Effective Video Conferencing

The past school year was so overwhelming I didn't post a single addition to my blog. Now that this is past I am ready to begin again. 


Let's start with some easy stuff: Virtual Field Trips. In a recent article in Learning & Leading by Jan Zanetis. "The Beginner's Guide to Interactive Virtual Field Trips" I was enthused that there was plenty of good information to share with teachers. In fact, the article starts out by telling teachers to check around, they can usually find authentic Video Conferencing equipment with H .323 codecs. What a breath of fresh air! So often  I hear educators talk about Skype as if it replaces video conferencing and I am disappointed. Skype is an awesome tool for small groups and one-on-one instruction, but, for a virtual field trip experience you need the real thing. I say this regarding Skype however, caveat emptor... since Skype has come under scrutiny for many security issues it is important to be careful and scrupulous when deploying it over an enterprise. 


For the budget conscious you should know that there are reputable companies out there that supply refurbished equipment at a fraction of the cost! One such company helped us out our school set up a daily distance learning program for our 5th grade! [Contact Arthur Carp at Quantalytics] 


Video conferencing is an engaging medium for the students. With this medium we are inviting larger than life characters into the classroom to interact with students. Real authors, astronauts, and even animals from some zoos! The world of "TV" becomes INTERACTIVE "TV" with video conferencing. 


At our school we conduct Hebrew classes for our 5th grade students. The teacher is in Israel. Outside of her window children can hear the birds in Israel as the chirp. "We can listen to birds that are thousands of miles away!" they laugh and enjoy the "slice of life" experiences that come to them everyday directly from Israel. Of course, it helps to have a very engaging Israel teacher on the other side!

CILC posted an article about the people side of VC called, "Teaching from Home: A Human Interest Story". This article features the Hebrew Immersion program at The Moriah School.

CILC is one of the best websites for collaboration through video conferencing. There you can find content providers, academic classes, online collaborations, and professional development programs. Their program is innovative and creative and I am sure you will find tons of information there.

According to Jan in the Learning and Leading article, The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) asks teachers to evaluate interactive virtual field trip content providers each year to determine the CILC Pinnacle Award Winners. The 2008–09 winners are:

Adventures in Medicine & Science (AIMS) Program of Saint Louis University  http://aims.slu.edu

Center for Puppetry Arts  www.puppet.org

Cleveland Institute of Music  www.cim.edu/dl/index.php

Cleveland Museum of Natural History  www.cmnh.org

George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate  www.mountvernon.org/learn/index.cfm

Hank Fincken: A National Theatre Company of One  www.hankfincken.com

HealthSpace (now part of Cleveland Museum of Natural History)www.cmnh.org/site/classesandprograms/schoolprograms/healthed.aspx

Life Science Education Center at Marian College www.marian.edu/EcoLab/Education/Pages/default.aspx

Louisville Science Center  www.louisvillescience.org

Mote Marine Laboratory  www.mote.org

NASA Digital Learning Network (Kennedy Space Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Johnson Space Center, and Goddard Space Flight Center) http://dln.nasa.gov/dln/content/catalog

The National WWII Museum  www.nationalww2museum.org

Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI)  www.omsi.edu

The Paley Center for Media  www.paleycenter.org

Reef HQ Aquarium in Australia  www.reefhq.com.au

Virent Broadcasting Company  www.virent.net

SchoolTube - CAPspace Training for VC Coordinators of Multiple Systems

SchoolTube - CAPspace Training for VC Coordinators of Multiple Systems

Managing Your Electronic Life

If you are anything like me you love all the latest gadgets. Also, if you are anything like me, you can find it exhausting to keep up. Some great tools that have made their way across my desk have disappeared from hyperspace - I believe - simply because there are too many of them that do the same thing and we [users] are a fickle lot.

However there are two tools I could not, would not do without. The first is Evernote. Beside the fact that this is free, it is a useful tool in your iPhone, Blackberry, PC or Mac. I can take a snapshot of my whiteboard and save it in my Evernote to share or simply to review. As I find websites of interest not only can I bookmark them, but I can see an image of the site in my evernote interface which can help spark my memory. Give it a try, you won't be sorry.


The other product is Reqall. Now this is just great. A while back I had a Jott account and like many of you was sorely disappointed when they became a paid service because, well, I just didn't want to pay for it! Welcome, Reqall! Reqall is free and it gives you some awesome functionality that reminds me of Jott.

Picture this... You are driving home from work and you conjure up an idea that is just great. You wish you could pull over to the side of the road and write it down, or you can call someone and tell them - well, if you have a reqall account you can call your reqall, leave a message about this idea and select the members of your contact list with whom you may want to share this message. The "share" will receive a typed transcription of what you said as well as a *.wav file to listen to [in case your cell phone still gives garbled service].

