I agree with Janine about the tremendous growth of videoconferencing (especially in elementary and middle school grades) and the challenge for bringing it into the high schools. Not sure about in depth thoughts on solutions to this, just admiring the issue right now

We are definitely at the point in our program where we are graduating our year two schools into majority point-to-point connections unless they absolutely need the bridge. This year, I had site managers send me their numbers at the end of the year, but next year, we will be using the Renova software to schedule the MCU and our districts can use it to schedule their vc unit even if they don’t need the bridge. This is great for them to have a management software with reporting features and it is great for us because we can track utilization on and off network.

If you ever need a partner in the Heart of Texas, let me know. I work with 60 school districts with over 150 endpoints and have schools from about 80 students in grades K-8 up to a district with over 40,000 students…and all sizes in between.

Roxanne Glaser
http://www.edlink12.net/vcrox

I’ve been reading your blog recently with great interest looking for ideas that I may use in my service area. I coordinate video conferencing in 12 counties in Southeastern Indiana my service territory includes 27 school corporations and 162 buildings. Obviously not all the buildings have IVC but I share your concerns about the use of video conferencing in the classroom.

A 23% usage rate for IVC isn’t bad on average. I don’t know exactly how many of my customer schools are using their equipment because they aren’t required to report their usage but I’ve read articles on technology in education that state less than 20% of today’s teachers use technology in their classrooms.

In an effort to introduce video conferencing to teachers in my area I have done “Content Provider Awareness Programs” where I would find content providers who would do a “demo” program as a bridge call with numerous school districts in this region. That was hot for a year or so and then interest died down. I still do programs with schools that request an introduction to the technology or who wish to devote some professional development time to video conferencing, but I find that teachers are slow to embrace the technology.

I am now moving in a new direction redoing my website to include more audio and video podcasts and providing teachers with resources about why technology is important to use in education and how one might use it. I’ll introduce this new site in August for the new school year. I’m also trying to promote the use of collaborations as a way for teachers to gain experience with video conferencing and increase its use in the classroom. CILC has Collaboration Center that lists various projects that are going on and I’ll have a link to that on my new site. You can find it at http://www.cilc.org/c/community/collaboration_center.aspx. I would be interested in working with you to explore ways to promote classroom to classroom collaborations between Michigan and Southern Indiana. I maintain a Listserv that I use to send programming information directly to people who are interested in using the technology.

Here’s my contact information for future reference please contact me if you’d like to explore ways of getting our member schools to participate more in video conferencing through classroom collaboration. Thanks and have a great summer!

Jerry R. Steuerwald
Distance Learning Specialist
Wilson Education Center
2101 Grace Avenue
Charlestown, Indiana 47111
(812) 256-8000 ext. 214
jerry@wesc.k12.in.us
Website: http://wesc.k12.in.us/dl/NewDLWebsite.htm

I think meaningful DL events for Middle School can and should be developed. Facilitation is a problem. Maybe we can get to a shared facilitation model where people like us can share the facilitation duties. In that way you could have classes participate in a program I was facillitating while I had classes in an event you were facillitating at the same time.

Cutting your teachers loose is hard but must be done if you want to grow the program. Hand holding is necessary early on but can’t be sustained at the ISD level much past the first year. But you do find yourself wondering what they are up to and wishing they would phone home once in a while.