Getting ready for another session of “Jazz” next week. So I just finished posted the group projects from the June Jazz session on the Collaborative VCs wiki. Check them out! We had a small group in June, so only four projects. Stay tuned for projects from next week where we have 13 groups!
This morning I remotely presented a workshop for NECC: Designing Quality Interactive Projects for Videoconferencing (this second link goes to the handouts too). We had a full crowd with 30 participants onsite in Atlanta, and 4 participants onsite here in my distance learning room.
I wanted to model this year’s NECC workshop after the Mini-Jazz workshops I’ve done with Roxanne this past year. So after a short introduction to videoconferencing and what you can do with it, we divided into groups and everyone got on camera and introduced their group. In the process, I was able to provide some extra instruction on how to do posters well! 🙂 One group had wonderfully thick fat writing and their poster was so easy to read.
Then we talked through the latest version of my projects booklet, with stories and video clips along the way. I had emailed the participants ahead of time, and some of them had done Kid2Kid connections, so I had them share their stories sprinkled through as we looked through the booklet. It was neat to have everyone hear from someone other than just me!
After a break, I divided them into groups and had them dream up a project idea, pick a potential month and time, and share their ideas on a poster. Here’s where it gets really crazy! I created a GoogleDocs file with all the participants information so they can network with each other after the workshop. I had invited them ahead of time; and about half of them had gone in and added more details about themselves. In the same file, I had another sheet to collect their ideas. As they presented, I recorded the following:
After each presentation, then I asked “who wants to do this with them?” I wrote down their first names, and since we already have all the contact for everyone in the first sheet, they’ll be able to contact each other and actually do the project. I’m really getting into the whole idea of follow-up and creating structures for people to actually implement their ideas. I was concerned that GoogleDocs would be too much of a stretch and just one more thing. But they jumped right in and some were editing right along with me as I recorded the project ideas. It worked well way beyond what I imagined! Those that couldn’t get in during the workshop will work with me via email to get set up. And I’m hoping (not promising!) to email everyone in the fall with reminders of their idea and who their partners are.
I’m much more pleased about how this year’s workshop went compared to last year, and I think the participants got more of what they were hoping for as well. I look forward to seeing these connections actually happen next year!
Another day of Jazz, and great learning happening. It’s so neat to see the progress of the participants and their new found comfort with videoconferencing and collaborative web tools. Today’s hit was definitely Flickr, with participants naming pictures and writing captions beneath them. My group in particular sure had a lot of fun with this today.
We also had a lot of fun with MysteryQuest Beaches, the professional development version of the various MysteryQuests: World Geography, MQ USA, Where in Michigan, Texas History Mystery, Fairy Tale Challenge, and LiteratureQuest. Our group chose Cleopatra’s Beach, and just before time was up to start presenting, we realized we had conflicting information on where it really was! We gave some vague clues based on our confusion, but Region 12 still got it!
Our guest speaker in the afternoon today was David MacQuart from Global Nomads Group. After explaining what GNG does, David led us in a discussion on The Future of America, in a simulated Pulse program. Participants quickly realized the incredible value of these types of discussions within the U.S. and across countries. David’s facilitation skills were a great lesson on videoconferencing as well. In the words of one participant from ESC 12:
I was impressed with David’s ability to mediate and facilitate our very diverse and passionate groups.
Finally, groups finished up the last details on their collaborative projects. Today they spent most of their group time collaboratively working in GoogleDocs. They were amazed at the reality that all 4-6 participants in two or three sites (per group) could actually edit different parts of the same document at the same time.
Tomorrow we finish up with Math Marvels, projects from NOECA, OH and CSD, MO, final group presentations, and a surprise gift from Shane, ESC 12’s talented bridge guy. As soon as we finish, I’m off to the TWICE board retreat, so this is probably it for posts this week. It’s been fun sharing Jazz with you!
Wow! some really great learning in Jazz today. So much that I want to reflect on it too!
You can follow along too.
First, if you want to follow what we’re up to as well, you can subscribe to the Jazz Flickr Photo Feed. You can also follow the participants reflections on their readings and on each day.
Content & Process
Roxanne led the debrief on the ASK simulation this morning. The participants listened to me read The Wall and then journaled, shared their journals, wrote questions, and then interviewed Don Alsbro, our local Vietnam veteran who arranges all our ASK: The Wall sessions and Lest We Forget sessions.
After the session, Roxanne asked the three sites to respond to two questions: What did you learn about the content today? And what do you want to remember about preparing your students for ASK? I know this idea of debriefing content & process, but Roxanne modeled it so well! I want to remember this for the future!
Participant Reflections
Listen to some of their reflections from today:
Tuesday was such a varied day. The vc this morning with Don was very serious and moving. The after lunch session was informative and funny at the same time. Sometimes we forget to have fun in education. Janine’s comment: The balance between emotional morning and then hysterically funny afternoon with Shane & Roxanne’s Singing with Shane and VC etiquette worked SOOOO well today!It was an eventful day, yet participants are excited about learning and feeling more comfortable with the tools. Tomorrow features MysteryQuest Beaches and Global Nomads. Stay tuned!
