Elevate 2008 - Reaching New Heights in Educational Videoconferencing
Less than a month remains to register for ELEVATE 2008 at the special conference rate of $375 CDN, and the conference is already over 2/3 sold out!
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Elevate 2008 - Reaching New Heights in Educational Videoconferencing
Please check out our updated ELEVATE 2008 Conference Agenda. This will be updated over time as new details emerge. Some highlights include:
Talking to tech coordinators « Videoconferencing Out on a Lim
Janine Lim wrote a thought-provoking blog post regarding the diminishing role of the tech coordinator in supporting videoconferencing.
I agree that there is a lot to be said for the power of a school-level champion in any specialty area and that person’s effect on changing practice of fellow colleagues. I’ve read elsewhere (sorry no source) of this, where colleagues in a school seeing a neighboring teacher engaged in a particular practice of interest can have a large impact on those around her/him. What better job-embedded PD could teachers receive than to see the technology being used combined with effective practice in the context of their own schools?
In another way, if a regional tech coordinator is being relied upon less and “the school level videoconference coordinators are doing fine on their own”, it’s probably a sign that the tech coordinator is doing her/his job of building self-sustaining capacity within the system. In fact, most of the tech coordinators I’ve met would love to work themselves out of a job.
I still believe, however, that a tech coordinator for a large number of schools is also a key piece to this puzzle. Creating communication mechanisms between schools, facilitating collaborations across a number of buildings, coordinating events or projects across schools or districts that a full-time teacher at a school just does not have time to coordinate (without burning out) has a value that can’t be measured.
We’ve seen this in Alberta with the VC Regional Leads Network (http://www.2learn.ca/vcrln/), a group of 24 talented but extremely busy teachers in the province who receive release time and training to support teachers in implementing VC as a valuable learning tool. While they’ve had great success within their own schools (the school-level champion) and even within their school jurisdictions, they have reported that branching beyond their school jurisdiction to support neighboring jurisdictions to provide support is very difficult. Enter Cathy King, the VC Regional Leads Network Provincial Coordinator, who works full-time (and then some) coordinating the efforts of the 24 Regional Lead Teachers. Our RLs (Regional Leads), who do fantastic work, rely a lot on Cathy in their work, and Cathy’s “big picture” outlook of the entire province is critical in the success of the school-level champions. Are you a grade 7 teacher looking for a partner class for a Spanish project? Cathy knows another person across the province in the same boat. Are you implementing electronic whiteboards in your course delivery through VC in high school math to remote schools? Cathy can contact other RLs who may be doing just that to find you a ‘buddy’. Do you need some training in engaging students through VC? Cathy has a province-wide workshop you can attend just by dialing in on a particular day.
I fully agree that the school-level champions play a vital role in the implementation of VC at that school and possibly even that school jurisdiction. They’re the fuel that keeps the engine running. I’d stop short of stating that the tech coordinators aren’t equally valuable, however, as people like Cathy have proven in spades.
Planning is well under way for ELEVATE 2008 - Reaching New Heights in Educational Videoconferencing. We have four fabulous keynote presenters and four excellent workshops for this international conference on educational videoconferencing. Next week we’ll be selecting our Spotlight Presentations, breakout presentations, and poster sessions. We’ll also be having live VC demos featuring some of the top educational VC content providers in North America and a fabulous VC Showcase area featuring the latest in VC and supportive technologies as well as top content providers. The weather and scenery will be second to none in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains and the food and entertainment will be unforgettable.
Our early bird registration rate of $275 CDN ends on January 31, 2008 so please register now to ensure your participation! After January 31 and on or before May 20, 2008, the registration rate is $375 CDN, and after May 20 the full conference rate of $475 will be in effect. The conference registration fee includes most meals and access to all conference sessions and workshops. Two excellent pre-conference workshops are also available for registration at a rate of $25 CDN.
For more information about ELEVATE 2008, please visit the conference website http://www.vcalberta.ca/elevate2008
I’m wondering if anybody has come across this book which was recently published. It comes with a hefty price tag ($165 USD plus shipping on Amazon) and weighs in at over 300 pages, but includes a number of interesting topics including:
I’d be curious to hear anyone’s reactions about this new book and am considering purchasing it.
TWICE: Collaborations Around the Planet « Videoconferencing Out on a Lim
It’s fitting that the ‘TWICE’ website brings 2 good pieces of news to us regarding collaborative VCÂ opportunities:
I’ll be curious to see how this tool compares to VcAlberta’s newly redesigned social networking tool.
What excites me about both tools is that we’re beginning to understand the social/collaborative potential of Internet tools and we’re applying those understandings to meaningful learning situations with videoconferencing. Great work, TWICE and Polycom!
