Several months ago, I was asked to take part in an interview project for English. Grade 5 and 6 students were to interview a professional about their career and ask a number of questions about that career. For example:-
Why did you take up this career?
What are the challenging aspects of this career? etc
However, the students came from a school in Singapore and I was actually at a conference at Deakin University in Geelong. Not wanting to disappoint the students, I had organised for wireless internet connection with Deakin Uni in their management centre. Due to technical difficulties, I only just got online in time. However, once on the delivery went smoothly. Skype was the videoconferencing platform. I tried to use the chat as much as possilbe, as accents are always difficult to adjust to. At least they could read my notes or chat for verification. These students were young and not used to the Aussie accent. To their credit they spoke confidently, capably and well. Once the interview was completed, students would write up reports.
Some of the other professionals interviewed included:- the Director of Progam development at the National Volunteer and Philathropy Centre, a nurse, an engineer, a barista from Starbucks and a poet from NZ.
The success of the project meant that Aini’s class had to present in front of the entire school. The class hoped to inspire the pupils to be like the people they featured and then try to tie in with their school values.
Learning outcomes for me:-
Need to use text chat as well as audio when responding to questions in the online interview for full comprehension.
However, typing on the keyboard made a lot of noise, ( I was recorded the session) and may have interfered with them hearing me clearly.
Always, always test the equipment ahead of time to allow for the technical hitches that will occur.
If skype loses audio or video, it is best to hang up and ring back. We had to do this once.
Experiencing the tyranny of distance and feeling of helplessness at times, when working with a class of students, who were unknown to me and knowing that sometimes Aini was out of the classroom.
Being part of another wonderful online experience.
How different it is to see the more mature students of our schools link up together on videoconferencing. The conversations hold greater content and depth. The demonstrations are more complex, realistic and therefore the learning deeper. Zainuddin and I both teach computer studies to year 11 at the same time on a Thursday.
As it was our first linkup, we decided to simply share cultures in a form of show and tell. But this time, the show and tell took on the form of full demonstrations.
Watching Malaysia we saw:-
Demonstrations of their traditional drink (Teh tarik) and how to make it
A traditional game and how to actually play it (involved marbles and a wooden playing structure - congkak
Their traditional costumes for the Malay and the Chinese cultures, including their evening or ‘best’ dress
We were also treated to viewing the various ways of tying sarongs.
Demonstrating from Hawkesdale we:
Showed ‘footy’ and how to handball and kick it
Demonstrated cricket and how to play it
Displayed an aussie meat pie, talked about the contents, showed the addition of sauce
Vegemite
But, it was the grand finale from Malaysia that was the absolute highlight. They treated us to a demonstration of street dancing. We looked on with amazement and wonder as they danced to the music that our students love to listen to and the style of dancing that we would love to learn.
Highlights
Working with a country who learn English and speak it well
Watching demonstrations, not just listening to a speaker
One of my students who usually ‘hides’ in the corner and refuses to come up and speak over the microphone and skype, actually going way outside his comfort zone and taking part this time.
Street dancing
Learning outcomes
Trying to adjust to each other’s accents
Manipulating the camera and mic for maximum and effective connection .
Experiencing the full value of demonstrations
Wishing that we had been more organized with a better display of Australiana as the Malays had put so much time and effort into theirs
Possible future connections
Could the Malay students teach mine how to street dance
Can we share what we are learning in ICT and use peer to peer mentoring?
Tuesday 21st July was “Racial Harmony Day’ in Singapore. My e-colleague Aini, who I met on classroom2.0 and I connected via video conferencing on the weekend. Aini asked if we would like to see her students in their national costumes which they wore to school as part of Racial Harmony Day. Delighted, I agreed.
Our grade 2 to 4 students and year 7 students gathered in the library and listened to the grade 5s from Singapore speak about ‘what racial harmony means to them.’ They spoke confidently and fluently in clear English. Students who were dressed in traditional costume came up to the web camera and showed us the Malay, Indian and Chinese traditional costumes. These are the three main cultures in Singapore. We heard of their traditional games and the other activities that were taking place on this day. The parents were holding food stalls in the canteen.
