Tag Archives: VC Community

3 things I believe about all students

Thanks, Carol, for tagging me for a meme! A thought-provoking one too! Here are the instructions for this meme:

Read Martha’s original post from the Opening Digital Doors blog.

  1. Share three things that you believe about all students.
  2. Reflect on your thoughts in your blog.
  3. Be sure to link to this post and to where you were first tagged.
  4. Tag your response with AllStudentsMeme
  5. Invite others to join the conversation by tagging them to be a part of the meme.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I want to keep a videoconferencing twist to it; but I’ve been struggling with the “all students.”

  1. So let me start with the first one. All students learn in different and unique ways. As educators, then, we should celebrate each one’s uniqueness, and find creative ways to meet the learning needs of all students. For some of them, videoconferencing catches their eye & inspires them to learn about the world.
  2. I wanted to say, All students are motivated by technology, specifically videoconferencing. But I can think of a few rural middle school students in my service area who have been incredibly freaked out by videoconferencing. “This is freaky.” “This is like big brother.” So, maybe it’s better to phrase this as, When appropriately prepared, all students enjoy a videoconference with experts or peers around the world. I love watching kids get over that initial fear or nervousness, and end with… “They’re just like us!” Next, it’s, “When is our next videoconference?”
  3. I also wanted to say, All students learn by talking. But you and I both know those who don’t learn by talking! Still, a great number of students like to talk, tell what they’ve learned, what they know, what they want to know, ask questions… Since videoconferencing is a communication tool, students can present, ask questions, tell stories, share experiences… TALK, TALK, TALK!

Here’s who I’m tagging for this meme. You’re it!

Signs & Symptoms of a Successful VC Program

This morning I was chatting with Arnie Comer about our distance learning programs. He asked me if I had a class in the Polycom Special Event with Margaret Willey this afternoon. I don’t; because I sent it out once, and when no one signed up, I didn’t worry about it anymore. He said – that’s a sign of a successful distance learning program. Because my schools are already doing plenty of videoconferences I don’t feel I have to bug them, nor do I have time to…

So I thought it might be interesting to make a list of signs and symptoms of a successful videoconference program. Symptoms because sometimes it’s hard to manage the growth!

  • No longer is there time to blog every videoconference experience. Were you wondering why I’m not blogging as much?
  • Rarely calling teachers specifically to sign up for programs; instead they are beating down the doors to register.
  • A 15-25 videoconference day is no longer an anomaly.
  • A quiet day with no videoconferences is a rare treat indeed!
  • Spending much less time advertising; more time just connecting.
  • Not enough time to work with schools that aren’t using videoconferencing because the ones that are keep me busy.
  • Depending on my videoconference coordinators more and more for test calls & scheduling.
  • Not enough time for troubleshooting problems.

Do you see any of these signs and symptoms in your area? Can you think of any others? Any suggestions in dealing with the symptoms? Please comment!

Web 2.0 as the Vehicle of Community for Jazz

This afternoon, for homework, I was reading an article by Peter Senge:

Senge, P. (1995). Robert Greenleaf’s legacy: A new foundation for twenty-first century institutions. In L. C. Spears (Ed.), Reflections on leadership (pp. 217-241). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Senge argues that leadership includes answering “how do you build the capacity of a group of people to move toward their visions?” In this section, he suggests that people should be in dialogue, not discussion, and to be thinking together. To illustrate thinking together, he references the movie, Dances with Wolves, in particular, the section where the tribal council meets. There is deep listening, multiple strong perspectives, and no action or decision made. Yet later in the movie, there is a scene where the tribe acts fluidly together on a buffalo hunt. Senge suggests that “the capacity for the counil to sit and think together is inseparable from their capacity to act together” (p. 233).

Twitter as “Thinking Together”
All of a sudden it struck me! Web 2.0 is how the Jazz facilitators “think together”. Some of the Jazz facilitators stay connected throughout the year in multiple ways:

  • Blogs: Janine, Roxanne, Lori, Rebecca, Ashton, Andrea… did I miss anyone? Some of those who don’t blog still comment fairly regularly on these blogs.
  • Skype: we all have each other’s Skype accounts from using it in Jazz. Some of us “Skype each other” regularly to ask questions, get help, share resources etc.
  • Twitter: This is the new one for me. Just started in August. But I realized when I was reading Senge that there is a stream-of-Jazz-lead-facilitator-consciousness running along in Twitter.
  • Sharing VCs: In addition, some of the Jazz facilitators create and share content throughout the year with the others. This builds community; builds relationships; builds trust.

All of these tools help us learn together, share together, THINK together throughout the year. So when we come to plan Jazz in the summer, we have a collective shared knowledge and growth from the year.

To Jazz Facilitators: Participate!
However, not all of the Jazz facilitators participate in this community of thinking together. They are missing out! I’d like to challenge the Jazz facilitators who might fit into this category to do at least one of the following:

  1. Subscribe to the blogs listed above – both comments and post RSS feeds. Then comment at least once a month.
  2. Get TwitterFox and follow one or more of us. I’m not sure as of this posting if all the Jazz lead facilitators want me to post their Twitter account here, so I won’t. You know how to contact us if you need to.
  3. Create some content and share it with another Jazz facilitator. This year! Before June 2009!

