Tag Archives: Content Providers

Kids Creating Community Content

Did you notice the announcement for KC3 – Kids Creating Community Content?

If you’re looking for ways to engage students in authentic research, presentation skills and use of technology then you’ll want to be involved in the 2007-2008 Kids Creating Community Content (KC3) Contest.

THE CONTEST
From east to west, urban or rural, we each live in a unique community. What can we learn from our area, from our varied citizens or natural resources? What can we share with other students that will enhance their view of our country or our world? This standards based project seeks to tap into the creative nature of students as they look at their community with new eyes and explore ways to share their findings with others using videoconferencing and technology as a resource.

THE CHALLENGE
Students in grades 7 – 12 create an engaging and dynamic videoconference content program about their community to be offered to classrooms nationally.

This project is modeled after Tommy Bearden‘s Cotton: Plant of Many Uses program designed by high school students. Check it out & maybe YOU will submit something!

First Programs of a New Provider

Are you reading Nancy Shives’ blog from the Frazier International History Museum? Here’s a story of a new content provider getting started. They’ve only done 5 programs so far, but already they are encouraging nearby museums to start offering content.

We were lucky to have many guest join us. On the 25th we had Fronda and Amy from the Muhammad Ali Museum just down the street. They are looking into starting a VC program and wanted to sit in and watch what we’re doing. We hope to work with them more in the future.

I think it’s awesome that they are sharing their first experiences. It helps the rest of us remember that we are partners with content providers, not just consumers of their content!

How Teachers Evaluate VCs

In my current online class, Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections, we’re discussing the various content providers and how you might select one program over another. Pam Bontrager, elementary media specialist for Buchanan Community Schools, shared this succinct pithy description of how she evaluates programs:

I look at different criteria when choosing VC’s that may work in the classroom. Obviously I look at grade level the program covers. Cost can be a factor. We do have an opportunity to be awarded grants, which help cover the cost of VC’s. The time that the program is being shown is important. I will say most of the programs we have signed up for at this point have had flexible scheduling, but if they have certain times and dates then I need to take that into account. Programs length, amount of student involvement, whether it enhances the curriculum, how the program was evaluated by other participants, the amount of preparation that is required. I really try to find programs that supplement what the teachers are covering and the students will find fun and interesting. At this point it is like pulling teeth to get some of them involved in VC’s, so I also attempt to find programs that do not have a lot of prep work and is hands on.

What are the criteria that you use to select a program from a content provider? Content providers, do you get feedback like this from educators? What do you think of this list of criteria? Please comment!

Favorite VCs

Rebecca Polityka, CSD, and I are thinking the same things today!! I just added my Best Program Lists to our Favorite Field Trips page. I know a lot of you use that page. I used to make lists like this at the beginning of every school year to get my schools to sign up for programs. But now, I’m so busy, I just refer my schools to the lists I did before on my blog. They are getting a little outdated but are still useful.

So, stop by Rebecca’s blog and comment with your favorites!

Unfortunately, I can’t comment on blogs from my work connection, so count this as my comment/vote, Rebecca!

Demand is Higher Again This Year!

Is your year starting with busy scheduling of videoconferencing? Mine sure is. I’ve been ruing the day that I taught my schools to sign up for programs early in the school year. *chuckles* I’m certainly paying for it now!!

Last year on this date, I had 85 requests; the year before 35 requests. This year we have 211 total program requests as of right now and 89 of them are scheduled already.  Whew!

It’s a great problem, and to address it, we’re continuing to work on training building coordinators to do their own scheduling when possible. I can see it’s going to be another great year of offering quality content & curriculum experiences to our local students.

How is your year starting off?

Scheduling Videoconferences

This week I offered two afternoon workshops for my local coordinators: Scheduling Videoconferences. This is the first in a new series called Supporting Videoconferences that I’m offering to my schools. It’s part of the RUS Grant training, and part of my new strategy to help my buildings become more independent so that we can sustain the current growth.

We reviewed scheduling through the ISD and how to track progress of programs we’re scheduling.

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Scheduling with Content Providers
Then we talked about tips for scheduling with the various content providers. Here are some of the tips:

  • Always check your district VC calendar to make sure you don’t schedule on top of another one. We use Filemaker Pro for our scheduling & calendars.
  • Check all your testing, event, and PD calendars.
  • Have everything ready before you register online. (Use the “Register Now” link on the record after you’ve searched our database for the program. )
  • If you are registering via email, send all the information in one email: teacher name, email, phone, school name, address, tech name, email, phone, IP address, billing information, and your range of availability.
  • Some content providers have online calendars that makes it really easy to schedule (NASA & COSI Columbus for example).
  • Some, like the Cleveland Zoo, have a register link for each program, and you can see right away if the program is full or not.
  • Sometimes it’s a challenge to figure out from the provider’s online or paper form how to make sure all the right people get the correct information. We’ve had a few times where we’re scheduling for the school & we connect & pay the bills. But the confirmation goes to the teacher and not to us. That’s always frustrating.
  • Most of the Indiana providers are in a habit of adding an extra 15 min. at the beginning for “network time” or connecting time. My schools are already in a habit of having kids ready 10 min. before and connecting 15 min. before the program start time. Sometimes we get confused on when the program actually starts and kids sit there for 30 minutes! Not good. So that’s another important detail to pay attention to.