I am limiting the ability of this great product, but suffice it to say after about an hour, you, too will find many great uses for these products.

Happy Organizing!

Video Conference and Immersion

We have just solidified the first Hebrew Immersion program at the Elementary School level. Our fifth grade students attend classes everyday with a teacher in Israel who is teaching them Hebrew. We use a SMART Board in the classroom as well as PowerPoint presentations from Israel. The teacher is conversant with the students as she implements oral and written exams as well as administers worksheets and extra help.

We supplied the teacher with a Wacom Tablet in Israel where we send completed tests via PDF from scans to her. She can grade the tests with comments, etc. and return them to the students via email through our Edline system.

Parents were impressed to see the teacher engaging the students in lively conversation and equally impressive is the degree of attention and interest displayed by the students.

Of course, this program has gone through much growth - this link provides you a view of our first week of class. When we first started this program - we moved the Polycom Viewstation VSX 7000 from room to room - now we use the Polycom HDX 9001 in a new Hebrew Immersion room we have designated along side a donated 48" television for SMART Board presentations and this is working magnificently.

I am thrilled to share this with you as we are very proud of this new program. A paperless classroom taught by 1 teacher in Israel to 5th grade students - very cool.

New Ideas for 2009 - 2010 School Year

New ideas are brewing as we return from the summer and I would like to share them with you.

In the Middle School one of the faculty has spent the better part of this summer preparing for a paperless school year. Focusing on Adobe Acrobat and PDF technology, he has prepared all his Judaic Studies classes to be run through LAN School (I prefer this to Synchroneyes - easier to use, simple user interface and much, much, less expensive)and Adobe Acrobat. He learned all he needed through online classes at Lynda.com and ended up with over 100 pages of notes to share with other teachers. This idea is inspired and the application is incredible.

We are using VoiceThread throughout the school in both General and Judaic studies to enhance student engagement and, parental involvement. Through a grant, our Middle School Judaic Studies will be thoroughly enhanced with VoiceThread, document cameras, and collaborative learning programs.

With the addition of an iPod Touch cart and specialized training for the faculty everyone is a-buzz about using this new technology in the classroom. Tony Vincent has a fabulous Podcast tp help you with technical ideas and projects. Between iTunesU and the plethora of educational apps in the online store I am sure we will see a growth in student and teacher podcasting.

We have deployed 125 laptops for student use and Trapeze points throughout the entire school, but flooded the Middle School with MP in many classrooms. Teachers will be able to sign out laptop carts through our SchoolDude managed IT program and the carts have been re-designed inside by "yours truly" to enhance distribution and minimize confusion and delay.

The Tech Staff has been re-named "coaching" staff and have been assigned to the faculty for technological support as well as curriculum development. Engaging tech savvy students as coaches is just another way of providing real life education for the students and support for the teachers. Students have been hand selected to support the IT Department as student coaches. Teachers have a list of students with their schedules so they can find someone quickly when the IT Department is otherwise engaged.

Good wishes to all as the new year begins and I will keep you posted of new tech integration solutions as we go along.

Virtual Jogging

Have you ever wished you could walk your students through some websites to share ideas with them? Did you ever just want to share a few links with someone without having to send the links but, rather, show the page. Well, why not jog there?

That's right! Send someone a bunch of web pages and let them "jog" through them. Give this "jog" a try and let me know what you think. It is easy and fun.

Now that summer is around the corner you can start putting some of these together for your lesson plans for next year. Students go to live pages - they can pause, research and annotate pages to Diigo and then continue. As a teacher you are engaging them and offering a content rich experience that is sure to keep them working!

Check this out!

Have you met Animoto, yet?

As a Tech Director I am always looking for the short and simple path to help my teachers achieve their goals. Now, as the school year draws to a close, classroom teachers prepare final projects. A great culminating project is to capture the highlights of the school year in a PowerPoint presentation. These are usually time consuming and frustrating to get right. In particular, it is difficult to get the music to work right with the images. Along comes ANIMOTO.

With a free educational account you can upload photos, add music and ... let 'er rip. Animoto takes your images, text and music and blends them together into an animated slide show.


Once you've completed the show you can email, post, download, send it to youtube.com, upgrade to a DVD, even send it to your iPhone!! The animoto that I created was based on photos from our school celebration for Purim. I just made it as a demo and it took less than 15 minutes.

What Took You So Long?

I know it has been a while since I have updated this blog, but, in my defense I have been very busy. I initiated a laptop program, installed a wireless network, supervised the reconstruction of our network, and well in general took over a different Technology Department. It's been fun, but I think for it to be enriching to you let me share some of what I have learned.

