Tag Archives: Collaborations

Invasive Species in the U.S.

This morning we have 5 schools around the east coast connecting to a Lakeshore High School advanced freshman biology class, which is hosting an event on Invasive Species.

We have three classes from Michigan, presenting the Zebra Mussels, the Emerald Ash Borer, and Purple Loosestrife; as well as a class from North Carolina presenting the Myocaster Coypus, a class from New Jersey presenting the Asian Longhorn Beetles, and a class from Pennsylvania presenting the Northern Snakehead Fish.

The classes are using a variety of presentation methods including PowerPoint slides, photos on document cameras, charts & graphs, objects and other visuals. One class used the news show format using different areas of the classroom for interviews. Each presentation includes the following information:

  • Where the species came from.
  • How & when it was introduced.
  • What effect it is having on the ecosystem (i.e. the disruption it’s causing).
  • Are there any natural controls on it?
  • How are we dealing with it, or are we letting nature take its course?
  • Ways to prevent new invasive species in your area.

After the presentations, Lakeshore High School students facilitated a discussion, rotating through the six schools and giving them a chance to ask questions.

This is the first multipoint project that I’ve been involved in planning that we taught the students to facilitate the multipoint. I’m pleased with the results and I hope to use this format for other high school level projects in the future.

Distance Learning Mixers

Linda McConville, E. P. Clarke Elementary, St. Joseph, emailed me this morning with a great question for her Voices of the Twin Cities project. “Do you know of any good distance learning or videoconference mixers?” Which reminded me of the training we did in early 2000 at the beginning of our distance learning training. Shirley Freed, Andrews University, did some of the training for us and I remember doing some creative things across a multipoint connection. Here’s what I found in my investigation.

Quick Introductions
Some of these would be really fun to do jumping between the two sites, each having two students share at a time.

  1. Participants give their name and a word to describe themselves, making an alliteration. e.g. Super Sally.
  2. Participants introduce someone else giving their name and something unique about that person.
  3. Participants give one-two word descriptions of what they expect from the class.
  4. Participants give one word explaining how they feel about the content or process or how they want to be remembered.
  5. You can increase the level of engagement for #4 and #5 by asking the participants to give the word in alphabetical order – fast! e.g. ambivalent, bogged-down, confused, dangerous, etc. And sometimes start at different places in the alphabet.

Here’s another list of introductions.
These might be longer and some are better for adults than fourth graders. But with a long partnership between classes such as this project requires, it might be worth having a few students share their answer to one of these questions for each connection.

  1. What is your favorite place in the whole world? Why?
  2. Where do you go to “re-energize” yourself? What makes it revitalizing?
  3. Think back to kindergarten. In what ways are you still the same? How have you changed?
  4. What is the story behind your name? How did you get your name? Have you ever had a nickname? What was it? Did you like it? What name would you have chosen?
  5. Have you ever been in danger? Did you know it at the time? How did you survive the situation?
  6. Think back to special celebrations in your early childhood. Which celebration is particularly memorable? What made it so special?
  7. Who is your all-time favorite teacher? Why?
  8. What was your favorite toy or activity as a kid?
  9. What is the most difficult thing you’ve ever done?
  10. What has been the proudest moment in your life? What lead up to that moment?
  11. Who is someone you trust? What did that person do to win your trust?
  12. What is your favorite holiday? Why?
  13. What are three of your all-time favorite songs? What makes those songs personally significant?
  14. What is the most frustrating experience that you have had with a computer? What is the best discovery you’ve made with a computer?
  15. Who is your favorite hero or heroine? What qualities do you admire in that person (or character)?
  16. What leader do you most admire? Why?
  17. What would you look for in a “best friend?”
  18. Who in history would you most like to meet? Why? What would you like to ask that person?
  19. If you could visit or live anywhere (besides here), where would it be? Why?
  20. If you could witness (or take part in) any event in history, what would it be? Why?
  21. If you could change one event in history, what would it be?
  22. Do you believe in “love at first sight?” What makes you believe or disbelieve?
  23. Can money buy success (or happiness)? Explain your rationale.
  24. What would you do with one hundred dollars?
  25. If you could go “back to the future,” where would you go? What time period would you choose? What social changes would you make?