We viewed photos of the recent national parades which took place on National Day last week and witnessed their celebrations. Skype was used for this webcast and the audio and video were quite clear from our end. However, our audio was not clear in Singapore.
Aini had used her laptop when we first tested, but then set up external speakers so that her class of 47 students could hear. Skype seems to require tweaking when a new setup is used so it was necessary to goto tools>audio setup and choose the external speakers.
On Wednesday, my year 8 students were to show the class in Singapore images of our school and area. To our dismay, the latest version of skype was not on the library interactive white board. Therefore it was impossible to share our screen through skype. A quick reshuffle, meant that we quickly found objects eg meat pie and sauce and toy koala that played “Waltzing Matilda” were placed up to the web camera.
Learning outcomes
Increased Knowledge
Learnt that Singapore has 4 cultures
Chinese, Malay, Indian, Eurasian
Costumes and correct names
Importance of lions in Singapore and their impact in the parade
Defence forces – age entry, compulsory, 2 years
Viewed the location of the new Disneyworld site
Communication skills
the need for clear diction and correct positioning of both web camera and microphone.
Mondays are crazy or mad days for me, as I teach every possible lesson ie 6 periods for the day. After lunch, I have the Ping music project, where I have the two year 7 groups combined. The students who have attended our school since primary school are conversant in technology use and web2.0 tools, but 1/3 of them are new to us this year, and have limited or basic expertise. This means that I need to be super organized and cater for all skill levels. Before each class, I list on a tick sheet what the students need to complete for the double session, with spare activities at the end to challenge those students who complete their work quickly.
Today, was not so ‘mad’, in fact so many interesting developments took place. In period 1, my year 11 class experimented with xtranormal One of our students completed the movie and it successfully embedded in his blog. Perod 2 was year 11 accounting and as the cd that comes with the text did not have the correct case study, I had to quickly think of an excercise that students who had finished their work could work on. Budgeting was our theme, so students worked on an xtranormal movie to explain the concepts of budgeting.
Scheduled for the pod and working with my year 12 class for Information Technology Applications, we had a fascinating lesson today. Studying virtual teams as part of their set coursework, I set up a data projector and speakers to show them some of the virtual teams that I work with. First site was twitter. People quickly responded from various countries and many of them from Australia. One interesting response came from @susanwrites who is an author. @susanwrites @murcha Hello to year 12 students from an author in California. 7pm in the evening here, it’s still light out and perfect spring weather.
When I explained that we were studying virtual teams, Susan responded with:- “You and your students might want to check out freshbrain.org It’s all virtual – technology, leraning and fun, kids 13-18 ” Before I could blink, students in my class who did not have a twitter account, were registering. Next minute this tweet came up on the white board:-774melbourneCFA launches http://www.cfaconnect.net.au/
One of my students said to me that she was part of the pilot program for this project. How amazing was that, that the tweet came up at the very time we were online! It must give her satisfaction in that the ground work has now contributed to this launch and she was part of it. Plus, she heard of the launch as soon as the media release went out.
Then came my double year 7 class after lunch. I had been rung up that morning to ask whether we could videoconference with some student teachers in Parkville, Melbourne and as Ajax was with them (our Ping organiser) we used this session. This is the first time that we have used skype or videoconferencing with another party in Australia!! As we were in the computer lab, my facilities are limited. I used my laptop and its inbuilt camera. It was placed on an old printer that was placed on a table at the front. This would allow a view of the classroom for those who were participating.
External speakers and a usb mic were used for a start but we had to revert to a headset and its mic. My laptop worked on wireless internet which was not quite strong enough to keep both videos going. So, we turned the video on for the people who were talking. Again, I was amazed, that the most challenging of students volunteered to come up to the microphone and talk to their skype audience. These students often struggle with written media and literacy but confidently speak to an unknown audience. Questions were asked and a number of students went to the web camera to speak about where they live and what they enjoyed about Ping.
The rest of the double lesson was used for writing a story without pictures and words. Julie Lindsay from Qatar academy is working with the same topic ,as her students have WWW – a week without walls. Some students are off to Italy, London and Turkay. Those students who remain behind are completing an alternative program which includes music sessions in the lab. Julie’s students will also produce ’stories without pictures and words’, featuring Middle Eastern instruments. The best will be uploaded onto the Ping blog for us to share. My students will try and compose a story with an Australian influence – where they live, their favourite holiday destination, the outback etc How exciting is that?