First, when initiating a project, never take anything for granted. The wireless re-seller I hired was unreliable and made the project much more difficult than it had to be for us. The new reseller I put in place is FABULOUS. I can't say enough good stuff about Real Time Consultants, Inc. They have been supportive, smart, reliable, friendly and never, never, never late or underestimate their fees. In fact, sometimes, they overestimate so I can sigh in relief!

Second, teachers are the best! I have a great faculty at my school. They are inquisitive, interested, creative and willing to take a risk. When there is a new idea they are willing to nurture it until it becomes a reality (if possible). Okay? So with all these upbeat teachers and support work I neglected my blog. I promise to make up for it.

So what' hot? Well, recently we have been working on getting grant money to support a Voicethread project. Not familiar with Voicethreads? Let me take this opportunity to introduce you.


Voicethreads encourage students to use higher order thinking and share online on topics with their class. Visit the site and watch how students will blossom in your classroom.

Super Interactive Websites for Your Arsenal

My vacation started on Thursday last. I have been relaxing and surfing like crazy. I don't get the opportunity to really snoop around much on the web while I am at work, so this is a real treat. I recently came across so many great ideas and observed my colleagues trying exciting and interesting things in their classrooms. I would like to share a few of these ideas with you.

Voicethreads. If you haven't had a chance to check this out yet, you really should. You can pose a question to your class and each of your students can post an audible answer (a very simplistic example). If you go to the site spend a minute watching the demo, you'll love it.

Jott (For your personal edification) This is not necessarily a classroom thing, per se, however, it is awesome. Set up a jott account; list your contacts and then while you are on the road, if you happen to remember something you want to tell someone and you would rather not call you can jott it to them. Call your jott account, Jott will send them an email based on your voice message.

Zip Code Census. If you assign your students a project like describing the population of their town or a city in the USA you can have them visual see the census immediately by using the tool at this website.

TikaTok. Imagine a story. Write it down. Illustrate it...now you know what you can do at TikaTok with your students. Did I mention that you can get a hard cover copy of the book for about 20 dollars.

This is just the beginning. There is so much more, but before I present the rest, check these out and I will offer more soon.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Using a Visual Thesaurus

As technology educators we are always confronted with the issue of trying to get faculty to try a new idea. Well, I found a few products that were enthusiastically received by Language Arts teachers and I would love to share them with you.

The first is Visual Thesaurus. Sometimes when students are assigned to write an essay, it is so hard for them to find the right word. The Visual Thesaurus is a fun alternative to "look it up". The kids love it. What you do is type in a word and then this really cool animated array opens up and allows you to continue clicking until you find the work you like. On one side of the window it displays for you which of the words is a noun, adverb, adjective, etc. You can share your word lists, and they even have a 14 day free trial.

When I sent it to the faculty to try it out they were so enthusiastic they wanted to buy it NOW. What a great tool. Check it out!

Criterion is a Web-based instructional tool that allows students to submit essays for immediate
evaluation, including a holistic score and annotated diagnostic feedback on their grammar, usage,
mechanics, style, and organization and development. About a half million elementary, middle, high school and college students across the United States and around the world have used the Criterion service, according to Technology & Learning which awarded the software in 2005.

Our teachers started using this recently and I have to tell you the response from the students is inspiring. As I watched this program be deployed in a sixth grade classroom I saw something that I don't think would have happened any other way. The students approached this program as if it were a computer game. They were trying to score higher on their essays by making quick adjustments to see if they could raise their scores. They were very focused and disappointed when what would appear to be a simple solution did not result in a higher score and sometimes resulted in a lower one.

I sort of hated to be the one to explain that this wasn't a contest and getting a higher score was independent of how quickly you achieved that result. Soon I saw my Need for Speed enthusiasts settle back in their seats and really focus on raising their score by using imagination and creative writing.

These are two great examples of good infusion of technology in education.

Hovercraft, Anyone?

My head is still spinning! I just came from the NJECC conference over the past three days. I have been in EdTech for more than 15 years and I still learn more every day. This conference gave me ideas for new podcasts with my students, a working knowledge of how to use Google Apps in the classroom, offering my students a place to do real "higher order" thinking at yourtake.org, setting up an online class in Moodle and of course there is nothing like sharing ideas with colleagues and learning how they do things.

This always leaves me thinking about how I can incorporate this into my curriculum and what, if anything more can I do to stimulate my students and advance their learning beyond the traditional, played out paper and pen.

I was listening to reports of the Auto Show and was smiling as I heard them say, the age of the Jetsons has arrived - a car that flies for about 1,000 miles! As more hovercraft are built do you imagine that people will say, you must drive the old fashioned car - even if it is bulkier, slower, more demaning? Educators insist on forcing kids to do things the "way we have always" done things. Why? Nothing innovative ever came from redundancy.

