Tag Archives: International VCs

Last MysteryQuest World of 2007

Today is the last session of MysteryQuest World Geography of 2007. No more MysteryQuests until MysteryQuest USA in April (still room to sign up if you want!)

Today’s MysteryQuest treat is having Grafton Elementary, Ontario, participate in our session on Europe. It did my heart good to see the huge Canadian flag in their introduction. Yes, I’m Canadian. It’s always a treat to have a non U.S. school in our MysteryQuest sessions, so we took time at the end to ask each other questions.

The Grafton Elementary class did a Lost simulation of the students on a class trip to Europe. The clues were woven into the skit story with what they had found about the country where they were lost. This is the first skit I’ve heard where the students really verbally and visually emphasized the clues within the skit. They had nice pauses after the important clues to write down as well. Great job Grafton!

Mata Intermediate, TX, also had a visual that worked well. Along with their news show was an easel with the category for that set of clues.

This session had the most technical difficulties of the MysteryQuests we ran this month, but the students weathered it well.

So that’s the end of this year’s world geography MysteryQuests. We have another set of U.S. geography sessions coming up in April. The slots aren’t full yet, so we’d love to have you participate!

MysteryQuest with Nicaragua

Today we have a special treat for MysteryQuest Western Hemisphere. We have a class from Nicaragua participating!

We are also using the Polycom RSS in a unique way. My local school’s system went on the fritz this week. We don’t know why it quit working and the problem seems to be network related. MysteryQuests are impossible to reschedule, so we connected them in via a speakerphone for interaction, and then put the streaming up on a projector with the sound turned down so they could get the visuals. Maybe the most unique way a recording device has been used so far, but it did allow my school to participate successfully in MysteryQuest today.

Since we recorded it, this is one MysteryQuest that you could watch if you want. (Schools participating in MysteryQuest have collected parent permission forms before hand.) The program will play in Windows Media Player.

At the end we had 20 minutes of Q&A with the American Nicaraguan School. It was their first videoconference and one of the questions they asked the other schools was, “do you like videoconferencing with us?” Of course everyone shouted out YES!! Other questions were:

  • What do you do for fun?
  • What is your home like?
  • How far do you live from school?
  • Some questions were asked in Spanish by students in the Michigan schools. That was really neat for both classes.
  • What is your school day like?
  • If we were to visit Nicaragua where should we go?

It was a great connection and everyone enjoyed the research and interaction with the other classes at the end.

By the way, registration is open for MysteryQuest USA in April. We’d love to have you participate.

International MysteryQuest

Well, here I am at work again on a snow day making a videoconference happen! All my schools are closed, including our admin building, and one of my local classes in particular is probably disappointed. I know the teacher is. Today was our day for MysteryQuest International, a special version of MysteryQuest where we have only one classroom per country.

We had 5 countries lined up, but due to weather and sickness, we ended up with only 3. Our Canadian school had a snow day too, but the kids came to school anyway and I was very glad we had at least one North American school participate. Those rugged Canadians!! 🙂

Our classroom in India lost power in the whole city for the first few minutes of the connection. They must have had UPS backup, because I typed the clues in Yahoo IM to the coordinator so they could get the first presentation.


Students in India gather in a conference room with maps, globes, and notetaking worksheets.


Students in Pakistan carefully listening to a presentation.


Students in Ontario, Canada present a skit with their clues. The class is lined up as a group of people on an airplane making an emergency landing in a mystery country. Notice the stewardess in the middle.

With international MysteryQuest, I also let the classes ask for as many clues repeated as possible. The different accents and fast speaking make it hard for the students to understand each other’s clues.

Also usually I prefer to keep the connection up during the research sections, but because two of the schools had to connect in via ISDN, they disconnected during the research sections.

Then at the end of the session, we always take time for question and answers between the classes. It’s always wonderful to hear the students interact with each other. Here’s a sampling of their conversation:

  • What kind of animals do you have in your country? (From Canada to India)
  • The Canadian students showed the snow out the window. It was -39C in Canada and 30C in India.
  • What time is it there? (8 p.m. in India, 7:30 p.m. in Pakistan, and 9;30 a.m. in Canada).
  • Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day? yes! They wished each other Happy Valentine’s Day.
  • How do you survive the cold? (From India to Canada)
  • Do you have snowball fights?
  • Do you wear a school uniform? Both classes in India and Pakistan had uniforms.
  • What do you do in your spare time?