Scheduling with Other Schools
Finally, we reviewed the various ways to find a partner school – via our local directory and the various listservs. We talked about ways to advertise the project so as to ensure success and less negotiation to arrange the videoconference.

Scheduling Test Calls
We also discussed tips for keeping sanity while doing test calls. Brandon Waggoner, district tech coordinator for Berrien Springs Public Schools, made this great suggestion to his building coordinators: Set aside one or two time slots a week for test calls, and if at all possible, schedule your test calls during that time. If you ask first, the other school or content provider usually can do the test call when you ask for it.

So, are you scheduling programs for your school? Or, educational service agency coordinators, are you letting your schools do their own scheduling yet? What tips do you have for scheduling? How are you training others to do scheduling?

New Keyword Search

Over a year ago, a librarian/media specialist at the MACUL Conference sat in a session on how to find videoconference content. As usual, I showed how to search our VC Program Database linked on TWICE and Polycom. I don’t remember what keyword we searched in the description field, but the results were not all on topic. I know one search word that is problematic like this all the time – “business“. If the content provider’s description includes anything about business hours, that program shows up. But it sure doesn’t help the business teachers looking for content!

So when Polycom started sponsoring our database, I knew we had a chance to actually do something about it. This spring we contracted with a local university librarian who specializes in indexing. He added keywords and subjects for all 1800+ programs. What a job! Now it’s finally done and searchable, and we’ll use that data to update future programs added.

Try it out and see what you think. Of course there are still some topics, like business, where there is hardly anything or nothing available. But if you search business in the keyword field now, you’ll get the one program that is honestly, truly about business: No More Business as Usual from Global Education Motivators.

If you have any thoughts on how it works, let me know!

Great Facilitation Skills from GNG

As part of the Jazz workshop today, we connected to Global Nomads Group for a simulation of their Pulse programs.  As our participants interacted, the facilitators chatted in Skype about the good facilitation skills that Chris modeled during the program.  Here are some of the things we noticed:

  • Asking a question of all the sites, reminding them of the question when calling on the next site, and allowing everyone to comment on the previous comments.
  • He takes notes on which sites have talked to make sure the conversation goes between all the sites.
  • The facilitator compliments all comments.
  • He summarizes and reinforces the points from the various sites.
  • He pulls out the agreement amongst all the sites.
  • He modeled good listening skills by leaning in and nodding as the participants talked.

Sometimes you don’t realize you’re experiencing good facilitation until you step back and watch the process.

By the way, GNG’s schedule is up online now with their fall programs!

Going Global: The Complexities of Fostering Intercultural Understanding

Lee, M. M. (2004). Going global: The complexities of fostering intercultural understanding in a rural school using videoconferencing technology. Unpublished Ph.D., Indiana University, Indianapolis.

Author: Mimi Miyoung Lee
Title of article: “Going Global”: The Complexities of Fostering Intercultural Understanding in a Rural School Using Videoconferencing Technology
Publication year: July 2004
Database source: Dissertation Abstracts.
Name of journal: n/a
My Codes: VCContentProviders

Main point of the dissertation: p. 4. The 7th graders participated in six videoconferences with persons from six different countries who connected from the University. Each program was 50 minutes long during the regular class period. While the one session videoconference interviews with someone from another country exposed the students to people from other cultures, it did not change their frameworks for understanding other cultures.

In some ways this study examines the effectiveness of the student learning through videoconferencing technology. And the conclusion is that short videoconferences don’t always effect deep change in students’ understanding.

Type of Study. Qualitative. Ethnographic study using Critical Ethnography (Carspecken, 1996). Observations, interviews and document analysis were used to collect data. The author was one of the speakers for the International Studies program. Data was collected on 18 students of the 34 in the class that participated in the international sessions with the content provider.

p. 27. The study was done with a very tiny school that serves students from around the area. However there isn’t a centrally location town and Wal-mart is 18 miles away. 40% of the student population participated in the free or reduced lunch program. This school is the extreme opposite from the school in the last dissertation I reviewed.

Findings.

The findings suggest that the students’ interpretation often resulted in measuring the differences of other cultures with the symbols of American consumerism, producing “Americanized other cultures.” The study concludes that the integration of the International Studies program was received very positively by the teacher and the students but did not result in an awareness of, and challenge to, already established frameworks for understanding difference. p. viii in Abstract.

This is very intriguing. Having lived in two other countries myself, I suspect that short videoconferences cannot make the difference the author was looking for. I’m also interested in the perspective of the author. I believe that her cultural background makes this study richer and more meaningful than if she had been of the same culture as the students she was studying.

p. 142. The program provided opportunities for meeting people from other cultures that is not realistically possible for isolated rural environments. The programs generated student motivation, but did not “result in an awareness of, or challenge to, an already established framework for understanding differences.” p. 143. “The students’ interpretation and the understanding of the lives of the “other” cultures, in many cases, still showed signs of ethnocentrism.