If you do, there won’t be such a learning curve when we get to making Jazz happen in the summer. We’ll have a year’s worth (or more) of shared knowledge from which to innovate, improve, and inspire our workshop participants.

To the rest of you:
How are you contributing to a learning community? Are you participating? Do you have a personal learning network?

My Wordle

Roxanne inspired me to do a Wordle on my blog. So here it is. (click to see it bigger) I picked the one where the Read Around the Planet words were close together. It’s funny that New is so big for all the updates of content providers. Glad to see that ASK and Veterans made the list too. Not sure why December is so big! 🙂 Click it to make it bigger.

Also, it might be blocked at your school, so try to view it at home….

How do you interpret it? Feel free to comment!
Wordle

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, so I thought I’d write about a few Canadians I’m thankful for today! Hope you all are enjoying your pumpkin pie! I had mine for Sabbath dinner. Yum Yum!

And, for the Americans reading this blog, check out a little history of Canadian Thanksgiving. Did you know it was celebrated before the pilgrims landed in Plymouth? Wikipedia concurs. Wouldn’t that make an interesting videoconference, to compare the history and celebrations of Thanksgiving in these two great countries?!

Elevating Conversations

Here at Elevate 2008, my favorite part is the conversations I’m having with VC friends from here and there and everywhere. Here are a few snippets of those conversations.

Tracy from BC
I met Tracy from BC, a teacher-librarian. We had several great conversations about Read Around the Planet, using Web 2.0 tools, and professional development opportunities. We hope to connect our classes soon.

Chris from Australia
I told Chris about our connections to Australia in May. We talked about things we could do together. I know some of my schools would be willing to connect to Australia in the evening during a parent night or something similar. We also talked about my idea in the projects booklet of time-delayed collaborations with the Polycom RSS or a similar device. I’m hoping we can actually make some of those happen this year.

H.239 with Ken, Shane, Roxanne
I learned another reason not to use H.239 / People Plus Content / DuoVideo. Did you know that only one site in the conference can send H.239 at a time? I can think of several projects we run where we show each other content at the same time. This standard is designed for one way presentation style communication, not the interactive-engaging-collaborative-constructivist-learning experiences we prefer to do.

CILC Content Dollar Bank with Ruth
Ruth Blankenbaker and I had a chat about their dollar bank program. It’s a really cool service for anyone struggling with the challenges of scheduling and managing the funding of a lot of content provider programs. She said schools are using it for managing grant funding and for after school programs.

Chatting about firewalls with staff from an unnamed district
It’s so unfortunate when networks are locked down so tight that you can’t call another school in your building, and your tech won’t give you an IP address to give to the place you want to connect to. It’s so challenging to solve the connection problems with H.323 and firewalls. It’s nice to get together with friends and mutter together.

These are just a flavor of the conversations from Elevate 2008. If you were here, what conversations did you learn from?

VC7 – Brain Based Learning Techniques

James Tapankov: The VC7 – Brain Based Learning Techniques in VC
At Elevate 2008

This session will explore the use of brain-based learning techniques in the videoconferencing environment. The VC7 is a list of seven approaches that are guaranteed to enhance the level of interactivity and value to every VC, regardless of its focus. The session will involve the history of the development of the VC7, from its beginning roots to the current project with the VCRLN (Videoconferencing Regional Leads Network) to develop an online multimedia reference to highlight effective aspects of learning via VC.

I’ve been really looking forward to this session since I read the blurbs for the sessions at Elevate. I’m so interested in what the 7 things are!! James doesn’t have this information online anywhere that I could find, but last night at dinner he gave me permission to blog his session, so you too, can learn about the VC7.

James’ work is influenced by that of Marcia Tate of Developing Minds and Stephen Covey, and Viktor Flankl – Man’s Search for Meaning. I’m impressed with the connection and grounding in theory.

His handout has room to write down the 7 things, room to scribble and draw. He does this session via videoconference as well.

Keys to Brain-Based Learning

  • Relaxed alertness
  • Orchestrated immersion in complete experience
  • Active processing

#1. Make it meaningful.

Get everyone involved ASAP. Give meaning right away. Why are we here? Allow input into the “how”. Have everyone to something in the first 5 minutes instead of listening. Aim learning at solving problems together. Process learning in multiple ways. Connect life experiences. Build in reflection.

#2. Get them active.

Build in reasons and opportunities to: move. talk. draw. role play. play games. sing/dance. SHARE. “The last thing you want is a videoconference that could be recorded and sent out and it would have the same effect.”

#3. Keep it fresh.

Chunk it up, change it up. Take timely breaks. Give things to do OFF camera. Do unexpected things. Plant a “mole”. Change participant perspectives. Use new tools.

Marcia’s rule – maximum length of an activity: average age – up to 20 age/minimum. Grade 5 students who are 10, then chunk 10 minutes. Adults, 20 minutes max.

Example of unexpected things. He had some “moles” to pull out this snack that he likes – and everyone would taste it. Garlic sauce covered pretzels.