What a fun connection and a warm way to start my snow day!

Snow Days & Test Calls

What lengths will you go to in order to make an international connection work? This morning I woke up to a snow day. After checking to see which of my schools are closed (all of them in Berrien County), I checked my email. There waiting in my inbox was an email from India regarding a test call for MysteryQuest International. Thanks to the magic of Qlock, I could look down at the time for Bangalore and realize they wanted to test in 10 minutes. Thankfully I have a desktop endpoint at home and I can web into my bridge. So voila, magical, successful test call.

I also met this morning with Roxanne Glaser to help get some classes for RAP leftovers. Our furnace fan motor is out too so I’m home in one warm room of the house. Roxanne thought I looked so funny I should put a pic up. So here it is. All bundled up and VCing.

The first snow picture is out the window of the back porch. Ok, back to work on the RAP leftovers. Unfortunately there’s quite a few. It may be the end of the week before you get your matches.

Trading PD for Project Partners

Here’s an interesting model for finding partners. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’ve been working on finding partners for our 6th grade classes studying Canada. This week I found the last set in an interesting way.

In August at the Alberta Broadband Summer Institute I collected business cards of several schools willing to connect to our 6th grade classes.

In following up with one of them, I discovered that this particular district, Peace River, has used VC mainly for high school classes. So while they were interested in connecting to us, they need more info on enrichment VCs.

So on Tuesday I did an hour workshop for them with an overview of field trips, resources, examples of projects, MysteryQuest, and more. And then in the last 20 minutes, I sprung my request on them! By the end of the hour, I had partner teachers for the last four slots I needed to fill! So we traded PD for project partners and it worked great for both of us!

I think we all like to compare weather at the beginning of a VC, and when you’re in Michigan and the snow just melted and it’s raining, you want to know the weather in northern Alberta! So I asked them to show me the snow out the window. Listen to Fred Churchman’s description of that moment in our training:

It’s the little things that sometimes stick in my mind: I think I’ll always remember looking out your window at the wet mess, and then going to the trouble of moving the monitor and camera to make sure you got to see the snow outside our window. Thanks for that memory!

By the way, above the picture is from the Confluence Project.

Thank you, Peace River, Alberta, for yet another VC and the promise of more to come!

New RAP Verification Instructions

New Read Around the Planet Verification Instructions were posted online at the TWICE website this week.

Just a reminder that if you want to participate in Read Around the Planet this year, make sure you have started the verification process by November 22! That’s 12 days away. Time is ticking away!
For more reading, review previous RAP blog entries: RAP 2007 Announcement and Preparing for RAP 2007.

Warm Feelings From Megaconference

Did you participate in Megaconference yesterday? Did you stay the whole time? Did you get up early to see the presentations from Asia? What a treat of dance and music from the Chinese Academy of Sciences! First thing in the morning (EST) and then at the end of Megaconference last night (EST). The ending performance from Beijing, “The Greeting From Heart,” by the Disabled People’s Performing Art Troupe was exquisite. One of the dances created a heart to share with the world.

Yes, there is incredible value in taking time beyond your usual schedule to connect to countries around the world. The Chinese message and theme of “Peace +Friendship +Harmoniousness +Advancement” came through strong and clear. Yes, we CAN feel connected and together even though we are geographically far away.

Leaving my office in the snow & cold last night, I had a feeling of awe and community. How close we are to each other. How much we can learn from each other. “The more we get together, the happier we’ll be.” Nothing compares to signing that song in a funny echoing round with 26 MCUs cascaded together! If you haven’t stuck around for the closing ceremonies of Megaconference before, plan your schedule so you can next year.

Megaconferencing Around the World

Today I’m enjoying the wonderful experiences of the 8th annual Megaconference. If you haven’t participated in a Megaconference before, you should definitely plan for next year’s. The next one is Megaconference Jr. in February. Megaconference is always a visually rich feast of experiences, pictures, and people.

This morning started with a beautiful music and dance from the Chinese Academy of the Sciences. Also we saw some neat role plays and skits from Taiwan explaining Chinese culture.

We learned about a new content provider in Texas, The Cowgirl Hall of Fame.

