Please share your responses to the readings here. What did you like about the article? How does it add to your learning? What ideas do you have from reading the article? How can you implement what you learned?
Be sure to tell me your first name so I can give you credit. Tell us which article you read as well.
The name of the article I read was Videoconferencing in Education. What I liked about this article is that students are able to interact without having to leave their classroom. With VC students are able to become active and effective world citizens. I am believing this statement the more I learn about VC. When students understand the global concerns and world issues, the VC’s become more interesting to the students. Video conferences also saves school districts money. It also helps districts with trainings, interviews, and staff developments. Video conferences will help students learn how to communicate their ideas, and thoughts to varies groups of people at once. It makes a lot of sense that the more you make it related to them the more they will be able to relate to the problem. For example HIV positive. It wonderful if you can get the parents, administration, and community members on board with VC.
Nice list of benefits of VC, Melissa! You’re gathering reasons to share VC with your fellow teachers.
“Interactive Videoconferencing Planting the Seeds for Global Learning and Caring”
This article also mentioned how a middle school health class in New York was inspired to plant a vegetable garden in South Africa after interviewing an HIV-positive student. The students decided to feed South African orphans whose parents had fallen victim to AIDS. That story still amazes me!
One other aspect of this article that I enjoyed was how it mentioned how foreign language students become “hooked” on talking with other foreign language students and/or native speakers of that language. For example, my students could help native speakers while they are learning English, and the native Spanish speakers could assist my students in learning Spanish. The article stated, “Kids are amazed when others are able to understand them in their target language.”
That’s exactly right, Becky! Having the attitude of letting the practice of language go both ways makes for a better collaboration…
“Learning from the Pros: Experts Help Students move from School to Career” talks about a very successful VC program with a HS in Alabama and successful animators in Hollywood. The students received feedback on their work which was daunting at first because they were showing their work which everyone could see. Receiving critique from someone other than the teacher impacted them more and they spent more time revising their work to show that they could get it to a professional standards. The program is reminiscent of the old apprentice relationships with a new twist. It also connects them with the real world. My students would experience the same reaction speaking to a native about a real task rather than just the teacher. They would see a connection with communication in the real world. That ongoing process in also a good growth experience that may inspire them to be life-long learners of the language.
Sue – the feedback from someone outside of the school is an important benefit of VC. You can read more about my thoughts on feedback here.
“Middle School Videoconferencing Fosters Global Citizenship”
I am really impressed with the kinds of vc’s this school has been doing and the way they have integrated those into the curriculum in broad ways. They are beginning with “essential questions” about global issues and using the vc’s as a means of exploring those. The connections they made included HIV positivive students in S. Africa and dialogue w/ students in Kosovo and Afghanistan. These must have been incredible experiences for the kids–I wonder how such connections were made??
As a media specialist, a challenge I have is to help the teachers envision vc’s enhancing their curriculum the way I do. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I am too timid in waiting for them to be proactive. Maybe I should just start scheduling some of these things as part of regular library visit times?
Angie – I think that’s a good idea – to schedule during library time. Does the teacher come? I think that for starting, some teachers just need you to do it all for them, and then after they see the value of it and what the kids get out of it, they will be ready to start learning it themselves…. A strategy to try anyway!
Janine
Yes, the teachers come during library times, so they would be able to see the vc for themselves. This is how I’m thinking I’ll do the Holocaust vc; schedule it instead of the regular visit. Then maybe if they are sold, they’ll agree to do it themselves in following years…
TWICE connects readers across America via two-way videoconferencing is a very informative article. TWICE is a group of Michigan teachers and techs that has taken videoconferencing a step further. Read Across America is an example of how TWICE has developed school-to-school collaborations and projects. In 2001, after a local teacher suggested that schools connect and read to one another, five Berrien County schools did just that. Janine, our very own Instructional Technology Coordinator here at Berrien RESA, then approached TWICE about taking Read Across America to a national level. The project has been expanded to the whole week of Dr. Seuss’ birthday (March 3-7) and over 580 classes participated in 2003, from 12 different states. This article is great read and shares informatin as well as web addresses to help teachers get in on this great project!
Do you see any of the teachers in your school trying this VC, Shannon?
Reading Janine Lim’s article, “Out on a Lim with Technology,” I am reminded of how cool VCing can be, for both younger and older students. Here she details the experiences of “middle school students studying geography” participating in the MysteryQuest. I just read Janine’s reply to Hermina’s post yesterday–apparently, MysteryQuest this past year involved over 1700 students as opposed to the 1200 noted in the article, at the time of its publication. I love the idea of presenting the classrooms with challenges that are “mysteries”; they get to hunt and research, estimate and guess. Not only did the teachers realize that the MysterQuest experience “matched their curriculum,” but it “simultaneously addressed many essential academic and social skills.”
What I most appreciated about this article were the details: having the list of references in the room with the kids, the posted agenda for the MysteryQuest VC, and the specific assignment (the questions/answers the students prepared), helped me to visual this VC. As I read, I felt I could envision the students’ exchanges through MysteryQuest. Perhaps there is a project that could be similar–use a similar format–but for high schoolers?
Jamie Culver
Jamie – check out LiteratureQuest, written by a teacher in River Valley who took the Jazz workshop. This applies the MysteryQuest format to high school English. I bet you’ll like it!
“Going Global: Rural Washington Students Connect With the World”
This was truly an eye opening article. The global possibilities available through videoconferencing are virtually endless. All one needs is an idea of where to get started and world is open to your connecting and exploring. The projects mentioned in this article were very interesting. Starting a “Global Art Project,” creating comfort quilts for hurricane victims, comparing water quality with others either near or far, or just communicating with other children and sharing their experiences, all these ideas are simply amazing.
Did you see any ideas that you want to try, Rachele?
Reading: What the Research says about video conferencing in teaching and learning
In our school we have a roll-about unit where it is mobile for the classrooms to use, our issue was that there was only one person in the school that knows how to connect the system. I took this class so that I would be able to use videoconferencing more often without having to rely on trying to schedule it during the librarians classes, recess, office and lunch duties. I would also be available to help other teachers use the equipment to the best of my knowledge. It would be nice to have some more on-going sharing projects with other classrooms as well as having specific organized videoconferencing available to my students. I am excited to try a couple and see what happens.
Be sure & sign up for some Alyssa and let’s really try to get some of these going so that we can increase the knowledge of using VC in your school. I’m so glad you want to help the other teachers use it too!
Interested in meeting authors using distance learning? Well, just “ASK”
by Jim Wenzloff
I think the idea of the ASK program is great because it not only introduces students to various literature, but connects it to the person behind to book to make it more real for them. It seems that the older students get, the less interested they are in reading for pleasure. Meeting the author and preparing the students for questions to ask the author will create an extra connection to the book for them. I would think that students would find this pretty interesting and even share with family members about meeting the author. It may even spark an interest for studnets to continue follow a particular author and their books over several years. It would even help students with learning more about history and landmarks by the authors.
We do have some reluctant reader classes who really enjoy the ASK process…