MACUL Session: Friday, 10:00-11:00 a.m.
Presenters: Danielle Letter, Distance Learning Coordinator, Bridgeport-Spaulding Community School District, and Michael Maison, Media/Technology Coordinator, St. Clair County RESA
Connection: Ann Arbor Hands-on Museum

First Alex gave an overview of each of the programs that Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum offers to the students. Ann Arbor sent sample materials from the programs and everyone got a chance to touch the materials and see what they were like.

Then everyone divided into groups to dissect owl pellets. This activity is part of the Owls from the Inside Out program. Participants carefully open up the owl pellet to examine the bones and see what they can identify. Participants found skulls, lower jaw bones, shoulder bones and more. Owls regurgitate about one pellet a day.

Danielle Letter, the teacher presenting this session, talked about how this type of activity would be very difficult to pull together on her own. Because of this, she feels it is worth the $100 it costs for this program.

This building’s principal mandated one videoconference per grade level per month . They have 92 scheduled for the 2006-2007 school year. There are 42 teachers in the building, so about 2 sessions per teacher each year. They are doing lots of projects, NASA programs, Smithsonian programs, and other content providers.

This was a great session. Participants were really involved and excited. Lots of conversation about how to get videoconferencing in their building, who to contact at their ISD to get help with videoconferencing. The enthusiasm was palpable!