Tag Archives: Collaborations

Snow Days & Test Calls

What lengths will you go to in order to make an international connection work? This morning I woke up to a snow day. After checking to see which of my schools are closed (all of them in Berrien County), I checked my email. There waiting in my inbox was an email from India regarding a test call for MysteryQuest International. Thanks to the magic of Qlock, I could look down at the time for Bangalore and realize they wanted to test in 10 minutes. Thankfully I have a desktop endpoint at home and I can web into my bridge. So voila, magical, successful test call.

I also met this morning with Roxanne Glaser to help get some classes for RAP leftovers. Our furnace fan motor is out too so I’m home in one warm room of the house. Roxanne thought I looked so funny I should put a pic up. So here it is. All bundled up and VCing.

The first snow picture is out the window of the back porch. Ok, back to work on the RAP leftovers. Unfortunately there’s quite a few. It may be the end of the week before you get your matches.

NY & TX Mini-Jazz

Roxanne Glaser and I aren’t the only ones modifying the Jazzing Up Your Curriculum workshop format for a during-the-school-year format. Andrea Israeli and Ashton Graham are doing weekend sessions. Check out Andrea’s description of the first session so far. It’s cool to see this workshop format morph into smaller workshops with the same effect. Thanks for blogging about it Andrea!!

The Coolest VC Training Ever

Ok, I just finished the coolest training with Roxanne Glaser, ESC 12 in Waco, TX. Roxanne and I participated in the 123 VC Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with VC workshop last summer. We both have K-2 buildings wondering what the best use of videoconferencing is for their grade levels.

So we adapted the Jazz format to 1.5 hours! Tonight we connected 6 K-2 schools with 4-8 teachers at each site. 3 Michigan schools and 3 Texas schools.

We started right off with introductions. Every school did a cool introduction with the components we required: school name, location, mascot, weather/climate, and a unique town tidbit. They were really creative with songs, costumes and chants. Teachers who hadn’t done VC yet were on camera having fun!

Next we had several teachers share the videoconferences they had participated in before so the new teachers could hear the possibilities.

Then we really got into the fun part. We gave teachers 10 minutes to brainstorm some potential projects. They made a huge letter poster with the school name, topic, time & time zone, grade, and the preferred month. In the picture you can see the posters with the ideas. Then we did a round robin sharing the ideas, and then sharing which ones the teachers wanted to do. Voila! In about 45 minutes we had 10-15 project ideas and partners! Incredible! More later as we implement and move forward.

VCing Within the District

One of my districts in our RUS grant has 7 buildings with new videoconferencing equipment. The district is spread out and has fiber connecting all but one of their buildings. So they’ve started off with simple connections between buildings. Having the middle school students read to elementary students, etc. They are having so much fun with it! Learning the equipment in a much less stressful situation, since they already know each other. Here’s a comment from one of the coordinators:

This was a connection between 2 schools (elementary and middle) in our district. It was the second program we tried of this kind and we were even more pleased than the first time. The middle school students read How The Grinch Stole Christmas to 2 elementary classes. Students at both sites were exceptional! They were engaged, courteous, and very enthusiastic. We hope to have many more of these storytimes, as they are beneficial to all the students in so many ways.

Yet another effective way to get started with VC…..

RAP Update

Just a quick note for those of you who are participating in Read Around the Planet this year. We’ve been running some preliminary matches with the requests already in the system and it’s looking really good for the English matches. TWICE is using a new database this year and the computer will be matching everyone. (Unlike in the past where TWICE volunteer board members spent 3 weeks matching by hand!)

The number of “leftovers” for the regular English match requests is less than 5 (compared to 100 leftovers last year). So in my opinion, all the challenges we’ve had with the system this fall are so totally worth it.

However, we only have 40 World Language match requests right now. We need more requests to help make those matches. So please encourage your language teachers to participate!

Just a reminder that the match requests have to be in by this Friday, January 19. And no changing your mind after January 19!

The matches will be posted in the system by January 31.

If you haven’t started the process for this year, it IS too late. Mark November on your calendar for next year and start reading about the process of this huge project.

