Virgin Video Conference
After seventeen years of using technology in the classroom, I hate to admit it out loud but we finally did our first video conference. Our students and students from a school in New Jersey participated in The Pringle Project. Each student designed packaging to mail a single Pringle, there was weighing and measuring volume along the way. With help from the IT guys on both ends we got the video conference set up using Marratech software. (Skype is blocked by our district).
The looks on the kids' faces when they "faced" their partner were priceless, you would have thought they'd just landed on the moon. As each kiddo introduce him or her self then revealed the condition of their partner's chip to the webcam, hurrays were heard and fists were pumped in the air. One of our students decided to mail his chip in a hollowed out orange. When his partner appeared on screen he was wearing surgical gloves and holding a moldering, dripping, black box!! Hint: fruit does not make good packaging when sending a Pringles chip through the mail. Teaching is good, N.
The looks on the kids' faces when they "faced" their partner were priceless, you would have thought they'd just landed on the moon. As each kiddo introduce him or her self then revealed the condition of their partner's chip to the webcam, hurrays were heard and fists were pumped in the air. One of our students decided to mail his chip in a hollowed out orange. When his partner appeared on screen he was wearing surgical gloves and holding a moldering, dripping, black box!! Hint: fruit does not make good packaging when sending a Pringles chip through the mail. Teaching is good, N.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jodie on
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Cool. I love the faces of the kids when it is their first time. Our first elementary connection was 1st grade in rural Texas to 1st grade in Japan. It was amazing.
BTW, I did the Pringle Project with my HS kids a couple of years ago. They had to use the supplies off of my list and we just mailed them from school to my house. Your way sounds MUCH cooler.
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Permalink Reply by Nancy Bosch on
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Now I'm ready for my kids to talk f2f with an astronaut in space, a Nobel prize winner, a cancer fighting research scientist (in the lab) or a class of kids in sub-Saharan Africa. The sky's the limit!!
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Permalink Reply by Ian Grove-Stephensen on
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What a brilliantly (conceptually) simple idea that Pringles project is! I just kick myself when I see something like that because I should have thought of it, but didn't.
It is unclear from the Marratech site whether they are still going, but if not, Tokbox has been touted as a successor. I've not used it, but it's free and the interface is lickably good.
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Marratech is up and running but I heard last week Skype is being unblocked y my district. I wonder if Skype is easier to use?
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I can't speak for Marratech as I have never tried it, but Skype is certainly very easy to set up. I use it a lot.
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Permalink Reply by Anne Mirtschin on
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Skype is really easy to use. Confidence in the tools and software is so important for the participants. You can chat, use the video option and record the session. We have found 'show and tell' a great way to go with videoconferencing. However, if you want to share presentations and photos, you will need a virtual classroom software like elluminate or discoverE. If more than two classes share skype, the video option will not work. Sessions can be recorded as well, so we use powergrammo but there are other options as well.
When we first used skype 12 months ago, the audio would often drop and the visuals get distorted, but they keep on improving and requesting feed back and the whole system is quite stable now.
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Thanks for the info, I don't know if we'll jump on the video conferencing bandwagon just yet but it was sure fun the first time. N
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Nancy, interested to know what your reservations are. We tend not to talk about limitations and concerns in this forum, but it would be a richer place IMHO if we did.
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One of the things I pride myself on is using technology tools that enhance thinking, learning and teaching. If the opportunity comes up to video conference as an enhancement to our next unit of study we'd do in a heartbeat but I'm not going to search out opportunities that are not real, rich and relevant just because they are techology. Did that make sense?
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Totally. And I applaud it.
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Permalink Reply by ddeubel on
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You can also look at our Project Peace. Teachers download song cards and take pictures of their class and share / make a video.
I"ll be promoting more in the near future, it just started. I'll also be setting up a nice Scribblar room to share our messages of peace by conference and online.... Scribblar has some great and stable conferencing solutions and I don't mind praising them. Free for all to use our Pro room. Just click and go.
But I'd ask all educators to help us in Project Peace. Learn English and share in a valuable message/spirit.
David
http://eflclassroom.ning.com
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