Tag Archives: Content Providers

More Maritime Madness

What floats your boat? This is just one question answered by one of our newest content providers, the Independence Maritime Museum .

Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia offers a range of programs for children k-12, starting with some basic history and working up to the physics on how ships are constructed.  This, along with other new arrivals like the Battleship New Jersey and the Intrepid Air, Sea, and Space Museum, are fueling the maritime craze created by long-standing favorites such as the UK’s National Maritime Museum and the Mariner’s Museum in Virginia.

All of these providers can be found at the Videoconference Provider Database.

Guest blogged by Michael Witzel, Berrien RESA videoconferencing intern.

A Novel in an Hour

Are you subscribed to Roxanne Glaser’s blog? If not, you missed a great write-up of her workshop on Sunday morning of the ISTE 10 conference.

Unfortunately I was flying, so I missed it!

Roxanne is a master at using collaborative asynchronous tools to support the videoconference project. Here’s the description of her workshop to convince you to check out her blog and wiki.

This session will model social constructivist learning theory using videoconferencing and supportive technologies. It will be an experience where participants will actually take chapters from the novel, create presentations using wikis, webcams, cameras, etc, and then share and connect to experts and others via video conference. This session is designed for teachers and technologists who would like to engage reluctant intermediate and middle school students to read and write. The mixing of Skype/video conferencing and Web 2.0 technologies is a fundamental principal to increasing and improving the learning opportunities afforded students participating in a distance-learning, “virtual field trip,” style learning event.

Content Providers Get Into the Pirate Theme at the IVC Playground

Another fun happening at the SIG IVC Playground last week was how the various content providers got into the spirit of the pirate theme.

The Mariner’s Museum

Initially the pirate crew planned to have a pirate at The Mariner’s Museum. When people dialed in and found the pirate, they got an extra cool prize! You can see what that looked like in this picture. This was the Tandberg MOVI island.

This idea worked well, but then we had a couple other content providers get into the pirate spirit.

Kigluait Adventures

The Kigluait Adventures team are always up for doing something fun and crazy! They decided to set up as pirate mushers. (Read their blog report here.)


Christina and Rich really got into the pirate theme! This was their welcome screen when you dialed in. This was at the Polycom CMA Desktop island.


Then Pirate Christina came on and talked like a pirate! (sorry for the bad quality picture – it looked better than that in person!)


Rich had rigged his sled into a ship!

Royal Botanical Gardens

Finally, Karin at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Ontario got into the spirit of things as well.

This was at the Tandberg Edge HD island. As you can see, we used a Promethean board for the display/projector for the setup.

In future posts, I’ll share the setup and some highlights from each of the six islands.

Two New Content Providers

Just learned in the SIG IVC Forum that there are two new content providers: Denver Museum of Nature and Science; and the Minnesota Historical Society is launching this fall. Watch for their new programs to be posted on www.VCcontentproviders.org soon!

HEC-TV Live! Connecting Classrooms with the World

SIG IVC Showcase: Helen Headrick, Higher Education Channel-Television with Tim Gore

HEC-TV’s programs are not available on demand – because they take videoconferencing onsite live to a location. The programs are also live on television and streamed through HEC-TV. Their programs are also archived on their website, and also in iTunes University. You can be view only in the session, or you can be interactive. Each session has only 4 interactive sites. These are television shows, and hosted by a producer and includes “b-roll” video clips to include in the program.

While their funding is from St. Louis and they do their programs free; they welcome participation from other areas and states.

Sweet – they have a Tricaster for their programs -and they gave a great overview of how it works.

Your students are interacting with a LIVE TELEVISION program – in terms of videoconference and production quality of the session.

We watched a clips where they went onsite to Shakespeare in the Park; an explosion in a quarry actually onsite (The Science Behind Explosions) – and an artist in a contemporary art museum. Students are interacting with the experts onsite.

Tim Gore and his team did a by request program for us a couple years ago where we needed a judicial program – and they went onsite and we talked to the judge and court reporter and saw a bit of an actual trial. You can email live@hectv.org for requests too. A few years ago Tim was involved in the Lewis and Clark re-enactment and VCed live from the trip. Amazing programs!

They totally allow bridges to dial in and connect to a whole bunch of schools behind it.

They are doing a program on Sept 17 for Constitution Day and they are doing it on the Supreme Court selection process. Sweet! Gotta sign up for that! Sign up for their e-list here. Registrations open up about a month before the program. They are doing a The Giver program next year! They are starting a new series of programs on The Civil War. They also have a series of Holocaust survivors.

Their programs are an hour long; and they don’t mind – you just need to let Tim, the host know that’s what you are doing.

A nice ending to the session was a comment to Tim from the audience: “you retired after 29 years of teaching and landed the most awesome job in the world. Thank you for staying passionate about education, as this is exactly what we need in our schools.” Awesome!!

Interactive Videoconferencing with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

SIG IVC Showcase: John Goehrke, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

John is giving an overview of the programs that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame offers. The room is again jam packed with a great group of educators.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame does point to point connections because they believe in the interactive engagement. They use rock and roll to teach about social studies, language arts, and other curriculum areas. Their programs are correlated to national standards. All the lessons are an hour long and include lessons and units to prepare the students and extend the lesson after the videoconference.

