Tag Archives: International VCs

Are You Watching Megaconference Jr.?

Are you watching or participating in Megaconference Jr. today? Here are a few highlights from today already.

Kuo Kwang High School in Taiwan shared some wonderful little skits on topics such as the Moon Festival and a day in the life of a Taiwanese student. Their presentation gave them a chance to practice English and show off their understanding of words and puns. It was a delight to watch!

Young students at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras/Chennai shared learning games and other fun activities with the sites interactive with their presentation. They played a game of Duck Duck Goose, and we saw an interactive class in Ireland share one of their games too. The classes also tossed a virtual ball back and forth between India, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania.

Another presentation shared a couple of beautiful Chinese dances from a dance school in Minnesota.

I'll post more later, but if you're not connected via videoconference, you should watch via streaming. 

VC Blog from the United Kingdom

I just ran across another educational videoconference blog from the Kent community in the United Kingdom. The project and blog is called Meet in School and appears to involve loaning VC equipment to its member schools. I look forward to learning from this group and possibly getting some contacts to do projects between our classes!

A VC Blogger from Australia

I am delighted to introduce to you another blog about videoconferencing! This one is from Carol Daunt, executive officer of the Australian based Learning Technologies User Group. Her videoconference blog is titled Videoconference Tips & Techniques. She also has another blog, Dial M for Learning, also worth a peek.

I'm sure we'll learn some new VC techniques from Carol. I look forward to learning about videoconferencing in Australia, and maybe even learning a few tricks for overcoming our 14 hour time difference (Australia EST and U.S. EST) for collaborative connections.

If you're coming to my workshop at NECC, you'll get to hear Carol talk about collaborative projects in Australia.

Welcome Carol, to the videoconference blog community!

Another MysteryQuest International

Today we have another MysteryQuest International session. The class from Canada had a very creative presentation. They presented from a tour bus including driver, running commentary on the site, and Q&A about the country. Creative presentations are harder to take notes on, but they are much more fun to listen to!

In yesterday's session the classes guessed the answers too quickly. But today we had a bit harder clues and another presentation was added, so the students had to work harder on the answers.

Afterwards we took time again for the classes to ask each other questions. Of course they really enjoy this interaction getting to know students in another country. 

Since we started so early in the morning, the class in Canada had morning ceremonies halfway through the question and answer part. During the Canadian national anthem, the students in Pakistan also stood out of respect. It was a moving moment. As the head teacher in Pakistan mentioned, the classes start their day in a very similar manner. How far apart we are, yet how similar we are. What a wonderful feeling of connectedness!

MysteryQuest International

Today we have a very special event, a MysteryQuest International session with 3 countries represented (Canada, the US and Pakistan). I was a bit concerned about the various accents represented in the session, but with PowerPoints and visual clues and time to repeat the clues, everyone was able to get the clues written down.

We had a nice variety in the presentations, with a news show, a National Geographic show, and clues presented in amonst many beautiful pictures.


After asking clarifying questions, we realized that everyone had probably guessed the right answer. So we didn’t give the classes time to reconsider their answers as we usually do. Then one of the classes had opening ceremonies with the national anthem and school announcements, so we listened to their opening ceremonies. It was nice to have time in the schedule for the little interruption.

The classes were creative with their clarifying questions as well. Some questions were: “Is there a TV series named after your city?”, “Does your city have a hockey team?” (you can guess which country asked that question!).

This is the first time in all of the MysteryQuest sessions I’ve run that everyone got the right answer right away. I think it was partly because the classes chose large cities in their countries to present, and there were less classes participating so many heads found the answer quicker.

After finishing the usual MQ agenda, we took an extra 30 min. or so to ask each other questions. The conversation covered a broad range of topics such as weather, time, textbooks, teaching methods, lenth of school day/year, languages, snow, sports, especially hockey and cricket. We had a friendly rivalry interchange between the Toronto Maple Leaf fans and the Red Wings fans. The sports teacher in Pakistan also explained the game of cricket. Our Michigan students were concerned about the after effects of the earthquake and wanted to know how the students in Pakistan were affected by it.

This was a very special MysteryQuest event and it was a wonderful experience. I’m sure we’ll be doing it again. If you are outside the US reading this and interested in participating in the future, please email me! jlim@remc11.k12.mi.us

Culture Exchange with Pakistan

This morning a group of high school students from Decatur High School talked to high school students in Pakistan. After a bit of a rough start with technology, the classes started the discussion.