Last Thoughts for 2006

This is my last post for 2006. It’s been a great year and thanks to everyone who has read and commented, and especially thanks to those of you who have started blogging about VC too. I appreciate the opportunity to learn from you!

Polycom RSS 2000
If you missed the ASK: Jim Stovall streaming today, review my blog entry on that and login to view the archive. The streaming was really easy to do. I just logged into the admin side of the RSS, dialed out to Macomb ISD’s bridge with live streaming checked, and voila it was up and running. Quality looked great from my end at least. I hope some of you had a chance to try it out. Please leave a comment on how the streaming and/or archive works for you.

1.7.07 Update. Added after reading The Weblog Handbook. The RSS 2000 mentioned is on loan to Berrien County ISD from Polycom to support Polycom Special Events.

Read Around the Planet
I wanted to say a few words about Read Around the Planet. The teacher registration has been extended to January 19, and a new quick overview of the two ways to enter match requests has been posted online.

If you haven’t noticed already, RAP is a huge project and growing very fast. The system seems complicated and while we are working on that, it’s because the project is complicated. It’s very difficult to meeting the needs of all the ways that connections and coordination happens throughout the areas participating in the project. Our programmers mutter that it’s like trying to bring order to chaos and not easy to do.

Thankfully, the system allows everyone to see their buildings and match requests (if everything is entered correctly! :>), which we didn’t have possible before. In addition, this is the first year that the matching will be done by computer. It’s about time! Last year it took me three weeks to match 1000 requests by hand.

So, I know things are pretty bumpy this year, and I thank everyone who has been so patient. Hang in there! We will make it through yet another year of this amazing project. If you have questions, you can send them to Sue Porter, read@remc11.k12.mi.us. She’s off Dec. 21 through Jan. 2, but otherwise can answer your questions.

Merry Christmas
So now I’m off til January 8. Tonight I’m decorating a gingerbread house (made from scratch) with a friend and her two daughters. When I come back in January I may have a special treat of pictures to share with you too. Enjoy your holidays and be sure to rest and spend quality time with family and friends – AWAY from technology! 🙂

Trading PD for Project Partners

Here’s an interesting model for finding partners. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’ve been working on finding partners for our 6th grade classes studying Canada. This week I found the last set in an interesting way.

In August at the Alberta Broadband Summer Institute I collected business cards of several schools willing to connect to our 6th grade classes.

In following up with one of them, I discovered that this particular district, Peace River, has used VC mainly for high school classes. So while they were interested in connecting to us, they need more info on enrichment VCs.

So on Tuesday I did an hour workshop for them with an overview of field trips, resources, examples of projects, MysteryQuest, and more. And then in the last 20 minutes, I sprung my request on them! By the end of the hour, I had partner teachers for the last four slots I needed to fill! So we traded PD for project partners and it worked great for both of us!

I think we all like to compare weather at the beginning of a VC, and when you’re in Michigan and the snow just melted and it’s raining, you want to know the weather in northern Alberta! So I asked them to show me the snow out the window. Listen to Fred Churchman’s description of that moment in our training:

It’s the little things that sometimes stick in my mind: I think I’ll always remember looking out your window at the wet mess, and then going to the trouble of moving the monitor and camera to make sure you got to see the snow outside our window. Thanks for that memory!

By the way, above the picture is from the Confluence Project.

Thank you, Peace River, Alberta, for yet another VC and the promise of more to come!

New RAP Verification Instructions

New Read Around the Planet Verification Instructions were posted online at the TWICE website this week.

Just a reminder that if you want to participate in Read Around the Planet this year, make sure you have started the verification process by November 22! That’s 12 days away. Time is ticking away!
For more reading, review previous RAP blog entries: RAP 2007 Announcement and Preparing for RAP 2007.

Preparing for RAP: Read Around the Planet 2007

By now hopefully you’ve checked your email and received the announcement from Sue Porter from one (or more) of the listservs on the Read Around the Planet project, formerly known as Read Across America.

If you’re familiar with the project already, here’s what you need to know.