Letting our students learn and grow in the manner that suits them is scary for some teachers. There is nothing to fear from learning. Kids walk around our schools with mini computers attached to their hips, let's have them use them! You could have a contest in your classroom - ask your students to compete - who can get this information fastest - send a text message to someone in your phone that lives out of this state. Ask them: what time is it? what is your favorite color? what is the weather like where you are? Have them graph their answers including the time it took to get them. Then create a chart...then...well the list goes on.

It is time for us to start thinking outside the box and really noticing where our students are and what they are doing everyday that is building information in their think tanks. 1:1 initiative was handled mostly through Verizon, Cingular and ATT. Let's take advantage of this in our classrooms.

What's Del.icio.us?

Social Bookmarking is a very useful tool for teachers. It allows us all to select and mark with tags those websites we find helpful. Then, since it is social, we can share what we find with others. This is great because sometimes you want to find a site and, well, Google's results can be overwhelming even for the best Boolean users. So, you can log into your favorite Social Bookmarking site ( del.icio.us or furl.net)and see what other people have found by using the tags that match your search. Watch this quick video to get a better understanding of social bookmarking.

Attention Social Studies Teachers!

Even if you missed this year's Geography Awareness Week, you can still check out the great information available to you at "Geography in Action!"hosted by National Geographic. This year the focus was on Asia, last year Africa. So if your lesson plans include these continents, or you would like to add this to your repertoire, check it out.


On a personal note...My youngest son hates to read. At his school he is required (7th grade) to read a book a month and it is grueling to find something he is interested in reading. Over the course of his school career we have tried every basketball title on the AR list, he never finishes them. Recently, we found a 6th grade book that has only 36 pages...it was a hit. That was the criteria - the number of pages. So, the other day while doing research for one of the teachers in my school I came across an interview with Christopher Paul Curtis about his book, "Bud, not Buddy". My son watched the whole interview and asked me to take him to the library to get the book. Score one for technology!


So if you are having trouble engaging students about a book...or if you would like to further interest them in authors, please direct your attention to the Author presentation list at the Library of Congress', National Book Festival

Web 2.0 Directory

Go2Web20.net - The complete Web 2.0 directory
www.go2web20.net/

According to their AboutUs page, the Go2Web20.net is a directory of web 2.0 applications and services that was born around mid 2006. In June of 2007 there were 1308 logos and 1635 logos as of Saturday, September 29, 2007.

There are thousands of visitors every day and it converges Flash and AJAX technologies.

Visit the site and try some of the logos...it is almost as fun as My StumbleUpon Page.



Speaking of which, if you have never tried to StumbleUpon you should give it a whirl. I have found some very interesting things on the web simply by sitting and stumbling about - not that I get to do that very often.

Gilda Radner used to do a bit on SNL where she would play "Roseanna Rosannadanna". The bit always started the same..."What's all this talk about.." one night it went like this:

"What's all this talk about eagle rights. I don't think eagles should be allowed to do stuff like sit on the bus next to me." "Roseanna", Chevy Chase would interrupt, "it's equal rights, not eagle rights!" She would abruptly reply, "Never mind".

I'd like to say, "What's all this talk about Web 2.0?"

Well, I think it is simply the best news to come to Educational Technology in a long time. Social Networks, blogs, wikis, podcasts... the methods of communication seem limitless. This year I am trying to focus on adding as much web 2.0 into my classes as possible. I have started by inviting several teachers at my school to participate in a "practice wiki"...check it out I call it Mrs. Fusco's WikiBoard

There are so many great sites on the Internet, you could spend entire days flipping from one to the next. I have found it is fun to save my favorites in Furl. Sign up and start an account, then you can take your bookmarks with you everywhere you go! I have a section called favorites, one called lesson plans, digital cameras, etc. It has come in handy so very often.
Another great site I have shared with many students is David Warlick's "Citation Machine". This website comes to us at a time when plagiarism is out of control and spiraling... I send my students to this site to make it easier for them to cite their sources. When creating a research paper or a simple report, I have students start a word processing document that is just to record dates and websites they have visited or reviewed for their paper. At the end of their work when they are ready to publish, they simply go to the CITATION MACHINE website and create thier citations in either MLA or APA format. This is my little contribution to fighting plagiarism on the Internet.
Some students enjoy using Student ABC - MLA Citation. They say that it is a little easier to use.
Speaking of plagiarism. Don't send memos to schools in your district with an article on plagiarism and tell them to duplicate it unless you have permission from the author! That's just silly....
On a final note - check out this website every Sunday so that you will never be alone.