Icebreakers for Teachers
Then I did a Google search for ideas. Icebreakers for Teachers has some great ideas. Here’s how a few could be adapted for videoconferencing between two classes.

  • The Venn Diagram idea could be done as a Venn diagram between the two classes. Only one of the classes would need a document camera to do this activity. Students from both sides could brainstorm what could go in the Venn diagram.
  • The Data Processing idea would be fun with most groups made up of local students, but one group has 5 students from each site & then the students work together over VC. I think it could be loud and noisy but would be fun to try and see if it worked. If you did it several times, the groups could be rotated so that each student got a chance to work with a group via VC.
  • The Who Am I would be fun with the other site helping the student figure out the name on their back. You’d need a really big sticky note. The challenge with this one is that some students would be watching. If you rotated students fast enough and only did it for 5 min. or less, they might find it interesting enough to watch. This one would need an experiment to see if it worked.

Post-It Note Answers
Another great idea comes from Carol Fleck and Kim Perry, two teachers team-teaching via videoconference in Ohio. Students can write answers to a question on Post-It notes and then everyone brings the answer up quickly to a paper with a grid under the document camera. Then both classes can see everyone’s answers very quickly and easily.

More Icebreakers
These ideas are from a training document [PDF] the University of Tasmania, Australia.

  • Knowing each other’’s names is the most common way of introducing a group of last. The first student says their own name, the next student repeats that name and adds their own and so on. While it may seem silly the benefits are that students do get to know a few names, they laugh, this breaks the ice and they are enabled to talk to each other when it matters later on. This would be good to do alternating between the two classes as well.
  • A more structured activity is to ask students to pair up and to interview each other for about 3 to 4 minutes and then swap. Suggest that they take notes. Each student introduces their partner to the group. Students can find this less intimidating than introducing themselves. Students would introduce their partner to the class at the other site.

As I’m writing this up, these would be great to use for Read Across America connections and other short term videoconference projects as well.

Strolling Around the Earth Garden with Mike Griffith

Another global session with Mike Griffith. He started off with an email quote with his colleague Atsuku in Japan (not sure I’m spelling her name correctly). She said something to this effect regarding Mike – The world earth is a garden to him. He’s always strolling around the garden freely.

Mike has been doing the Global Leap project since 2000, and has been doing international projects for over 10 years.

He’s talking about a connection with students speaking English and French and how they were really struggling to talk to each other. Mike suggests instead that we show something – for example if you’re discussing soccer/football – bring the ball & show it! Then everyone knows what you’re talking about. And remember that you could take a digital camera out and get footage to share with your class.

Communication. Communication. Communication. Mike has three Tips & Tricks:

  1. Have a signature on your email! (He asked us how many of us have received an email we didn’t know who it was from!).
  2. If you’re working internationally, give the date in full: October 3, not 10/3/05 because not all countries use the same shortcut format.
  3. List your time/my time. Think about where people are and what time of day it is. If you go wider than 6 hours time difference, then the teachers have to be flexible in connecting to each other. Two good sites are TimeandDate.com and TimeZoneConverter.

Mike suggested that using technology to communicate is 4th world (vs. old world, new world, 3rd world). We need to be sensitive to the types of connectivity in other parts of the world in our planning.

He mentioned connections with the Imperial War Museum, an iEARN project, and a conversation between students about genocide.

Mike asks us: Is this important? Is it important to get classes to connect to talk to each other and understand each other? We have the technology that can bring kids to talk to kids & teachers to talk to teachers to help create greater understanding between cultures.

Dr. Stanton, the expert they interviewed in the genocide program said, “if we were all videoconferencing, there’d be no genocide.” Mike added, if we were talking to each other and understanding each other, there’d be no genocide.