  • The project is sponsored by Polycom this year. This sponsorship allows TWICE to contract with Sue Porter as the main coordinator for the project. Sue is a “retired” TWICE Board member and one of the original founders of this event, so you’ll be in good hands. And I’m helping to coordinate the verification piece. So that’s how coordination is happening.
  • There’s a new registration system. Make sure your spam filter is allowing email from read@remc11.k12.mi.us. PLEASE READ the New Verification System Overview (1 page PDF).
  • The project is five days this year. March 1, 2, 5-7.
  • There’s a new World Language Day match on March 9 for language classes. Be sure you realize it’s very unlikely you’ll match with native speakers. It’s to practice with other classes studying the language. You’ll be matched by level and language as well as time & connection type. Read the WLD Teacher Packet.
  • International connections! Read Around the Planet means that we’re including countries other than the US in this project. But we still have a majority of US schools. So this doesn’t mean you will get an international connection. However, you have a chance of getting a Canada connection anytime you sign up for. If you sign up for early morning EST, you have a chance of getting matched with the UK. We made a timezone chart this year so you can see which areas are possibly participating at the time you’re signing up for. As other countries sign up for verification we’ll update this with their time zones too.

If you’re new to the project, here’s what else you need to know!

  • This project is monstrous! Last year 1042 classes participated, just in the U.S. So if the procedures in place for verification and registration seem complicated, it’s because of the large number of classes connecting and the complication of all the ways we can connect to each other. So get a good dose of patience and flexibility before you sign up! 🙂
  • Read Read Read. The materials that is. Start with the Tech, Coordinator, and Teacher packets. Please read them carefully. Again this project is huge, so understanding the scope & implications of participating is really important. Then review the steps on the project website. Become very familiar with the website & the steps/timeline of the project.
  • Watch a movie. This little overview of the project still refers to Read Across America, but other than that the info is still pertinent. Use this to share with your teachers too.

Regional Coordination
I thought I’d share how I’m coordinating this project locally. In the past I’ve connected my schools for everything they do. Control freak, you know! 🙂 But now that our usage has exploded (207 VC requests right now where I had 86 last year), I’m starting to teach my districts to do this on their own. So here’s what I’m doing for verification in November.

  1. I started by asking all my building contacts if they are participating this year and if they are ready to participate on their own. (Some have staff ready and some are so understaffed I’ll probably always help them.)
  2. Next, I’m going to meet with them in a few after school meetings. I’m going to help them login to the TWICE Registration System, enter information for their building, and explain how all that works. All my buildings that will connect on their own I’m verifying on their own. The rest that still need me I’ll verify under my bridge.
  3. I’m also going to talk to them in the meeting about managing the connections within the district. Most of my buildings are in districts with just one or two T1 lines and so they can/should only do one VC at a time. So in some cases we’ll be negotiating which day each building will participate in RAP. We’re going to make sure we have a good feel for the demand and interest in the buildings so we’ll be ready with a plan once teacher registration opens on December 1.

We’ll see how this plan works for support in our area. If you have tips for managing this project in your area, please share them here!

For more reading, check out my posts about last year’s RAA: Still Reading Across America, Spanish Read Across America, Some Great RAA Stories, RAA The Mitten, Singing Across America, RAA Day Two, and My Favorite Things.

Monsters Monsters Monsters

This morning two more RUS grant buildings (Washington El and Three Oaks El) are doing their first videoconference. We’re lucky enough to have a couple of classes participating in Monster Match, a project coordinated by Roxanne Glaser, ESC 12, TX.

Before the videoconference, the classes made monsters and then emailed each other descriptions of their monsters. Then they tried to make the same monster. Roxanne facilitated the videoconference as the students checked their monsters to see if they matched.

I learned a new idea from Roxanne today! As the classes were connected waiting to start, Roxanne had a PowerPoint playing monster jokes. Cool idea!

Roxanne was appropriately dressed to facilitate too. Nice hair Roxanne!

As a first connection, this one is simple and low key. The connection is short — 20-25 minutes — and the classes get to talk to each other and practice zooming in on their camera. A great start for these buildings.