My favorite part of Megaconference is the roll calls. I love to see all the places that are connected. It’s a great geography lesson seeing all the places that are connected. And of course Bob’s hats are a treat to see!
My next favorite part is the choirs. Tim Poe’s songs are just perfect and set a fun and joyful tone to the conference.

I really enjoyed the Trans Atlantic Piano Teaching presentation. This reminded me of the MusicPath presentation at NECC a couple years ago. It looks like the same technology that allows you to play a piano remotely. Pretty cool.

I was intrigued by the North Dakota Telepharmacy Project. I also like to learn about real-world uses of VC outside of education. Bringing pharmacy services to rural communities VC is really creative and totally meets a need.

The conference is still going on, so if you’re reading this yet today and haven’t signed up, you can watch the streaming here.

Preparing for RAP: Read Around the Planet 2007

By now hopefully you’ve checked your email and received the announcement from Sue Porter from one (or more) of the listservs on the Read Around the Planet project, formerly known as Read Across America.

If you’re familiar with the project already, here’s what you need to know.

  • The project is sponsored by Polycom this year. This sponsorship allows TWICE to contract with Sue Porter as the main coordinator for the project. Sue is a “retired” TWICE Board member and one of the original founders of this event, so you’ll be in good hands. And I’m helping to coordinate the verification piece. So that’s how coordination is happening.
  • There’s a new registration system. Make sure your spam filter is allowing email from read@remc11.k12.mi.us. PLEASE READ the New Verification System Overview (1 page PDF).
  • The project is five days this year. March 1, 2, 5-7.
  • There’s a new World Language Day match on March 9 for language classes. Be sure you realize it’s very unlikely you’ll match with native speakers. It’s to practice with other classes studying the language. You’ll be matched by level and language as well as time & connection type. Read the WLD Teacher Packet.
  • International connections! Read Around the Planet means that we’re including countries other than the US in this project. But we still have a majority of US schools. So this doesn’t mean you will get an international connection. However, you have a chance of getting a Canada connection anytime you sign up for. If you sign up for early morning EST, you have a chance of getting matched with the UK. We made a timezone chart this year so you can see which areas are possibly participating at the time you’re signing up for. As other countries sign up for verification we’ll update this with their time zones too.

If you’re new to the project, here’s what else you need to know!

  • This project is monstrous! Last year 1042 classes participated, just in the U.S. So if the procedures in place for verification and registration seem complicated, it’s because of the large number of classes connecting and the complication of all the ways we can connect to each other. So get a good dose of patience and flexibility before you sign up! 🙂
  • Read Read Read. The materials that is. Start with the Tech, Coordinator, and Teacher packets. Please read them carefully. Again this project is huge, so understanding the scope & implications of participating is really important. Then review the steps on the project website. Become very familiar with the website & the steps/timeline of the project.
  • Watch a movie. This little overview of the project still refers to Read Across America, but other than that the info is still pertinent. Use this to share with your teachers too.

Regional Coordination
I thought I’d share how I’m coordinating this project locally. In the past I’ve connected my schools for everything they do. Control freak, you know! 🙂 But now that our usage has exploded (207 VC requests right now where I had 86 last year), I’m starting to teach my districts to do this on their own. So here’s what I’m doing for verification in November.

  1. I started by asking all my building contacts if they are participating this year and if they are ready to participate on their own. (Some have staff ready and some are so understaffed I’ll probably always help them.)
  2. Next, I’m going to meet with them in a few after school meetings. I’m going to help them login to the TWICE Registration System, enter information for their building, and explain how all that works. All my buildings that will connect on their own I’m verifying on their own. The rest that still need me I’ll verify under my bridge.
  3. I’m also going to talk to them in the meeting about managing the connections within the district. Most of my buildings are in districts with just one or two T1 lines and so they can/should only do one VC at a time. So in some cases we’ll be negotiating which day each building will participate in RAP. We’re going to make sure we have a good feel for the demand and interest in the buildings so we’ll be ready with a plan once teacher registration opens on December 1.

We’ll see how this plan works for support in our area. If you have tips for managing this project in your area, please share them here!

For more reading, check out my posts about last year’s RAA: Still Reading Across America, Spanish Read Across America, Some Great RAA Stories, RAA The Mitten, Singing Across America, RAA Day Two, and My Favorite Things.