Mike emphasized how in doing these connections, not everything needs to be done in the videoconference. Other tools and resources can be used to make the connection more engaging and rich.

Mike also reminded us to set the context. The classes need share pictures of their life with the communication so that we know what it’s like to live in that area.

Kathy Lewis shared a cool project with a class in Taiwan where the Taiwan class posted a newsletter online and then the U.S. class edited the grammar… this way both classes could practice English grammar.

The first link is easy to do – just comparing cultures and saying hello. But what is sustainable and of value? How do we create projects that are more in-depth and have specific curriculum outcomes? I asked, what topics are good to discuss & create projects around that take advantage of the international connection. Mike suggested – addressing stereotypes, learning to respect etiquette in other countries, etc.

This session ended way too soon!!!

What Tree Am I?

Ok here’s the coolest idea I’ve run across in a while….

Bill Johnson from OneNet in Oklahoma just sent this email to the Megaconference listserv:

My H.323 IP address is below, my system is always in “auto-answer” mode
and my remote camera control is enabled. Simply dial my IP with your
system, select remote camera control and pan hard left. You should be
able to see a lite-green tree out side my window. So far, no one has
been able to tell me what kind of tree it is. Can you tell? If so,
please email me. Only a few weeks left to figure this out as the “Fall”
season is upon us and the tree will be bare soon.

Bill Johnson
Director of Network Operations – OneNet
Director – Netrad Infrastructure for CASA
President – Oklahoma Distance Learning Association
Video 164.58.250.185

What a cool idea! Imagine kids making a problem like this & sending it out to many schools to dial in & try to solve! Imagine putting several clues around your classroom & setting a time when other school could dial in and pan the camera remotely around the room….

What curriculum based ideas can you think of???

Collaboration Birds of a Feather

Paul Hieronymus, Lorain County Distance Learning Consortium, is facilitating this session on collaborative projects.

Resources mentioned in the sharing:

Projects people have:

  • Paul is doing “storytime” with teachers who haven’t done a VC before. They read a story for 20 min. and then do some conversation. It’s for k-2 classes. The teachers just have to mute and unmute the mic, and call on kids. Paul reads the story and asks them questions about the book. He uses it as a recruitment tool to get teachers hooked.
  • Susan Altgelt shared the Texas Connects project which can be replicated in other states.
  • Rowena shared information about iEARN.
  • I talked about Read Across America, MysteryQuest World, and MysteryQuest USA.

Rutgers Camden, the Indy Zoo, and COSI Toledo, are all interested in doing programs that include collaborations between schools in their programming. I think there’s certainly room for content providers to facilitate projects…. the more ideas people have & share the more VCs we can all do!

The conversation also centered around doing cluster projects where classes connect to a content provider and then continue connecting to each other for similar projects in the future.

Paul shared how they are doing problem based learning projects – giving students a big problem – usually related to environmental problem – and then presenting solutions to the experts. CILC has a Community Partnerships program to do these types of projects too that includes grants and partnerships to make these types of events happen.

Not surprisingly, someone brought up the issue of increasing student test scores. iEARN has research on their PD page on how their projects improve student learning. Another person suggested focusing on communication skills that businesses are looking for. We also discussed how the events need to be meaningful and tied to higher level thinking skills.

Paul has a VC Classifieds page with good ideas to get the word out with his teachers.

Robyn Phillips shared information about a project they are planning for Veterans Day connecting with a marine in Iraq. They are working through the Freedom Calls Foundation.

What a fun session sharing connections.

Global Collaborations Birds of a Feather

This morning I’m in the birds of a feather session led by Mike Griffiths from Global Leap.

We looked through the Global Leap website and how to register our schools and find other classes.

We talked quite a bit about the technology and how we could connect. Tools for connecting other than traditional H.323 and H.320 were discussed. We talked about using Skype and Festoon to do free connections with other countries.

