New ISTE SIG: IVC

Posted on June 28, 2005 by Janine Lim

At the end of the day today, I attended the Proposed IVC SIG meeting at facilitated by Camille Cole and Jan Zanetis and Ruth Blankenbaker.

As we started, Ruth Blankenbaker provided a way for us all to sign the charter on a fancy antique poster.

The mission statement includes “advancing collaboration, information dissemination, research, and practices.” Of course my main interest is advancing collaboration and that clearly was happening as we networked with each other and talked to “old vc friends” even before the meeting started!

People attending came from various categories including universities, vendors, non profit organizations, educational service agencies, k12 teachers and administrators, content providers, and more. In these areas, we came to consensus on the top three issues that we face in our sub-group.

I was in the educational service agencies group, and we came up with a lengthy list of issues that we narrowed down to sharing information, supporting technology, supporting districts, and funding and equity. The longer list included: sharing information, connectivity, lack of direct control, coordinating projects, locating and matching content and opportunities with interested teachers, equitable access, non-homogenous populations, funding and spending, assessment/evaluation and justification for videoconferencing, economic impact, technology issues, bridges/MCUs/gateways, proprietary and disconnected technologies and professional development.

The other sub groups developed great lists as well. It’s clear that as this SIG gets started, it will be worth joining the conversation as a ISTE and SIG IVC member. ISTE’s goal is that by October 2005 people can sign up to be a member of this new SIG.

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MusicPath VC Project over I2

Posted on June 28, 2005 by Janine Lim

Another session: Now I’m watching an amazing demo of a pianist in Calgary Alberta playing the beautiful grand piano in front of me. No one is at the piano in front of me – he is playig it remotely via videoconference and special software created by Acadia University, Nova Scotia! Karen Wilder from Acadia facilitated the demonstration, and MAGPI, Sunesys, and Yamaha sponsored the high speed connection.

Quoting from MusicPath‘s website:

MusicPath interconnects digital acoustic pianos, in this case a sophisticated Yamaha Disklavier, through advanced high-speed networks allowing one pianist to play several pianos in real-time, assisted by videoconferencing. This creates a new learning dimension for teachers, institutions and musicians.

Now a pianist here is playing the piano in front of us and also playing the piano in Alberta and Nova Scotia all at the same time!

Did you know there is a built in speed of light delay?! And a 400milisecond delay due to the network and the music software…. as well as a half second delay due to the actual piano mechanisms. But improvisation doesn’t mind a bit of delay like that! An exiquisite virtual duet!! It’s like two people playing the same piano – except one is here and one is there! It’s so weird to see the keys going up and down on the left beside our pianist on this end of the VC.

The piano only takes 56K while the videoconnection is using 768K and of course is actually smoother over I2.

This started with a 12 year old who had finished Grade 10 Royal Conservatory and took lessons via distance using this technology.

Now an audience encore! Of course, it would be Mark George from the Cleveland Institute of Music to volunteer!

This is even more intriguing to me because a few weeks ago I received an email regarding a research article on MusicGrid, another distance/videoconferencing music project from Canada. Check out the article for more details!

Another cool thing about this event is the presenter connected from Calgary is also at a convention, so in addition to this incredible demonstration, the videoconference technology allows us to connect both conferences together!

This event alone was worth the whole trip! These Canadians are amazingly creative with their distances, sparse population, and commitment to quality education!

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VC Project Ideas from NECC

Posted on June 28, 2005 by Janine Lim

My first session here at was Increasing Student Collaboration Online by Harry Tuttle, Syracuse University. Much of the discussion centered around making online conversations work, but Dr. Tuttle shared some really interesting ideas for projects which can be applied to videoconferencing.

 

He talked about exchanges between classes, which we are familiar with in the Read Across America format. I really liked the idea of having small groups connect to small groups in another class. This format would require some online/email collaboration as well as the videoconference. The videoconference could be used to start and end the small group collaborations. I want to think more about how this could work with specific content.

 

How to find partner classes. An interesting idea Dr. Tuttle shared was to ask the students, how many of you have relatives in another country? Then the relative may know a teacher and from there the classes can work out what technology can be used to connect with each other for a project.

 

Another cool idea a participant shared was to ask new students about their previous school and then do a project with the teacher and class the new student came from. This way the new student knows students in the partner class.

 

Another intriguing idea was to do collaborative projects with another class (in another state, region, country) around a controversy WebQuest, Tom March’s preferred format. I’m still thinking about how this could look with a videoconference – maybe with 4 sites and the quad screen format – and each site presents/represents one of the perspectives addressing the controversy. This reminds me of the Decisions, Decisions format from Tom Snyder Productions. I’d love to see a project like this…

 

Other ideas included having several classes research various families on the underground railroad and follow the trail together with various experiences along the way; comparing schools in different areas with surveys and graphing and discussing the answers; comparing architecture in various locations; and 2nd grade sharing information on the 5 types of trees closest to the school. All intriguing possibilities! Now off to learn more!

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