Below follows a list of some sites that will allow teachers and educationalists to make connections for further collaboration including videoconferencing and global projects. It has been my experience that blogging and/or global project partners often make great videoconference partners as there is an already established element of trust and confidence in each other. The students have already got to know each other and this gives an element of richness to the learning outcomes. However, many of the schools we have videoconferenced with, were new and some of the sites that were used are listed below. There are many websites and ning groups now and an online search will produce many more results. Timezone and language differences often prove to be challenges/barriers. Read “using skype in education ” for further information on successful skype linkups.
In 2008, these were some of the sites that were used for connecting to the globe:-
Classroom2.0 – with a membership list of over 17000, this is the first recommended stop. ”Long distance collaborations” and “e-learning and online teaching” groups are already established where valuable contacts can be made. Join the groups and watch out for the updates for these groups. New or established forums often appeal for connections for global projects and videoconferencing. A valuable contact for us came from a forum on classroom2.0 which actually put our school on Russian TV with our linkups to the Russian school!!
Projects by Jen – from Jen Wagner, USA, focusing mainly on primary aged groups
Global education ning started by Lucy Barrow, USA, where people actively seek out partners for global projects
Flatclassrooms commenced by Julie Lindsay (The middle East)
Beyond the Walls - a French ning started by Vincent Mouspelet (good for secondary groups, with a strong European support base)
Twitter – a quick tweet will often bring up some willing partners.
One of our favourite groups to collaborate with, is Collaborationnation with one of the students showing us a toy reindeer. (above)
Two new sites of interest
As I was about to publish this post, I checked out the edublogger and found that Sue Waters has added a page with a list of interested skype videoconference partners. This would be a great place to start with.
Another interesting site that has just gone online is Bringing us Together for student bloggers. (Blogging is my number one interest with web2.0)
We were guests to supper. There were at least seven menu options, complete with dinner music and a dance show. A jovial atmosphere and comraderie added to the event. However, for us in Australia, it was really too early as it was 11:30am our time. Supper was with the students from collaborationnation in the USA. They came back to their school in out of hours time, to share with us examples of their supper (which we would call tea or dinner in Australia). There was broccoli, steak, pumpkin cheese cake (leftovers from Thanksgiving) etc
Turns were then taken to share a virtual gift with each other. From the USA came ice hockey boots, baseball, softball, reindeer toy, scout badge, coin collectionand a US one dollar note. We had a wonderful demonstration of guitar playing and dancing from two US students. From Australia, came a toy koala, a footy, a netball, vegemite, scout shirt, $20 note etc. Skype was the software used for videoconferencing as it is so user friendly – a live blog was the backup option. A basic desktop microphone, web camera and the library interactive whiteboard were used. My students have nagged me for more ever since!
A virtual gift toy reindeer, indicative that Christmas is coming soon.
My online friend, Bonnie Kaplan has commenced a photofriday. I met Bonnie through Kevin’s regular day in a sentence“. As I missed the inaugural Friday, I am determined to share a photo today.
My day in a sentence for this week is:- It was announced at morning briefing that our principal was leaving for USA, but I reported that I would be there before her, taking my kids with me, as we were using skype to participate in an amazing videoconference for a “show and tell finale” with the New England students we had connected with through blogging.
My photo follows the same theme and shows one of my students holding up a jar of vegemite to show the students of Collaboration Nation, in New England, USA. We are in Australia, but with the help of skype, a web cam, a desktop microphone and an interactive whiteboard, we were able to videoconference with each other. They chanted Hannah along until she tasted the vegemite in front of the camera.
Tomorrow morning, my students will connect with their blogging and live blogging pals from another nation – the USA, using videoconferencing via skype. Each student is to bring in something for ’show and tell’ for the other country. My students responded to my post with some suggestions and here is the result:-
i will bring a footy
hey mrs mirch
i think i will bring my australian head band. it is a yellow head band with the australian flag on it. its very australian
thanks
maybe a footy or a cricket ball.
hey mrs. murch
i could bring in a football
Somebody better bring a meat pie!! (from Mr P Bogush, their teacher)
i will bring a footy jumper
i don’t really kno what i could bring in… mayb a picture of my horse ?
i will bring my toy possum tomorrow
i will bring my skateboard
i think i will bring a teddy kangaroo
So, vegemite, a meat pie with sauce, some pet birds and a banksia flower will also be brought in. If you do not live in Australia or live in Australia, what else would you suggest for us to show. We cannot wait to see what the US kids show us.