We also talked about iEARN projects, and Rowena Gerber from Florida shared how she has done projects with classes that have to travel 10 miles to access one computer. iEARN has lots of standard yearly projects, projects you can stop by for a bit, and projects that are more long term. You don’t have to be a member of iEARN to get on all these projects, but to access the forums there is a membership fee. Most of the projects are via email, but some are via videoconferences through iSight, MSN, through IP/H.323 videoconferencing…

Andrew Knox from the Center for Distance Learning Research shared projects that he’s working on: a internation fitness oriented project, a charity project, measuring steps & progress in P.E. class, etc.

We also talked about the Global Nomads Group and the work they are doing. They have incredible experiences shared each year. Those of us who have done VCs with GNG shared what it was like for our students.

Russ Colbert, Polycom, shared with us some things happening in Australia, New Zealand, etc.

Then I shared my sessions with Pakistan on my blog: with the high school class and the 2nd grade class.

Now we’re moving into a second session on collaboration.

Global Connections

Global Connections: Learning With, not About, People from Other Countries
By Atieno Adala (from Kenya) and Deb Hutton, (from Canada) from the Indiana University. Yet another Keystone Conference session.

This presentation covers programs done by the International Studies in Schools content provider. They connect US students to international locations, and also allow students to talk to international people who are studying or working at Indiana University.

They showed a nice collection of pictures of international connections they’ve had.

We also saw a 5 min. clip of a connection from last week where students in several locations around the world discussed the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

Undergraduate students at IU and other places shared their thoughts on how governments are addressing the problems in their countries and in the world.

As always with multipoint videoconferencing with tons of sites, there’s some mic rattling sounds coming from an unknown location. Fun fun! But we’re learning anyway!

I really like how Deb addressed the question on time zones. She said “it’s about mutual respect.” This means who is it that comes in at a inconvenient time to connect for the program? Sometimes the only way we can connect with an international school is if we connect in the evening our time.

Atieno shared a good set of tips for working with international presenters. This included focusing on contemporary information, using the presenters strengths, preparing students for a thick accent, and preparing students to ask good questions and to make respectful comments. As is true with good ASK programs (link), don’t ask questions or look for a presentation on something you can find in the textbook! Take advantage of learning from the experiences of the presenter.

Another good tip included: being respectful of their date, time, holidays, safety, context and needs. Share equally the connection time for their benefit as well as that of your students. I.e. plan the program so that both classes are learning what they need/want to from the program.

Tips on good instruction was included as well: short activities, involving learners, focus on 3-4 main points, etc.

Sample sessions they’ve done (requested by teachers not designed by Deb Hutton):

  • Affects of the African Rainforest Biome on the Local Culture
  • The Daily Culture of South Korea
  • Living Under Apartheid in South Africa
  • All About Paris
  • Germany: Memories of WWII
  • Travel in Spain
  • Mathematical Symmetry in Turkey
  • Raising Children in Kenya & Russia
  • Transitions: Communism to Capitalism
  • Series: The Daily Cultures of Bulgaria, India & Kenya
  • Series: What do you want to know about Afghanistan? Iraq? Islam?

I think that International Studies custom programs are hidden resource many of us haven’t considered or realized! This possibility of designing a custom program tailored to your curriculum is wonderful!

Deb’s handouts have a wonderful set of links for international programming – both VCs and email projects. Scroll down on the page to find her presentation handouts. Great set!

6 Tools for Effective Videoconferencing

Powerful Video Conferencing-Opening New Doors to Learning presented by Geoff Turrell.

I’m now in the Teaching strand watching the first presentation from Athena Education Action Zone in the United Kingdom. They are working with students with special needs, and are using videoconferencing as one of many interventions for meeting students learning needs.

Cool ideas include an interactive soap opera for VC, a ROCK IDOL with students performing to a panel of judges via VC, and a classical dance class.

Teachers have VC systems at their desks and they also do VCs with schools internationally.

They are addressing the “no significant difference phenomenon.” They aimed to answer the question: How can we make sure it is BETTER than direct teaching?