The discussion ranged from cultural questions like sports, favorite music, to more politically sensitive issues like what the students think of their presidents and the Iraq War. Some interesting notes from the conversation:

  1. When asked about the practice of covering women, one of their girls asked our students about nuns wearing the habit. This was just one example of the students in Pakistan communicating articulately and understanding the broader examples of an issue. I enjoyed hearing their responses to our students’ questions.
  2. They asked us some tough questions about obesity, drug use, and casinos in our country and area.
  3. One of their students asked us, “You aren’t wearing uniforms, but we are wearing uniforms. Do you think it makes any difference?”
  4. The classes also compared rural and urban living in their countries. The classes discovered that students in both countries enjoy surfing and chatting on the Internet, hanging out with friends at the mall, and playing computer games.
  5. The Kashmir discussion was very enlightening. The students in Pakistan explained that the real fight is over control of the water. We don’t hear that in our media and were surprised to understand the real issue. Hearing the story from someone living in the country is better than hearing it in the media.

It was an interesting conversation. Both sides had some misconceptions about each other that were cleared up in the conversation. I think a little more structure to the conversation would have been helpful. It is also crucial to get to know each other before diving into tough issues. Knowing a bit about the other participants, whether from a neighboring town, or another country, is essential for setting the tone of the conversation.

Tips for International VC Calls

I've been working on test calls with Pakistan, Peru, and Costa Rica in the last couple days. Here are some resources that I've found helpful!

  1. International Country Calling Codes. This neat little site is great for figuring out dialing strings for ISDN calls. Enter your country and the country you're connecting to, and you get the info you need! Very cool.
  2. Timeanddate.com. I've also been working on my NECC sessions, getting some international partners to connect to during my sessions. I've found the Meeting Planner very helpful to figure out which of my international contacts are sleeping during a session and which ones might be available. You just pick the date and the cities and you get a nice spread of times color coded to whcih times will probably work best.

Another thing that is very helpful is to be willing to do test calls and connections at odd times. It's not very fair or gracious for us in the U.S. to expect international sites to accommodate us by coming in outside of school hours to connect. We are connecting to Pakistan for a videoconference on Thursday, and due to the 10 hour time difference, we have to connect early our time and it's still after school late afternoon for them. So when we needed to do a test call, we connected late last night so the test was during the school day their time. That way to make the connection work, both sides have compromised a bit on the time.

I heard this message loud and clear in the international sessions at the Keystone Conference last October. It really is important to work as hard as possible to make the connection as easy as possible for all sides involved. So when planning your international videoconferences, be considerate and thoughtful of your partner school!

Invasive Species in the US & UK

This morning Lakeshore High School is connected to Caereinion High School, Wales, United Kingdom. Students are again sharing facts about an invasive species in their area. The Lakeshore High School students are sharing their Zebra Mussels presentation again and the students at Caereinion High School are presenting the American grey squirrel, which is a threat to the survival of the native red squirrel.

The question and answer time was more informal and fun this time. The students very quickly wanted to ask questions about each other. Some of the questions included from the Lakeshore students included:

  • How many pounds are in a dollar?
  • How old are you?
  • Do you know how they make the red squirrel reserves so that the grey squirrel can’t live there?
  • How does the disease spread from squirrel to squirrel?
  • What time is it there?
  • What age can you drive there?
  • Has Harry Potter come out for you yet?

The Welsh kids asked questions as well:

  • Do you have black squirrels?
  • Do you have red squirrels?
  • Do you think you’ll have a resolution to the zebra mussel problem or will it get worse?

The classes enjoyed quite a bit of humor in the conversation back and forth. The teachers are hoping to do another connection again on another topic.

Conversation Brings Compassion

What experiences help students learn to care about the news & what happens in the world?

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know we connected a world issues class and a 2nd grade class to Karachi, Pakistan the end of September.

Now both classes have emailed me wondering how they can send a care package or do something to help their peers in Pakistan affected by the earthquake.

It was just a simple conversation, really, those connections two weeks ago. Yet look at the concern now from these students. All of a sudden they know someone in Pakistan and what a difference it makes! If more students could participate in global videoconferences, maybe they too could learn to care about the world around them & want to make a difference!