Suggestions for future research
p. 144. “More research needs to be done on the implementation of programs which can better foster a pluralistic understanding of non-American cultures, where differences are respected and appreciated.” “Intercultural competence is closely related to the concept of empathy, which refers to the ability to understand the world from the point of view of another.”

The researcher suggested several improvements for the program including:

  • Continuous use of the sessions
  • Support of the teacher including social studies communities of practice
  • Deeper topics such as class and gender vs. simplifications of the culture such as focusing on food and entertainment
  • Using a problem solving task to provide an “experience of using different approaches to work toward a common goal.”
  • More collaboration between rural schools & universities
  • Providing a panel of speakers to “better highlight the diverse makeup of the culture”
  • Improve the training of the presenters (they receive training on the technology but not on how to impact students’ cultural understanding)

Changing worldviews and cultural perspectives
“Students in small rural areas have both a greater need to have this information in the curriculum and a greater challenge to incorporate it into their worldview than their peers in urban areas.” p. 1. Isn’t it really difficult to change worldviews? Doesn’t it take a lot of new experiences to change a belief?

Lit Review
p. 5. “Much research has been done on evaluating specific features of videoconferencing technology to the effectiveness of the medium….” That is probably all the studies I’m finding that are on shared classes and business communication.

Distance Learning Technology & Communication
“Yoakam (1995) points out that the real-time broadcast of video-based instruction is the closest replication of the interpersonal relations in traditional classrooms that distance-learning technology offers.” p. 9

p.15 In a distance learning environment, there is a “transactional distance” (Lee & Paulus, 2001) to overcome. “Based on this theory of potential transactional distance, interactions are even more important in distance environments than in face-to-face classrooms.” p. 15. This is why we all evaluate programs and events on their interactions. And why we’re always trying to create even more interactive environments.

Supporting the Connection
p. 14 has a long list of the people involved in making the connection, including the coordinators & techs on both ends, the MCU/bridge staff, and the teacher & students involved (13 people/positions listed). I think it’s an extreme example of how many people could be involved in a connection.

VCs to Introduce, Supplement or Review a Lesson?
How do teachers decide whether to use a videoconference as an introduction to a lesson or as part of the instruction for the unit, or as a culmination? Have you ever thought about that? “In the beginning, Mr. Gordon wasn’t sure how to best sequence the presentation of the program and the book. He tried presenting the book first on some occasions and the program on others, and concluded that he liked the program as a preview better “because it draws [the students] more [to the book].” p. 92. Maybe it depends on which part of the lesson the teacher wants assistance: the motivation, the instruction, or the review.

Several descriptions of additional lesson activities are included as well: food fairs, discussions of current affairs, etc. that enhance and supplement the learning in the videoconference. i.e. p.96.

Are “loners” more interactive in videoconferences?
p. 100. The students who were considered “loners” in class were the ones who were the most interactive in the videoconferences. Have you noticed this effect with your students?

Descriptions of the videoconferences
Chapter three contains thick descriptions of each of the videoconferences with the people from different countries. The reactions of the students and their greater interest in basic life vs. political issues is similar to what I’ve experienced as well. For example:

[The Australian presenter] made a parallel between the case of the aborigines and that of American slavery. The students became noisy and in attentive during Nancy’s talk about the political issues. It was clear that the students did not find such topics as amusing as that of animals in Australia. p. 69.

While this experience is common to one session videoconferences such as those described, Read Around the Planet sessions I’ve observed, and other short experiences, the programs with Global Nomads stand out in stark contrast. I think the difference with the GNG programs is that the programs are longer than one session and the facilitators push the students into the hot topics and controversial issues quickly. It’s deeper, harder to facilitate, but more in depth learning occurs.

Questions I Have

  • Can one videoconference make a significant impact on student learning? Even in this case where there were six videoconferences, they were about six different countries so are still basically one per topic.
  • If one videoconference doesn’t make an impact, is it worth doing? Are the experiences and awareness level exposure worth the time and effort?
  • What makes some videoconferences more effective than others?
  • Are some topics harder to teach via videoconferencing than others? Or just plain harder to teach?

This topic seems to be one of those that is not easily addressed and a few videoconferences or in class lessons cannot make the impact that the researcher was hoping to see. However the videoconferences provided more experience than the students would have had otherwise. It was only a small step in the direction of fostering intercultural understanding. But an important step nonetheless?

Your Comments
This is the second in a series of research article “notes” that I’ll be posting throughout the summer. I invite you to join the conversation. What ideas struck you? What do you agree with? What questions does this article raise in your mind? Your comments are very much welcomed!

Cleveland Zoo Going Mobile

Many of us enjoy the free programs from the Cleveland Zoo. Here’s an article from Government Video, June 25, that has a nice overview of how they upgraded their system to present from exhibits instead of just the classroom. It even includes what technology was used to set up the network.