Last Thoughts for 2006

Posted on December 14, 2006 by Janine Lim

This is my last post for 2006. It’s been a great year and thanks to everyone who has read and commented, and especially thanks to those of you who have started blogging about VC too. I appreciate the opportunity to learn from you!

Polycom RSS 2000
If you missed the ASK: Jim Stovall streaming today, review my blog entry on that and login to view the archive. The streaming was really easy to do. I just logged into the admin side of the RSS, dialed out to Macomb ISD’s bridge with live streaming checked, and voila it was up and running. Quality looked great from my end at least. I hope some of you had a chance to try it out. Please leave a comment on how the streaming and/or archive works for you.

1.7.07 Update. Added after reading The Weblog Handbook. The RSS 2000 mentioned is on loan to Berrien County ISD from Polycom to support Polycom Special Events.

Read Around the Planet
I wanted to say a few words about Read Around the Planet. The teacher registration has been extended to January 19, and a new quick overview of the two ways to enter match requests has been posted online.

If you haven’t noticed already, RAP is a huge project and growing very fast. The system seems complicated and while we are working on that, it’s because the project is complicated. It’s very difficult to meeting the needs of all the ways that connections and coordination happens throughout the areas participating in the project. Our programmers mutter that it’s like trying to bring order to chaos and not easy to do.

Thankfully, the system allows everyone to see their buildings and match requests (if everything is entered correctly! :>), which we didn’t have possible before. In addition, this is the first year that the matching will be done by computer. It’s about time! Last year it took me three weeks to match 1000 requests by hand.

So, I know things are pretty bumpy this year, and I thank everyone who has been so patient. Hang in there! We will make it through yet another year of this amazing project. If you have questions, you can send them to Sue Porter, read@remc11.k12.mi.us. She’s off Dec. 21 through Jan. 2, but otherwise can answer your questions.

Merry Christmas
So now I’m off til January 8. Tonight I’m decorating a gingerbread house (made from scratch) with a friend and her two daughters. When I come back in January I may have a special treat of pictures to share with you too. Enjoy your holidays and be sure to rest and spend quality time with family and friends – AWAY from technology! :)

Filed under: ASK Programs, Collaborations, Special Events, Techie Stuff, VC Community | Comments Off

Trading PD for Project Partners

Posted on December 14, 2006 by Janine Lim

Here’s an interesting model for finding partners. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’ve been working on finding partners for our 6th grade classes studying Canada. This week I found the last set in an interesting way.

In August at the Alberta Broadband Summer Institute I collected business cards of several schools willing to connect to our 6th grade classes.

In following up with one of them, I discovered that this particular district, Peace River, has used VC mainly for high school classes. So while they were interested in connecting to us, they need more info on enrichment VCs.

So on Tuesday I did an hour workshop for them with an overview of field trips, resources, examples of projects, MysteryQuest, and more. And then in the last 20 minutes, I sprung my request on them! By the end of the hour, I had partner teachers for the last four slots I needed to fill! So we traded PD for project partners and it worked great for both of us!

I think we all like to compare weather at the beginning of a VC, and when you’re in Michigan and the snow just melted and it’s raining, you want to know the weather in northern Alberta! So I asked them to show me the snow out the window. Listen to Fred Churchman’s description of that moment in our training:

It’s the little things that sometimes stick in my mind: I think I’ll always remember looking out your window at the wet mess, and then going to the trouble of moving the monitor and camera to make sure you got to see the snow outside our window. Thanks for that memory!

By the way, above the picture is from the Confluence Project.

Thank you, Peace River, Alberta, for yet another VC and the promise of more to come!

Filed under: Collaborations, International VCs, Professional Dev. | Comments Off

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