USN to Join Forces with Tandberg in Promising Loaner Program
We are lucky to know Jan Zanetis, Education Marketing Manager for
the Tandberg Corporation, with whom we sealed a deal this week to place a $14,000 Tandberg codec in our school for a run at Virtual Field Trips from IVC content providers the last two months of this school year. Next year, we hope to get the unit back in exchange for five online content offerings from our school to the world. More on that later, and keep an eye out here for ongoing documentation as we take advantage of this wonderful opportunity!
Thanks, Jan!
Labels: interactive videoconferencing, IVC, learning, teaching, University School of Nashville
Steve Hargadon Talks with Teachers about Web2.0
Hi, ya'll,
This site hasn't seen a post for a while, and it's largely because I'm not pushing IVC at the school as much as I have in past years. Partly that's because of my intense revamping of curriculum in my own classroom, and it also has to do with focus on other areas of technology. I remain convinced that IVC (using dedicated codecs for the task) is an important tool, but I also see that using desktop applications is an important innovation. To my mind the diversification of Tandberg and Polycom into more and more desktop applications proves that point.
Meanwhile, I want to share a rough video recording I made this past summer as my USN Web20forUs! teacher workshop, four days of exploration into the tools, made use of Skype to bring in a leader in the field of Web 2.0,
Classroom20.com founder Steve Hargadon. Steve runs this professional learning community of over 10,000 members, and the fact that he would take time to drop in over Skype and engage in discussion with our little band of 10 teachers is testament to the power of online collaboration and to the sharing that goes on every day between teachers who are using Web 2.0 tools. Enjoy:
Find more videos like this on Classroom 2.0Labels: desktop, Hargadon, IVC, USN, videoconference, videoconferencing
"Out of These Doors" 7th Graders Visit Cleveland...in Their Classroom!
The
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's IVC outreach program goes out to a broad audience every year. Their 2006 Annual fiscal report claims that their educational programs, both in house and over distance, reach over 50,000 students a year. It's not hard to see why, after facilitating University School of Nashville's experience with their "On the Road" series program, "Rock and Roll through the Ages" videoconference. Here's a slideshow of pics:
and here's a very brief video from the interaction, in which R&R Educational Coordinator John Goehrke welcomes our students as the R&R Hall of Fame's very first IVC in the state of Tennessee!
Labels: IVC, learning, Merrick, teaching, USN, videoconference, videoconferencing
TheatreLink 2008!
Gus Gillette's Online Playwriting Class got underway on January 31 with an IVC (facilitated, due to connection problems, with audio from a cell phone connection!) between his students here at University School of Nashville and Joe White, Teacher Artist at the Manhattan Theatre Club in New York. This was an informal conversation during which Mr. White led students through the feelings and character motivations of the play being studied,
Here's
a video from part of that interaction.
And here's the video, embedded right here!:
Labels: Gillette, TheatreLink, USN
Classical Music at Vanderbilt Virtual School!
On December 10, 2007, students in Judy Yeaworth's high school Music Theory class were treated to a wonderful hour of classical music by a professional chamber orchestra called
Alias. The activity was
offered by the
Vanderbilt Virtual School, and was nothing short of marvelous.
I have a good deal of audio and video from that interaction and as soon as I can make sense of any of it I will be posting more here!
Labels: classical music, IVC, Merrick, USN, Vanderbilt Virtual School, videoconference, videoconferencing
TheatreLink Kicks off for 2007!
USN's participation in the Manhattan Theatre Club's "TheatreLink" program has begun, this year with a wonderful hour of chat with MTC's Chris Ceraso--actor, writer, teacher and mentor. There will be comments here soon that will more fully describe the event, but I want to go ahead and post the video for the sake of celebrating it. The video is only one small portion of the conversation that ensued. You'll have to imagine the rest!
See more about TheatreLink at their website!
Here's
a direct link to the .wmv movie file (large file, open with Internet Explorer!):
Labels: Gillette, IVC, Merrick, theater, theatre, TheatreLink, USN, videoconference, videoconferencing
4th Graders Chat with NASA--"Our Solar System"
On January 4, just the second day back from Winter Holidays, all USN 4th graders gathered in the Hassenfeld Library classroom to participate in an "Our Solar System" interactive videoconference with an expert at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. This Center produces a robust series of offerings via IVC every year, and their offerings are completely free of fees. We reserved our spot in this interaction 'way back in October.
4th grade Teacher
Lynn Noel and I connected with NASA's David Massa well before the scheduled interaction to make sure the technical requirements were met, and we left the unit on to maintain the connection. When the fourth graders arrived, the connection had been dropped and there ensued a flurry of redialing, rebooting, and re-emailing before the connection was re-established.
NASA's Roger Storm proceeded to chat about the relative distances of the planets from the sun, using a great metaphor of "blocks away from school." In this analogy, the earth is 1 block from school, with the other two "Inner Planets" in between. Pluto resides 40 blocks away!
Questions and answers were wonderful, and girls and boys alike asked questions which were carefully and cleverly answered.
View a 9 minute .wmv video to get a real sense of how the interaction went!
