This morning I took a trip up to Van Buren ISD (which just was awarded a RUS grant – congrats!!). They are hosting the Tandberg Roadshow. (By the way you can see where the Road Show will be next here.)
The audience here is mostly tech coordinators from the surrounding districts. Many of them are expecting to get VC as part of their new RUS grant.
The program began with an introduction to VC by Doug Meyer at CILC. He gave an overview of content providers, collaborations, professional development, and of course the CILC Content Dollar Bank.
Then we headed off to the Pro Football Hall of Fame to learn about their programs and had a nice overview, plus a little history of the Detroit Lions.
Lance Ford was the next guest speaker and he told us the story of the Howell videoconference story beginning with a foreign language class. Their courses are supported by Moodle and Rosetta Stone in addition to the live videoconferencing. Fun quote: “those standards are weighing on teachers like a wet blanket on a hot August afternoon.” His examples included content providers, Mote Marine, Great Barrier Reef, as well as collaborations – book clubs with Canada, DNA experiments, connections to Norway, etc. Students creating a field trip (the KC3 program) is another major part of their programs. Lance showed a video clip of students onsite at a local museum dressed in costume teaching about the westward expansion. Lance’s superintendent asks him to have a matching dollar for every dollar the district spends. They call it “leveraging” dollars. Lance uses grants to match other grants to get even more funds for technologies.
Next we heard from Stephanie about the grant program Tandberg will help you (for free) write grants to get videoconferencing. Finally we got a tour of the truck with all the equipment. I had some good time networking with the tech coordinators as well, many of whose districts are members of our REMC. Great morning & very informative!