The strongest educators I’ve come across who use technologies such as videoconferencing to improve student learning all seem to ‘get it’, regardless of their level of experience operating the equipment or knowledge of the ‘tekkie’ side of VC. Strong teachers seem to be able to make instant connections to how VC technologies (or any other technologies) can be used meaningfully in the classroom. Why is that?
My theory is that our actions as teachers are based on our beliefs and values related to learning and teaching, and that the strongest educators can fairly easily articulate what their beliefs are about learning and teaching are. Moreover, they seem to wear these beliefs like a pair of lenses, and that any new resources or tools that come their way can be seen through these lenses.
One of my favorite blog postings about learning which resonated a lot with me was Cathy Sierra’s ‘Crash course in learning theory’ post
Knowing things such as how the brain works, combined with the knowledge of what skills our students need, seems to me to be the best combination to arm oneself in using VC effectively. Seeing students excited and motivated about learning, seeing them engaged in short, interesting large group activities combined with interactive, task-oriented, issue-filled, or problem-solving activities, and being involved in multisensory activities with a healthy dose of emotion all seem like recipes for success.
What are your beliefs about teaching and learning? How do these beliefs affect how you use VC and supportive technologies? With the help of my good friend and colleague Tyler Heaton at the University of Lethbridge (what an amazing team they have down there - now THAT’s a group that ‘gets it’), we are creating a short promotional video for the Elevate 2008 conference website which will incorporate facts and quotations related to learning with VC. Think ‘Did you know?’ with a VC flavor. Knowing Tyler, he’ll do an amazing job and I can’t wait to see it.
If any of you in the VC blogosphere care to share your favorite quotes related to learning, VC, technology, etc - even if those quotes are your own - feel free to email them to me or submit them in the comments section. We’ll make you famous!
I read about TokBox a week or so ago in TechCrunch, and after attending a great session led by John Spence during the Broadband Summer Institute, a light went on for using TokBox as a supportive technology for classroom VC projects and events involving H.323 VC equipment.
Essentially, TokBox is a Flash-based 2-way video chat client which runs in a browser. The part about TokBox which intrigued me the most was the video mail feature. The reason this intrigued me related to John’s session in which he described tools and strategies they used in a 520-student, 6-school event on diet and body image.
To ensure 100% student participation in this massive event, students across the 6 sites were divided into 4 color groups, each group focusing on a different aspect or issue related to diet and body image. Color groups from each school were then broken down into smaller breakout groups of 3-5 who were to discuss, blog, and create a one-minute video expressing their views related to the specific problem or barrier they were assigned. Students recorded and viewed each others’ videos using a tool which John and his team created themselves they call vCam. This browser-based application accessed the webcam of a laptop which was assigned to the breakout group and instantly recorded the one-minute video which others were immediately able to view and comment upon.
While vCam presents amazing opportunities for students to interact with each other, it may be some time before vCam becomes available to the educational community at large (if it ever happens). Enter TokBox! Upon the creation of a TokBox account, a url is immediately created using the same name (e.g. account name ‘user’ would have the url www.tokbox.com/user). For a VC project or event, a project coordinator could create a project account at TokBox, and participating schools could visit that url as a ‘guest’ and leave a ‘video mail’ message. Once the event is complete, participating schools could log in to TokBox with the project username and password to be able to view the ‘video mail’ messages left by students across the participating project sites. What’s more, the TokBox application has code which can be ‘cut and pasted’ into any blog, wiki, and even has site-specific code for iGoogle, Facebook, and other sites. Were it me creating the TokBox account for the event, I’d leave the site up for the duration of the project and even though the video mail is password-protected, I would still delete the account so that the student-created video wasn’t available.
I don’t see tools like TokBox replacing hardware-based VC units - the high-quality audio/video with the ability to move the camera, zoom in on individuals, and user peripheral devices such as document cameras makes the experience far more transparent than the computer-based solutions I’ve seen. I don’t know how long TokBox will remain free of charge or advertising either. In my experience, great web-based applications like these often start off free and then incorporate a cost or advertising once their popularity increases. The point is, as educators leading videoconferencing experiences for students should seek out solutions and opportunities which allowing students to express their ideas or understandings in the way we know people learn - socially and through language. TokBox may be one supplemental tool in the toolbox for facilitating this learning, especially in larger-group VC experiences.
What are your thoughts on the use of this type of tool? Leave me a ‘videomail’ (or, if we’re lucky, we can video chat in real time!) to let me know!
Planning has begun for the Elevate 2008 conference, and international conference on educational videoconferencing in Banff, Canada August 24-27, 2008! The online registration should be live within about three weeks, though we are now accepting presentation proposals! For more information about Elevate 2008, please visit the official conference website http://vcalberta.ca/elevate2008 . To stay informed of the latest developments for Elevate 2008, subscribe to the Elevate 2008 News RSS feed
The purpose of this blog is to share the great things I learn about K-12 educational videoconferencing from teachers, educational leaders, and other VC bloggers. Welcome to my journey!
