TxDLA Readers: Links for Designing Quality Videoconference Projects

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Janine Lim

Here are links to resources and projects mentioned in my Designing Quality Videoconference Projects hands-on session at TxDLA.

Designing Quality VC Projects PPT for TxDLA (without clips)

More results from my spring 2008 “Top Teachers” Survey

Featured Projects

TWICE Resources

Projects Booklet

Other Collaboration Tools

My Online Classes

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Featuring Texas State Aquarium

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Janine Lim

Second breakout session at TxDLA. About 40 people in this session. Wish I could also be in Angela Conrad’s Texas History Mystery session, but I wanted to learn something completely new. So here I am in a session featuring the Texas State Aquarium, which is just a few blocks from the conference center. I think every conference like this (i.e. NECC etc) ought to feature the content providers that are close by, so it’s great to see this one featured. It’s also nice to see a new provider (new to me at least)!

Texas State Aquarium programs include teacher packets and cover all grade levels and topics such as Coral Reef Under Construction, Surviving Earth’s Ecosystems, Marine Careers, Oceanography, and Alternative Energy Sources. The sessions are 50 minutes, and they use 8 real time cameras!

Adrianna, one of the VC presenters came on site to talk to us. She gave us a nice overview of their programs. One of their cameras is in the water by their coral reef exhibit. In the coral reef program the students make a coral reef out of Legos! How cool is that! In the water program, they have a kinesthetic activity where all the students act out the structure of ice, water, and gas. Their programs include video clips from the scientists onsite. The example was of one of the vets checking out a bird to see if it is healthy. The turtle program has a little puppet show. The dolphin program has nice clips of each of their dolphins and the tricks they can do. Video clips are sprinkled throughout their programs. Another program, Float Your Boat, is a design program where the students figure out how to float their boat with the cargo of marbles.

Their programs each have very specific grade levels, partly because they are targeting the Texas standards. But they are very willing to tailor the programs to another grade level or adjust as needed for teachers. They are willing to develop/tailor programs by request too.

Gulf packages are $150 for 1-40 students. In Ocean packages, they actually mail materials and those are $200 for 1-40 students.

I definitely want to try out their programs next school year. Nice variety of programming with a mix of great visuals, hands-on activities, and teacher packets. It’s also nice to have another source for these types of programs when Mote Marine fills up too fast!

Woohoo! Finally wireless Internet in a session.

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GooglePlex Your IVC Session

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Janine Lim

Paul Hieronymous, a Google Certified Teacher, is presenting a session called Googleplex Your IVC session at TxDLA. Paul is a consultant for technology integration at the Northern Ohio Research and Training Technology Hub (NORT2H).

Search Features

  • Search “time in London” to convert time for your videoconference
  • Search “10000 yen USD” and it converts the amount for buying your VC program
  • Advanced Search: file type: i.e. search a KMZ file for the civil war battles
  • Preferences: Switch SafeSearch for strict filtering (use with your account), also can go to Web History to check up on students.

Google News

  • Most recent news on “gaza strip”
  • Can also look at archives on the left hand side and you can see the news from that year
  • Then click timeline at the top and get a graph of the news. It goes back before the Internet too, so you can look at past history – i.e. from 1967. Mine the data to understand the history. (Hmm. Could use this to supplement our Lest We Forget programs!)

Google Book Search (beta)

  • Example – find the book that you need for the TWICE ASK videoconference you’re in. The entire text is there online when the copyright has expired; otherwise it’s just a few pages.
  • It also highlights the keywords within the book and highlights them for you.

See More, Even More.

  • GoogleDocs – shared editing of spreadsheets, word processing, and presentation
  • Use GoogleForms to do registrations for your collaborations that you post on CAPspace or CILC Collaboration Center.
  • GoogleSites to set up your collaborative project – i.e. having each class write their chapters in a sequential writing videoconference project. Emailing is a pain, so set up a Google Site like a wiki for the writing. (Can insert any Google Video, YouTube, Picassa, GoogleDocs, Calendar, including gadgets and countdowns etc.) Good for a classroom teacher page too! Could be private for invited members or for anyone to view.

Finally check out the Google Lit Trips. Google Earth Literature Trips. Digital storytelling with Google Earth.

In a videoconference you can zoom in to your location to show the other site. But you could also write a little story to go with your trip.  Use this to find out the weather at your partner school or to share the weather at your site too. Built into your GoogleEarth map.

45 minutes was just too short for Paul’s session! His PowerPoint is linked online at 123vc.pbwiki.com.

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Twitter Comes to CAPspace

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Janine Lim

Did you see the TWICE blog post about the new Twitter features in CAPspace? Check it out!

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First Impressions of TxDLA

Posted on April 7, 2009 by Janine Lim

Waking up to a beautiful sunrise over the bay in Corpus Christi. My first attendance in person at TxDLA is of to a good start. I’ve been welcomed and fed with great Texas hospitality and charm by several of my VC buddies from Texas.

I’m impressed with the wide variety of videoconferencing, online learning, blended/hybrid learning, and Web 2.0 sessions represented at the conference. I’ve said this before, but it’s great to have so many videoconference sessions! I don’t know of any other conference in the United States that offers so many good K-12 videoconference sessions. I’m starting to rethink my plans to have NECC as my regular national conference. TxDLA is looking more and more like it meets my learning needs better.

There are several “little” conference things that TxDLA does that make it a fun conference to attend. It’s small enough to have a nice feel, but large enough to have a wide variety of sessions. In addition to the traditional presenter, volunteer, board member, ribbons, the vendors give out ribbons from the “fun pack”. They have fun ribbons that say things like “I could be president”, “workaholic”, “troublemaker” etc. I’ll be passing this idea on to MACUL.

There are a few little things, though, that TxDLA could do to make us feel a little more welcome. Our nametags don’t have our location if we’re out of Texas – just says “outside Texas.”!! Is it so hard to add our state? Also, there’s a session block today that is for all the regional groups to meet. However, nothing is scheduled for those of us “outside Texas”. It would be nice to have a session where we could network with each other. For example, I hear someone from Australia is here and would like to compare notes with him.

I also haven’t figured out the Internet yet. No Internet to blog the general sessions. Would be nice to have Internet for that!

Still, so far I’m glad to be here and looking forward to blogging several interesting sessions. Just might be posting them all at the end of the day when I can get Internet.

(Later. I found the Internet is only at the “hot spot” so I can’t live blog in any of the sessions.)

(Later, later. Found wireless in room 226. Might be hanging out here!)

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