In answering this question, they have 6 tools for effective videoconferencing.

It’s cool to see that they are really trying to do more than just a talking head. They sent a 6 parcels from the UK to us here in Indy and he’s getting the audience to open the parcels. What a fun way to get the remote site interactive! This is the creativity I like to see!

The 1st tool was a teddy bear and represented was “interactivity.” Yes!! The best interactive videoconferences have hands-on materials and conversation back and forth. Cool way to explain it!

Interaction includes, according to these presenters: questioning pupils, setting tasks, exercising communication skills, and creating an awareness of audience.

The second package has an owl teddy bear. It represents the 2nd tool is teachers or pedagogical presence. The program needs to be coordinated by a real field teacher who has good classroom management skills, an understanding of good teaching practices, etc. The presenter also needs to understand the importance of telepresence skills.

The third package has a package of tea. It represents the 3rd tool or contextualization. This is about having students experience a “real life” context and incentive for learning. It adds an extra dimension to learning and brings the task to life. It puts the excitement back in learning.

The fourth package has a set of nappy pins, or otherwise known in the US as diaper pins. This represents the 4th tool or underpinning. This includes focused planning, use of worksheets and supplementary information sheets to support the lesson content, and accommodating learning styles.

The fifth package has swimming goggles. This represents the 5th tool or an immersive learning environment. The includes using core materials from the Internet, interactive white board content, supplementary materials, etc.

The final package had a jigsaw with a piece missing. This presents the 6th tool or collaboration because the missing piece was over in the UK. This tool allows for shared writing, design and composing, application sharing, and teacher & student collaboration across many miles, and distributed learning, which we just heard in the keynote.

A great session and a great model of interaction during the session!

World Issues Class Connects to Pakistan

This morning we connected again to Pakistan, this time with a sophomore World Issues class from Edwardsburg High School.

Our class shared the seven themes of culture: social organization, holiday celebrations (Halloween & corn mazes), language (slang), arts & literature (types of music), religion, government, and economics.

They used skits, pictures, costumes, and props in their presentation.

The class in Pakistan shared information on their form of government and what parts of their culture are similar to the U.S. Another student shared how they celebrate religious holidays in Pakistan.

They showed us the shalwar and qamis national dress and held up examples of handicrafts to show us. They also showed us their money which has the picture of the founder of Pakistan on it, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah.

We also listened to their presentation about the different provinces and types of terrain in Pakistan.

In the last 5 minutes, students asked questions back and forth.

We connected a bit late because they had lost electricity in Pakistan. It’s quite typical in the summer months to lose power occasionally.

The classes talked about summer holidays, winter holidays and other times off of school, and how education is not compulsory for some students in Pakistan. They also talked about sports and explained the rules of football and discussed favorite teams etc.

It was a great experience for all & I’m sure we’ll connect again!

Janine

Sharing Communities with Pakistan

Today after hurried preparations, we did our first international connection of this school year. A second grade class at E. P. Clarke Elementary in St. Joseph connected with some 2nd, 3rd and 4th class students in Karachi, Pakistan.

The two classes shared information about their homes and families. One Hindu student in Pakistan shared how he lived with his nuclear family. Another student in Pakistan shared how he lived with his extended family.

The two classes shared clothing and the students in Pakistan showed their shalwar qamis. Both classes shared what type of weather and climate are common in their area.

The class in Pakistan shared their alphabet with us. They are going to email us the whole alphabet and how to say the letters.

The classes also shared their holidays. Our class shared how we celebrate Halloween, Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthdays. They also shared holiday celebrations with us and showed how the bride & groom dress for a wedding.

The format of the videoconference was basically sharing back and forth. Students at one site would share information, then the other class would share information on the same topic. Other topics covered included money, transportation, sports, entertainment, school topics, and landforms.

The students in Pakistan taught our students how to say, “how are you,” “thank you,” and “we are fine” in their national language, Urdu.

We finished with questions back and forth between the schools, thanks and goodbyes! An excellent experience for everyone involved!