#4. Engage the senses.

Use A/V cues. Involve peripheral learning. Provide physical props. Use music. Use smell/taste. Use touch.

Visuals around and behind you but you don’t actually reference. This goes along with my idea to crunch MysteryQuest to an hour and change some of the clues to being nonverbal – like the climate and human environment interaction clues.

How do you convey the other senses when VC only conveys sight and sound?

He talked about the project he did with Santa and how they used clues. One of the squares in a multipoint is a sign that said “everybody scream” and after they did, Santa came on screen. When the grinch came on that same screen they hand to ring their bells and sing a song to make him go away. They used a green screen to transport Santa in & out of the different places. Like Santa got stuck in the dungeon and they had to answer questions to get him out.

#5. Make it personal.

Connect a camcorder. Tell (appropriate) personal stories. Give things to do OFF camera. Do unexpected things. Plant a “mole”. Change participant perspectives. Use interactive digital tools.

He thinks the robotic movements of the camera are impersonal, so he likes the camcorder instead hooked into the aux ports. You can really quick zoom in on what is going on that you want the other site to see. Of course you have to have enough bandwidth to handle all the motion.

When you build relationships with people, you want to see their reactions. Kids love to be behind the camera running it. Hmm. I wonder if a camcorder plus PVX plus Promethean is where I should be heading with my “every classroom” project

#6. Engage their emotions.

Use music to direct/adjust mood and focus. Create opportunities for empathy. See first five points. James wants us to contribute too so that these don’t repeat quite so much.

#7. Celebrate the experience.

Encourage/reward risk. Enjoy your time together. Be silly when you can. Highlight progress made. Provide opportunity afterwards.

Celebrate what happens at the end of things – like the big bang finale in Jazz.

Low threat / high challenge for brain based learning.

So many “one-offs” happen, so provide an opportunity to keep connecting.

Presentation Tips

  • Play music while the people talk. When the music stops, everyone stops talking.
  • Use a parking lot to write down questions and comments for afterwards.
  • “I’d love to hear 3 comments.” and he gave away 3 pens.

James has set up a wiki to continue the conversation and wants us all to contribute and extend these ideas. Gotta add this to the Read Around the Planet materials for this year!

Sessions I Wish I Could Attend

The bummer about presenting a half day workshop here is that I’m missing some really cool presentations! Look at these two in particular:

Gord Smith, Bev Knutson-Shaw, Belinda Crowsen
Family Treasures – Museum Project
Videoconferencing is allowing schools and museums to work together in new and creative ways. Expanding on a 2006 pilot program with County Central High School in Vulcan, seven classes from across the Palliser Regional School District worked in cooperation with the Galt Museum & Archives to research and present their Family Treasures. This year, Grade 7 and 8 students from Vulcan, Champion, Arrowwood, Milo and Coaldale began their work on October 18 and presented their findings to fellow students, Galt Museum staff, parents and community members via VC.

Jocelyn Littlefair, Cathy King
VC Circles: People, Culture, Language
This session will focus on the use of videoconferencing in second language instruction. Tools, tricks, and techniques for using videoconferencing and supportive technologies in full course delivery, as well as examples of multipoint videoconference events involving French Immersion, Francophone, and French as a Second Language students will be shared.

Though they are during my workshop, they are in the same general area. So maybe if I give everyone a break I can sneak over and grab a handout!

Creating Connections: Cool Collaborations

In Julia Heighway‘s keynote this morning, she featured some interesting collaborations. Both of these ones here are using other Internet technologies to support the videoconference.

Human Rights Club

Several high schools videoconferenced about genocide and the holocaust. The students decided they wanted to start a Human Rights Club. They created a wiki to support their work together. Check it out at The Human Condition

Hong Kong
We videoconferenced during the keynote with Chun Fung from Hong Kong who posted this project request on CILC. Roxanne’s school, Clifton Elementary, did one of the first videoconferences with his class. Isn’t the world small!?

They started with cultural exchange, dances, group games, etc

Now they are looking for longer lasting collaborations. “To obtain the full benefit of VC, it must be used as a wholistic program.” They combine VC with pen pals to establish relationships ahead of time. Videoconferencing as just a “one-off” is just a pity. It’s better to establish a long-term relationship. They did a children’s art festival to raise money for an AIDS orphanage.

Now they are working on long term programs in computer science, ICT, and math. They are doing a project with Google Sketchup. They emailed the models to each other, and then videoconferenced with each other to explain their model.

Now they are doing projects with Scratch – where the students are learning programming with icons. The students will create games, send them to each other, play and dissect each other’s games, and then videoconference with each other.

“There’s so much more to gain from a sustained collaboration vs. a quick “one-off” collaboration.” – Chun Fung

First International Math Olympiad for elementary students. There’s one for high school, but not for elementary. So now they want to focus on specific subjects instead of just cultural exchanges or practicing English. All of their projects are open and they are looking for long term partnerships.

As a sidenote, I was sitting next to Roxanne in this session and it was pretty interesting that her class did the To Kill a Mockingbird project featured, the connection with Hong Kong, and my class was the audience for the winning KC3 project featured.