? I have schools where they make an announcement (or send an email) for everyone to stay off their computers from 9:00-10:00 or whenever because a videoconference is going on. That’s pretty extreme, and those of you lucky enough to have fiber would never dream of such a situation. But it happens. In another district, due to internal networking, three schools have to stay offline to do a videoconference! Do you think these schools see videoconferencing as something they want to do on a daily or weekly basis? Certainly not! Just enough to meet the requirements of the RUS grant, or just enough to satisfy those teachers interested in using it. Just imagine the feeling about videoconferencing in these buildings! Having a conversation as Doug described is certainly one great way to get everyone involved in the issue.

What other ideas do you have?

It's all in the hat!

This afternoon I called one of my schools that hadn’t signed up yet for RAP and I thought they should have. The media specialist had a teacher staff meeting focusing on tech planned for this evening. She hadn’t asked me to present yet and thought I couldn’t fit it in. Luckily I could.

So on the spur of the moment, I connected for 5 minutes and gave the run down on Read Around the Planet. How it’s fun to tell Texas about snow, and how easy the presentation can be. Of course, I never talk about RAP without my hat on. They wanted to know about the costume, etc.  Lots of giggles and laughs.

Then I asked who wanted to sign up and half the teachers did! Voila! A few more registrations to hurry and get in before the deadline tomorrow.

A visual is a powerful thing! Especially when you can set teachers at ease with a little humor and encouragement!

How did you get YOUR teachers to sign up for RAP this year?

Lit Review: Site facilitator roles in videoconferencing: Implications for training

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

Wakefield, C. K. (1999). Site facilitator roles in videoconferencing: Implications for training. Unpublished Ed.D., University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH.

Author: Wakefield, Carman Kay
Title of dissertation: Site facilitator roles in videoconferencing: Implications for training.
Publication year: 1999
Database source: ProQuest Dissertation Abstracts
My Codes: VCImplementation, VCCourseDelivery

Main Point: Site facilitators are critical to successful videoconferencing of all kinds. They need specific traits and skills, and they need on-the-job training or job-shadowing as the ideal form of training.

Definitions: “The site facilitator, for the purpose of this study, is the support person that is in the videoconferencing room along with the main speaker.”

Methods & Findings: The study compares site facilitators’ views of their role with that of the “larger distance learning community” and finds the implications for site facilitator training.

The researcher interviewed via email 27 site facilitators to learn about their responsibilities, their position, their routine, required skills, training, and how they would train someone else for the same position.

The five major roles that emerged from the first part of the study were technical expert, instructional assistant, liaison, scheduler, and trainer/consultant.

There is some evidence that the study included site facilitators who use vc for more than traditional course delivery. “I look for ways to make use of our facility through electronic field trips, meeting other schools, etc.” p. 33. Also p. 39, the main purpose for the use of the room ranged from meetings (top) and guest speakers (next) to courses in the middle to research at the bottom. Definitely a broad set of purposes and uses in this research.

They felt the best way to learn the job was “by job shadowing and on-the-job training.” p. 35.

The follow up questionnaire was sent to a group of distance learning professionals who were “in charge” of their ITV systems. They came from public, private, government, higher education, K12, medical fields, vendors, conference centers,the military and more. 83 responses were collected from the listserv.

There’s a nice set of trait words ranked in this order for what would be important: reliable, problem solver, technology literate, not easily panicked, organized, friendly, great communicator, flexible. Those are the top 8.

Literature Referenced
Many studies are referenced as to the critical role of the site facilitator and the lack of administrative/funding support of this position.

Author/Audience:

Cross References:

Questions/Thoughts:

Site facilitators thought it was important to be patient and not easily panicked! “This  is, for all practical purposes, a customer service position.” p. 58.

There is need for “follow-up support when learning this position.” p. 59. It can’t be just a one-shot vendor training.

Key components for training & support of the site facilitator:

  • manuals / reference for problems
  • videoconference etiquette
  • someone to call if they have trouble
  • informed of instructional resources and how to use them
  • registration and policies and procedures
  • emphasis on communication skills, patience, a positive attitude and politeness
  • scheduling procedures and all the limitations etc. of the room/equipment
  • access to the calendar
  • preferably some knowledge of VC literature
  • ability to train the instructor

Relevance: This study is about site facilitators for all areas, not specifically on K12. However many of the principles seem to apply to the K12 videoconference coordinator supporting mainly curriculum videoconferencing.

The Journey From Alert to Research Notes

This past summer, I began searching for dissertations on my research topic, videoconferencing in K12 education. I began at the Andrews’ library page (link www.andrews.edu/library), went to List All Databases, and selected Dissertation Abstracts. After some searches, I found that the term “videoconferencing” was getting the best results. Then I noticed a button that shows up after you search: “Set Up Alert.” Since I’d learned about alerts from Dr. Covrig in Orientation, I clicked it. I forgot all about it until November, when I received two “alert” emails from ProQuest telling me about really important dissertations that are very applicable to my topic!

Now I’m sold on alerts. I’ve since dug out Dr. Covrig’s alerts instructions from Orientation and set up alerts at all the major sites listed. I’ve signed up fairly broadly, because articles about my topic show up in all sorts of places. Usually at the beginning of the week or month, I get an email announcement that I quickly scan.

If something sounds interesting, I click the URL and open it up. I open it up in Internet Explorer because I have Firefox set up as my regular browser, and Internet Explorer (IE) with the Andrews proxy. When I use IE, I’m “on campus”. If I really like the article/dissertation, I export the reference to Endnotes and save the full text PDF to my Full Text Folder for my research. My Full Text Folder is organized with file names like the start of an APA reference, i.e. Lastname2007MyOwnWordsorPiecesofTitle.pdf. Then when I get around to it, I read and blog the article as my research notes.

Join a short term learning community around curriculum videoconferencing

It’s time to think about signing up for my online classes if you want to participate in the next couple months.

Interested in using videoconferencing to enhance your curriculum? Want to do more classroom to classroom connections with ideas & support? Interested in research supporting curriculum-based videoconferencing? Try one of these classes.

  • All classes are open to everyone, and usually attended by participants across the country, and even sometimes internationally.
  • All of the classes are instructor led and based on discussion and interaction with the other participants.
  • Bulk discounts are available. Feel free to use this flyer for advertising.

Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections
An introduction to videoconferencing, content providers and projects.
Dates: January 28 – February 22, 2008
Time commitment: Plan to spend about 3-5 hours per week on the course.
Cost: $150 (bulk discounts available for group purchases)
Target audience: Designed for teachers, media specialists, and distance learning coordinators.

Kid2Kid Videoconference Connections
An in-depth six week class focusing on collaborative projects. You’ll receive assistance creating, advertising and implementing a collaborative project with another classroom.
Dates: February 11 – March 21, 2008
Time commitment: Plan to spend about 3-5 hours per week on the course.
Cost: $200 (bulk discounts available for group purchases)

BCISD Cancellation Policy: Refunds for any workshop will be made only if the BCISD is notified two (2) business days before the start of the activity.

Registration: Register with our registration secretary by calling (269) 471-7725 ext 149. Payment by credit card is preferred; however school P.O.s are accepted as well.

Check out the course web sites for additional information. We’d love to have you join us for either of these exciting courses!