Day 4- August 3, 2006

We began the day with the ASK program. We watched a great demonstration video where the teacher was introducing the book Bud, Not Buddy and the ASk project to her class. The students were eventually able to videoconference with the author of their book.

We then had the book The Wall read to us by Eve Bunting. We created questions to ask a Vietnam Veteran. We then conferenced with the veteran. Overall ASK took us two full hours.

 Next we heard a presentation from Global Nomads who provides videoconference opportunities to middle and high school students. There were great conferences that could be done with students all over the world. The majority of what they offer has already been created and the cost was around $120.00. They covered very difficult topics such as genocide. This is a great way for students to discuss tough subjects with people all over the globe, and to see different viewpoints.

Next we saw a slideshow introducing JANET which is Joint Academic NETwork.JANET is sponsored by UKERNA.We were shown great UK and European videoconferences services that were offered for schools. The slideshow was very detailed and informative.

We then went to local time for thirty minutes.

We ended the day working on our group projects which will be presented tomorrow.  

Around the World in One Day

We learned about beaches all around the world through Mystery Quest.  This is an excellent method of videoconferencing across the curriculum.  Our site learned about Normandy.  We brainstormed many ways to use this method in all grade levels as well.

Extending our trip around the world, we learned about Student Dialog using videoconferencing.  This would help our students to understand other cultures and regions.

Amy-TempleISD

Second Day

Started roll call at 8:45 CST, some sites were experiencing technical difficulties. For this mornings Acadaemic Challenge portion, Paula Yezak from Temple presented information on a Video Conference project called Math Marvels. Math Marvels allows students to show math skills and how they got the those skills. This project targets problems sloving skills.  Paula went over on how to prepare for the project and how the activities work.  Then she showed us how it would be presented in a video conference format.

Then we broke into groups of two and actually did a Math marvel project to present to the other participants.  The Temple group presented a problem called Boxing Math. 

What did we learn about video conferencing from this activity? 

1. Visuals need to be readable

2. Video conferencing is not as scary as it seems.

3. Make sure you include everyone in your project groups.

How can we use it in our curriculum

1. It is a good format to review for state test

2. Create teams from different locations for collaboration

Janine explained what “Chat”, “Moodle, “Forums” , and “Wiki” were.  She showed us where the handouts were located in our workbook.  This was very helpful to see other areas which we can use for communication with other participants. 

 

Howdy from Temple!

A busy day of learning!  We learned many different exchange projects such as community, Science, Monster Match, and Read across America.  Some new brainstorming projects were:

• Christmas Around the World with the actual country
• Writing music and providing a real concert
• Sharing projects with other sites around the US
• Sharing cultures within a regional area
• Invention sharing projects
• Practice skills for state assessment testing

We loved playing Jeopardy…even though our answer was wrong!

TempleISD