Tag Archives: Content Providers

Gingerbread Boy

This morning we have the second class from Marcellus Elementary participating in The Gingerbread Boy from the Center for Puppetry Arts. This wildly popular program is getting to be as hard as the heart surgery programs to get into!! In late September we thought we’d schedule this for December. But the closest we could get to December was this week (November 8)! So if you want to do the Gingerbread Boy during December next year, you’d better plan ahead!

I love the intro the Center for Puppetry Arts does to help students learn etiquette and how to behave in a VC. It helps students know how to talk, ask questions, and “put on their listening ears”.

Students learn about all the different books with different gingerbread stories. They see puppet shows with the gingerbread story. Students get involved verbally in the story, making the sound of the animals in the story. They learn about what goes in the bowl to make gingerbread, and other information about gingerbread ingredients. Students also make a gingerbread boy puppet during the program. Another great hands-on program from the Center for Puppetry Arts!

Animals in Jeopardy

This morning another RUS grant building, Marcellus Middle School, is doing their first videoconference with the Columbus Zoo. This program, Animals in Jeopardy, is about endangered species. The program begins with a review of terms such as endangered, extinct, poaching, etc. Then students select a statement about cheetahs and arrange themselves around the room based on the statements they most identify themselves with.

Next students watch gorillas live at the zoo and learn about various issues affect the gorillas habitat. They also learn about elephants, ferrets, the Mexican wolf, the bald eagle, the peregrine falcon, and other animals. Students learn how the zoo is involved in conservation activities and reintroduction of animals back into the wild.

Another excellent program from the Columbus Zoo, our all time favorite zoo!

I Survived the Onslaught

Every year I can tell when MEAP, our state testing, is over. All of a sudden I have an onslaught of videoconferences. Most of you know I’m the tech and the coordinator in our service area, so it can get crazy. Today was one of those days! Last week’s ASK Ice Bear & Little Fox program got rescheduled to today, the same day I did ASK Stellaluna. Plus I had three schools connected to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago for their Live From the Heart program this morning. I’m also starting to finally get the hang of making gatekeeper calls work within my districts and to my bridge. Today’s videoconferences impacted 20 classrooms and about 570 students. Plus 8 RUS Grant buildings did their first VCs.

Of course with that many sessions, there’s always oopses. We had a timezone oops for one of the sessions. And I accidentally connected the wrong building for another. But other than that all the connections worked & the kids and teachers are happy with the learning.

Now that these connections are done, I can breathe again. Whew. I made it!

First RUS Grant Videoconference

This morning Marcellus Elementary is participating in the first videoconference with students at one of our RUS Grant Buildings. They are participating in the very fine LAPS programs offered by EDCO and Macomb ISD. This one is about Mitchell State Park.

Each of the classes introduce themselves. Then there are video clips of the park, presentations from each of the classes, a drawing activity and more. LAPS programs are highly interactive and require preparation on the part of teachers. But they tightly fit the 4th grade Michigan curriculum, so teachers love them. Thanks, Macomb ISD, for offering this program to our students!

I Want to Work at the Zoo

Today we have a high school class connecting to the Columbus Zoo for their program I Want to Work at a Zoo.

This is one of my favorite career programs because of the diversity of careers presented & the interesting way they are presented. For advertising careers, they have a wonderful set of clips of very funny ads for zoos around the U.S. Students also talk to one of the animal trainers and get to ask questions about their work at the zoo. Next the students learn about exhibit design and what needs to be considered when creating an exhibit for an animal. Then they see video from an exhibit and hear about how that exhibit was designed.

Next they learn how Columbus Zoo field researchers work out in the wild. There’s a great hands-on activity where students look at pictures of gorillas snapped by a field camera to try to figure out how many gorillas are in that area in the wild. It’s a tough task for the students.

This is a great program for an overview of careers in all areas, not just animals!

Visiting Three Content Providers

Tonight Macomb ISD has again shared with us the successful Virtual Providers Showcase after school workshop. We’re focusing on language arts and social studies related programs. Here’s where we went.

Holocaust Memorial & Education Center
Another way to connect to holocaust survivors. For east coast schools a way to get a connection for morning classes (Museum of Tolerance). There are some mostly talking programs that are still incredibly powerful. Hearing a story live and realizing that the person telling their story is actually in front of them really impacts kids. It makes the reality of the Holocaust incredibly real to the students.

Discovery Center of Springfield
This provider has several programs, not just on science! We learned about the programs on various areas of the world, and how social studies and language arts are included in the science programs as well. The Discover Center sends a kit of materials for all their programs (which have to be sent back when you’re finished). These are used for hands-on activities during the programs. The presenter researches the school ahead of time so she can tailor the program and explain to students the population differences compared to their own town.

Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum
We were wondering when we connected, where this place is in Oregon. Well, it’s the end of the Oregon Trail. They also have a lot of information, exhibits, etc. on Lewis and Clark. They have online web activities, as well as the videoconference programs they offer. The programs have a packet of teacher materials and pre and post activities. They are hoping to develop some new programs in the future on the Oregon Trail, since most of the programs right now are about Lewis & Clark. We really liked these programs. Lots of great visuals – both photographs and artifacts. This is a hidden treasure you probably haven’t visited and should plan to!

Also, since I just learned about Roxanne’s Content Provider Note Taking Sheet, we tried that out in the workshop tonight. Love it! Will definitely keep using this great handout!

First VCs of the School Year

This morning I’m connecting our 3rd videoconference of the year – Open Heart Surgery with COSI Columbus. It’s my first connection. This year was a harbinger of things to come. My first two VCs in the county were coordinated and connected by one of my districts all on their own. Training a new coordinator too! Our usage is growing so much I’m starting to let go & train my schools to do connections on their own.

The first two VCs we did were with MAGPI in Pennsylvania. They have a great lineup of programs for this year – and some models of programming worth learning from.

Sept. 15 Constitution Day Celebration: America Reads the Constitution
Students around the nation read the whole constitution. This was a really neat program where each class was assigned a portion of the constitution to read.

Sept. 25 Banned Books Virtual Panel Discussion
Students participated in a discussion of banned books along with Chris Crutcher and Sonya Sones. Scott Merrick posted a video clip of the program on his blog. One of our local students commented, “This was cool. Are we going to do this again?” VC motivates learning yet again!

Other First VCs
I also enjoyed reading about Avon Schools celebration of Constitution Day – Creating Classroom Rules and It’s My Right! And Andrea Isreali has a nice list of their first VCs of the year too.

Misc. Articles & Resources

Here are a few articles & resources I’ve collected over the past few months.

Time to catch up on your reading!

Summer's Over

Well, the summer is over and it’s time to start blogging again! I have quite a little list of things to blog about. So here’s the first.

The TWICE Board retreat the end of June met at the St. Clair RESA nature center. After the meeting was over, we got a quick tour of the “gator,” a videoconferencing unit on a tractor for presenting programs from the nature center. Very cool. Enjoy these pics, compliments of Anne Thorp, photographer.


Anne Thorp, Ottawa ISD, drives the tractor.


Yup, it’s a Polycom!


Camera mounted on the front of the tractor.


Mike Maison, St. Clair RESA, gets ready to drive.


The trailer.


Inside the trailer.

What other unique setups have you seen for VC?? Please comment & share!

Royal Tyrrell Museum: Up Close & Palaeo

Still at the Broadband Summer Institute here in Canmore. Now I’m attending a session by Colin Regamey, their new Distance Learning Coordinator. 

The Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta is starting to offer videoconference programming this fall. They have just built a new Atco Tyrrell Learning Centre to support their education outreach programs.

All their programs are correlated to the Alberta Education curriculum. 

Some of their face to face programs include making molds, fossil casting, and digging to find fossils.

They started with pilot programming in 2002-2003. They presented from the ATCO office for this initial programming. Also they’ve piloted some programs this past spring since the new Learning Centre was built. The pilot sessions were the Up Close & Palaeo program. 

The programs include lots of interesting visuals: animations showing the process of fossilization, objects on the document camera, and other visuals.

They work really hard to make the program suit the teachers’ needs. Students submit questions in advance and teachers can request certain topics. 

The first program they are designing is for grade 4, Rockin’ Alberta Resources. The program covers geography, geology, and paleontology. The program will include pre and post materials, lessons, and resources. Included are also fun animated games, similar to those that Mote Marine Laboratory is doing.

New programs they will be adding soon are: 

PIQ: Test Your Palaeo Intelligence, a program to begin or end a classroom study on Palaeontology. The program will be K-12, with specific questions and topics included for each grade level. They are very committed to having their programming tailored to the teachers.

Dinosaurs in the Movies, a program focusing on the evolution of dinosaur science and movies for grades 3 through 12. 

The museum also sells resource books, videos, and other resources to assist teachers in their instruction. Some of the videos are the same ones that are played in the museum. Supplementary material is always good!

The programs are $125 each, and the Up Close and Palaeo program is $200 because it uses an expert from the museum. 

Programs will be available Tuesday to Friday at specific times, and the Up Close and Palaeo program will be available only on Wednesdays at 11:00. (They are on Mountain Time.)

It’s nice to see another content provider getting organized to offer programming for schools!