Anne Mirtschin's Comments

Hi, Anne thanks for your interest in smart Business Wiki, I think it's great to be given the opportunity to work with teachers from around the globe. I look forward to learning more from professionals like you.

Great - thanks so much for the tip! I will check it out!

Lisa

Thanks Anne
Just shows you how excited I am with this site. I have checked it first thing back at school this morning. I attended the session with both you and Jess, but I also went to Jess's session on Monday. I must say I am really inspired by what you do at your school.
Maree

Thank you Anne!

Matt

Anne, thanks for the welcome. I will have to check out your projects to see what all you are up to.

Deborah

Hey, Anne. It's our sophomores (15-16 yrs. old) who study The Whale Rider.
Thank you very much!
collaboratively,
andrew

Hi Anne,

Since your interested in online conferencing I recommend you take a look at WiZiQ's virtual classroom.

we use Communicator too- but internally only-

Greetings and nice to "meet" you! We use IP video, as well as iChat & SKYPE. For classroom use- it's primarily IP. We do a great deal of in-district collaborations and professional development using iChat. Looking forward to possibly using the new video chat functions from GoogleTalk.

Thank you, Anne, I certainly will.

Hi Anne,
Thanks for your reply.
We mostly use POLYCOM video conference equipment for the video conference. Some times we use skype , when our partne school does not have the Video conference equipment. I resonally used elluminate to attend a few webinars.
Muraliv

Hi Anne,
I'd love that! Thanks for giving me some of your time. I understand about marking etc. at the moment, it's that time of year once again :)

Hi Anne,
Thank you for the welcome. It's good to see how many Australian teachers are on here.
I'd love to know more about what you're doing in the classroom. I'm spending a lot of time showing teachers how to podcast and make movies. Helping them come up with ideas for how to integrate this into the classroom.

Hello Anne,
I understand what you are saying. Thanks for your explanation. It makes sense. One more question: what type of webcamera do you use? Can your camera capture the whole gruop of students at a time or only one person who is speaking at the moment? I think it is a great idea to try video conferencing without students at first. I will let you know when I fix all the necessary equipment and bring it all together. One more question: is there such an option in Skype that lets us record the whole video conference and view it later as a video file? I think it would be great for further class discussion and analyses.

Hey, Anne, how about the book set in New Zealand, The Whale Rider, do you know it? I'd like to get my English students in touch with some kiwis via wiki. Any advice?
Our space: http://wiki-land.wikispaces.com

collaboratively,
andrew

Hi Anne,

My first VC unit came as a grant with a polycom camera and 32" TVs on stands. The unit was stuck in a closet (unused) for at least 5 years before my time. We took it out, cleaned it up and set it up in a conference room at the Alt. Ed building, but no teacher wanted to load their kids up and bus them over. So it was still unused. So I decided that to make it portable. Basically, I bought a rolling suitcase, cut egg crate foam to fit and protect the camera. The TVs went to different campuses. Now when a teacher wants to do a VC, I show up with my suitcase and cables. The teacher has to provide/checkout the TVs.

Last year the district bought an additional polycom camera off of ebay so we could connect classrooms within the district.

I know tandburg has portable units now but when my district saw the price tag, they freaked...I guess that I will have to continue to be creative.

Thanks for the compliment Anne. I looked up the conference and got some interesting ideas.

in commerce i use it when students are studying law to make the topic more engaging i get them to create a myspace live for teenagers about laws and rights that relate to them as applied in vicotria, get them to include internet safety and then they can choose what laws /ringts they think is the most relevant meeting the criteria. They have to write and appeal to their audience so in some cases they may need to have a short cut list so i can understand what they are saying apart from the normal ones like lol etc they like it they are on every night anyway so it isn't much to put their work up their - i shows a different way they can use it and more importantly i get to chat a little about how much it too much etc and get them to think about what they have on their space etc i make them make new spaces and use their school email so i can easily identify them. i will email you the sheet for the year 9 students if you would like. then you can ask me questions about it as it is far more complex.
:)

Hi Anne

i was involved in the knowledge bank conference earlier in the year unfortunately for the students and myself the timing of our sessions wasn't great with meant our bit didn't go as well as planned but we are presenting it at the home eco conference in dec so we have a chance to polish our act!

I am happy to explain how i use myspace although it is a little detailed. i use it in both my teaching areas commerce and geography. i am not sure how detailed you want me to be. it is blocked at school and all the work is homework activities. there is always the option no to do it live if the students really have a valid reason for not doing it live or no internet connection at home.(there was 1 student out of 60 who chose not to do it live from a year 9 geography class- she used publisher to complete her tasks)

at the conference i did send out the assignment sheet on how i used it for the geography class. did you get that?

Is there any particular aspect your interested in? I applied for the innovations branch social networking professional learning term 4 but didn't get which was very disappointing as i use social networking in the classroom now! it would of been great to have some time to explore its use with more flexibility!

:)