Ok, I just finished the coolest training with Roxanne Glaser, ESC 12 in Waco, TX. Roxanne and I participated in the 123 VC Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with VC workshop last summer. We both have K-2 buildings wondering what the best use of videoconferencing is for their grade levels.
So we adapted the Jazz format to 1.5 hours! Tonight we connected 6 K-2 schools with 4-8 teachers at each site. 3 Michigan schools and 3 Texas schools.
We started right off with introductions. Every school did a cool introduction with the components we required: school name, location, mascot, weather/climate, and a unique town tidbit. They were really creative with songs, costumes and chants. Teachers who hadn’t done VC yet were on camera having fun!
Next we had several teachers share the videoconferences they had participated in before so the new teachers could hear the possibilities.
Then we really got into the fun part. We gave teachers 10 minutes to brainstorm some potential projects. They made a huge letter poster with the school name, topic, time & time zone, grade, and the preferred month. In the picture you can see the posters with the ideas. Then we did a round robin sharing the ideas, and then sharing which ones the teachers wanted to do. Voila! In about 45 minutes we had 10-15 project ideas and partners! Incredible! More later as we implement and move forward.
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I’m doing an intra-district Mini Jazz tomorrow afternoon with the 23 ITS representing all of our 42 elementaries. Plan on doing your project brainstorming idea to motivate the ITS to create collaborations between schools within our district. We have 3 hours so i’m also doing a Texas History Mystery simulation. Should be fun!
Sally! Good for you!! I look forward to hearing how it went!