Their most popular program is Ball of Confusion: Rock and Roll and Social Change in the 60s and 70s – which is great for social studies classes – especially those that study the decades.

Clips from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are awesome – everyone in the room really enjoying them. (There’s another thing you really couldn’t do with Skype!)

This program is so popular and so requested, that they have added another program on the decade of the 80s.

One of the best programs that I know of out there for computer/technology classes is the Hip-Hop Technology: From Turntables to Computers – where students learn how the technology has changed through time. Very cool – we’ve had several middle school computer classes do this…. John showed the turntable used in the program, and described how the students produce a song that is sent to the class as an MP3 afterwards.

One of the activities they use is the Rock and Roll Jukebox – and participants get to choose the song to be played. The audience really got into that too!

Another great showcase – if you haven’t visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, be sure to schedule with them for next year!!

Elephant in the Room: Students Learning Science through Exhibit Design

IVC Showcase: Cathy Ryan-Smith, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo with Jason Schafer

In this session, the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo gave an overview of their videoconference programs, specifically a session on exhibit design. They are redesigning their elephant exhibit, so they brought the students at Springmill Intermediate in Mansfield, OH to participate in the design.

With this program, the Springmill Intermediate principal approached the Cleveland Zoo to integrate their changes with the math, science and technology curriculum for their students. The project they created included students designing their own exhibit.

The program included:

  • a proposal and approval from everyone
  • a Professor Wylde Animal Presentation (a traveling animal show)
  • 5 videoconference sessions: Exhibit Design, Animal Care, Horticulture, Education, Guest  Relations
  • and a field trip to the zoo

I really like the combination of on site visit at school, on site visit at the zoo, and the videoconference sessions; along with the inquiry learning and student designed projects/exhibits.

Students asked some great questions during the programs:

  • What tools are used to trim an animal’s feet?
  • How do zoo keepers handle elephants when they get scared?

Students had to take notes during the sessions so they could use the information later as they designed their exhibits.

How awesome – the Cleveland Zoo got a picture of the ISTE Blue Bear during one of their videoconferences.

Then we got to talk to one of the teachers involved in the program – and she told about her students’ reaction and engagement in the project and showed examples of the student work.

Cleveland Zoo programs are FREE!!

Note also that their registration opens on August 2, and their programs fill up very quickly, so make plans to get in!

Virtual Visit Professional Development

SIG IVC Showcase: Anthony Negron, New York Hall of Science with Chris Lawrence

This showcase was jam packed as well; with an actual experience of a content provider showcase videoconference with the New York Hall of Science. They showcased their program: Journey Inside the Eye with an actual cow’s eye dissection.

Photo by Paul Hieronymus.

NY Hall of Science has great programs and everyone enjoyed getting to experience the programs just as students do.

Blended Learning for the 21st-Century Classroom

SIG IVC Showcase: Elaine Shuck, Polycom, Inc.

Elaine started with a cute video clip about a student waking up in the morning to get engaged.

Polycom Special Events

She described the Polycom Special Event with blind author Jim Stovall, as well as other events: Dr. Ben Carson, Evelyn Coleman, Laurie Keller, Sarah Miller, Elizabeth Raum, Sue Stauffacher, Susan Thoms, Margaret Willey, Amy Young, Janie Panagopoulos; and other events for Black History Month, Women’s History Month.

Registration opens on September 1st inside CAPspace: Collaborations Around the Planet, where also registration happens for Read Around the Planet and teachers can post their own collaborations as well.

The programs are popular and fill up in a few hours, so get ready to register!

They also described a partnership with Global Nomads Group and showed how the lesson plans etc. are posted on the Polycom Special Events wiki.

The Polycom Special Events are free for Polycom customers, and there are only 5 slots for each session. They ask that only one school per district register for each event to make room for everyone.

The ASK Process

Sue Porter explained the ASK process: Ask, Specialist, Knowledge, where the students read a book, journal, write good questions, and then interview an author or a specialist. The video shown during the session is linked here at the top of the page.

Sessions in the Polycom Booth

Also FYI, there are a whole bunch of 30 min sessions throughout the conference at the Polycom booth – on CAPspace, with Global Nomads, with Andy Campbell at LearnNCO, and CMA Desktop, the new desktop videoconferencing tool; among other things.

Attendance: This session was JAM PACKED – it was great to see the large number of people interested in videoconferencing!

Video Conferencing to Promote Global Learning

Global Poster Session: Diane Midness, iEARN-USA with Tonya Muro Phillips, Global Nomads Group.

Last night in the poster sessions, Diane and Tonya explained how GNG and iEARN partnered to extend the learning in the GNG videoconferences. Global Nomads does amazing programs by taking videoconferencing equipment onsite to remote locations throughout the world.

Featured programs included Haiti and Uganda, and you can see more clips of their programs online here.

Tonya and Diane talk to interested poster session participants.

It was great to see how GNG and iEARN have partnered. GNG is good at videoconferencing, and iEARN is good at the asynchronous online community. The iEARN sites provide follow-up and continued conversations between the schools that participated in the kick-off videoconferencing.  A great model!