Today as part of the Jazz workshop, the participants are doing exchanges with each other. We featured Community Exchange (based on Michigan Week Exchange), Read Around the Planet, Monster Exchange and Science Exchange.
The Science Exchange was my favorite today. Our teachers were matched up with El Paso, TX. The Texas teachers did a presentation called, Are You Smarter Than a Cockroach? The cockroaches are for an activity with Greenbush, KS this afternoon. They used “Hector the Hissing Cockroach” as the source of a peek or copy cheat. They used facts and clues from the NASA website.
Our science group had a wonderful PowerPoint with pictures of ice and snow from this area. Just then the computer died completely. Power switch didn’t work at all. So they came up with plan B. They used the back of our identifying sign to zoom in on an all white screen and told some facts about winter. Then we had a paper snow ball fight with each other.
Teachers learned that videoconferences can be FUN and very interactive. That’s the news from Jazz today!
Arnie and Roxanne both raised some important points in their comments on my post on Curriculum Consultants earlier this week. How do you establish relationships with curriculum consultants? So I thought it might be helpful for me to share how I’ve worked with some of our consultants.
So, do you work with the curriculum consultants in your educational service center or district office? How did you establish the relationships and how are you collaborating with them?
Today I spent the day working with our social studies consultant on various projects. Among other things, we discussed my plans for an upcoming ASK connecting to a Canadian author for 6th grade students studying Canada. The Michigan social studies curriculum is currently under revision, and there is potential that the placement of Canada studies may change. If it does, that will affect the ASK programs I’m working on as well as our MysteryQuest World programs.
In addition, I have an idea for science classes studying the environment, but I want to make sure it’s tightly tied to the curriculum. So in August I’ll be meeting with our science consultant to make sure the project we design is addressing the curriculum in appropriate ways.
I also am in the process of planning time with our language arts consultant to expand the literature circles project that two of my schools did this year.
So my point is, those of us planning and creating content for our schools can not “just dream up something” because it sounds fun. With the pressures of NCLB, state testing, and crammed curriculum, it’s crucial that we do reality checks to make sure the projects we’re designing and supporting fit tightly into the curriculum. Then videoconferencing will support the curriculum instead of being yet another add-on to frustrate teachers with unrealistic expectations.
How do you make sure your videoconferences tightly fit the curriculum?
Just in time for your summer workshops is a new version of the Project Templates Booklet that many of you have been using. (It’s linked on the TWICE projects page and on our BCISD DL projects page.)
New Project Templates
I’m really excited about this new version. It is twice as long (but still only 10 pages folded & stapled into a booklet). There are several new project templates, the results of ideas simmering in my brain since NECC last summer when I listened to Bernie Dodge talk about WebQuests. I have felt for a while that it’s getting time to increase the interaction and level of thinking in collaborative VC projects. Exchanges are easy to start with, but then you want more!
Middle school and high school teachers especially want more than just a simple exchange. My teacher who designed the Invasive species project hasn’t done it again because it didn’t turn out to be “meaty” enough for her curriculum goals. I think some of the new higher level thinking templates based on WebQuest tasks might work better for her class and other middle and high school teachers.
IP VCR / H.323 Video Recorder Projects
I’m also excited about the new IP VCR projects. I called them that because the Codian name IP VCR seems to be the most descriptive of what this box does. Is there a generic term for it? I haven’t heard one. But this year as I’ve learned about the Codian IP VCR, the Polycom RSS, and the TANDBERG Content Server, I’ve been thinking about the possibilities for projects, especially international projects. Any projects ideas challenged by time zones could be adapted to use one of these boxes. Classes dial in, record their part. Wake up the next morning, listen to the other class, record their response. See the projects booklet for more details!
Evaluation
Finally, at the prompting of my friends at VCAlberta, I added a page for evaluation. It’s a start towards thinking about how we evaluate videoconference projects.
So I hope this new booklet is useful for you in your workshops this summer. If you want to try out any of the new formats with one of your classes & mine, let me know! Your feedback and ideas are always appreciated!
Mark your calendar for Megaconference on November 8, 2007. The date was just sent out yesterday on the Megaconference listserv. This is the higher education, adult facilitated, original Megaconference that Megaconference Jr. (student facilitated) is modeled after. If you haven’t experienced a Megaconference, it’s an incredible experience.
Here are a few good strategies for bringing a Megaconference to your school.
Anyone else have some good strategies for making a Megaconference a successful learning event in your school?
One of the beauties of collaborating with other distance learning coordinators is that you learn new things to improve your practice! This year we’ve had several VCs with Roxanne’s schools in ESC Region 12. Roxanne works hard to have her schools display a sign showing their location. Here’s an example from our ASK: The Wall sessions today. It sure makes it easy to facilitate. I definitely want to work with my schools on this next year.