We have booked the IWB in the library with a very basic, small webcamera and a desktop mic. So lets hope the internet does not let us down.
I wish I would have used the above title for my session at ICTEV yesterday as it is so much more realistic now. However, I put in my presentation synopsis quite a few months ago and now we are so much further down the track (around the globe). Instead of 4 hours to get around the world, it is just a few minutes of connection time. One of my first experiences of connectedness witht the globe was from classroom2.0 when we were having problems playing videso from our video iPod through a tv monitor. I put the question up on various Australian mailing lists as we really wanted to show the digital stories to a parent presentation. As a last minute endeavour I also put it up as a discussion on classroom20. Within 10 minutes the answer to our problems came back from a teacher in Alabama, USA!!! Hey presto, the advice worked!!
The ICTEV conference theme was “Successful Stories in ICT” and I know that for my students the use of web2.0 tools has been a great success. Below is the powerpoint presentation that I used as the basis for my talk.
Skype has opened up a whole new world – cyber and international. Skype is VOiP (Voice over internet protocol) which allows (to put very simply) two computers to ring each other like a telephone. Such calls are then free, except for the cost of the download time.
We have two sons who live in London and skype allows us to keep in constant contact with them, either by speaking to each other, text chatting or by videoconferencing. Living in a rural community, our neighbourhood telephone lines went out of order recently and as there is no mobile phone service in our area, we were able to put credit on our skype account and ring landline telephone numbers. This allowed us to have some communication with the outside world.
Skype is wonderful and has such huge potential in the educational field. It allows us to ring teachers in other countries, to share lesson plans and ideas and to work collaboratively on setting up wikis. However, the best use for our school has been that of videoconferencing with a school in Korea. Last week, we spent five days trialling the use and impact of skype. First, we had students from each country ask questions as they thought of them. The second time, we had already worked out the type of questions to ask eg what are your school hours, typical lunch foods, subjects studied, weather, where we live etc. By the fifth day we really used the technology.
One of our boys had found a blue tongued lizard. He brought it into our library and put it up against our small web camera. The Korean students could actually see his little blue tongue going in and out. The Korean students then took their camera to the window and we could see their beautiful snow clad school yard right down to a man sweeping the snow away with a wooden broom.
They had asked us about sports that we play. Having worked out the potential of the camera, a year 9 boy leapt from his seat to go and get a cricket bat, ball and stumps. Our library was converted into a cricket field with demonstrations of bowling and batting displayed in front of the web camera. It was then time to bring in a meat pie because no matter how we verbally described it, they could not grasp what it was. Vegemite soon followed and with that all sorts of questions and impromptu conversations flowed. Students forgot their shyness about their language skills and we started to really learn from each other. Korean students then showed us their wonderful mobile phones and features. Finally we compared uniforms but the bell went and we had to continue on to our other subject areas.
Surely this is powerful learning!!!! Students are activating their own education and wishing to research further and learn more about each other. As a result, short videos have been added to teachertube to show what Korean students have for lunch and a brief visual tour of the school. Our students made a canteen video to show them what we can purchase for lunch.
Grade 6 students interviewed a volunteer from the Penshurst volcano discovery centre. The interview was recorded with powergrammo and then used to insert into their podcast on the volunteers at the centre.
register with a user name and password. There are no telephone numbers, but instead a user name. You can search for other people’s usernames and add them as contacts. To ring, you simply highlight the appropriate name and press the green phone button.
a web camera for videoconferencing.
A desktop microphone gives better quality audio and headphones ensure some privacy.
Skype is only on staff laptops as security could be a real issue. Our library has an interactive whiteboard for class presentations, but a datashow would suffice. There are other providers of VOiP. Conference calls can also be set up but the video will only work between two callers. Sound can be a problem at times and calls can tend to drop out but despite this overall it works wonders. So skype that call!!
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