Today was an exciting day! New equipment installations are always exciting! We were lucky enough to have a school eligible for a grant through Views On Learning to receive a new LifeSize Room system, plus really cool Ergotron cart and 50 inch display. Rolling the system down the hall in the school created quite a [...]
Filed under: Techie Stuff, Vendors | Tagged: Cart, Ergotron Cart, H.239, LifeSize, Views On Learning | 3 Comments »
Did you notice that the super early bird registration for ISTE (formerly NECC) ends today (March 31)? Hurry and register! Besides all the great Web 2.0, online learning, and instructional technology topics you can learn about, there is an awesome line up of videoconferencing content. Plus, all morning Wednesday there will be an IVC Playground [...]
Filed under: VC Community | Tagged: ISTE, ISTE 2010 | Comments Off
Last Friday afternoon we had several local classes participate in a Polycom Special Event. Students from business, management, and economics classes interviewed four Polycom women executives as a celebration of Women’s History Month. The students had prepared great questions: Did you know this job existed when you were going to school? Were you always interested [...]
Filed under: Content Providers, Vendors | Tagged: careers, Polycom | Comments Off
Registration is open for the spring “quest” events. You’ll need verified equipment in CAPspace to register. I can walk you through it quickly if needed. Just email me. Click the project links to visit the wiki with all the preparation materials. MysteryQuest USA This project is designed for 4th or 5th grade students studying US [...]
Filed under: MysteryQuests | Tagged: HistoryQuest5, HistoryQuest8, MysteryQuest USA | Comments Off
Today we have several amazing videoconferences for our rural students in Berrien County. EcoConversations Reed Middle School, in Bridgman, is connecting to a class in the UK to discuss environmental issues. The class in the UK shared with us information about carbon emissions, including some great posters and a RAP that started with: hey hey, [...]
Filed under: Collaborations, Content Providers, International VCs | Tagged: ecoconversations, Global Nomads Group, GNG, MAGPI | Comments Off
If you’ve been following the discussion/investigation on here about desktop videoconferencing, you might be interested in some additional reading: “Desktop Videoconferencing Will Challenge the Network“. Note that this is from 2008. Still interesting reading. Be sure to read the comments. What I found most interesting was the comment from Stefan Karapetkov that normal use is [...]
Filed under: Desktop VC, Techie Stuff | Tagged: Desktop VC | Comments Off
One of our local culinary arts classes is participating in a collaboration today with a school in Pennsylvania. Both classes are culinary arts classes and each class prepared a food demonstration. Teachers negotiated ahead of time what all would be included in the videoconference. Our class made pretzels: Their class made doughnuts: Afterwards, the students [...]
Filed under: Collaborations | Tagged: culinary arts | 1 Comment »
As you know, I’ve been on a journey to figure out how to get videoconferencing in the 21st century classrooms in our county. Last fall, on a recommendation from a blog commenter, I started experimenting with Mirial Softphone; a desktop VC tool. Pros I was initially interested in Mirial over Polycom PVX as a desktop [...]
Filed under: Techie Stuff | Tagged: Desktop VC, Mirial | 7 Comments »
Last week I compared using Skype in the classroom to using H323 videoconferencing carts in schools. Are those our only choices? What if there was something in between? Something affordable. Something that any district could include when installing 21st Century Classrooms / Classrooms of Today / etc. (You know, classrooms with interactive whiteboards, short throw [...]
Filed under: Techie Stuff, VC Community | Tagged: interactive whiteboards, Skype | 4 Comments »
It’s not too long ago, that I was comparing videoconference carts to “integrated rooms.” Now it’s time to compare Skype to videoconference carts. There are many ways and reasons to use Skype in the classroom; there are also many ways and reasons to use some form of H323 videoconferencing in the classroom. Danielle Letter, TWICE [...]
Filed under: Skype, Techie Stuff | Tagged: comparison | 6 Comments »
