Karin Davidson-Taylor :: Blog

I had to drop from the symposium in order for the Endnote speaker to come in over videoconference, as I was videoconferencing in.  I also noticed that there was no recording of the endnote speaker on the web site.

sooooo ... I was just hoping someone would be willing to share their notes from the keynote.  If anyone did an audio recording< I would love to get that.

Thanks 

Here are some great sites that  I have used. 

www.vcalberta.ca (see the videos!)

www.kn.att.com/wired/vidconf/intro.html - Video Conferencing for Learning

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/%7Ejtb/jtap-037.htm - Practical Guidelines for Teaching with Video Conferencing

http://kc.ncsa.uiuc.edu:8080/education/index.jsp -  Educatior's Knowledge Centre

www.d261.k12.id.us/VCing/ - Strategies for Using Videoconferencing Technology in the K-12 Classroom:
A Teacher's Digital Handbook

www.interactiveclassroom.ca

www.cilc.org - Centre for Interactive Learning and Collaboration

www.twice.cc - Two Way Interactive Connections in Education

www.global-leap.com - Developing interactive videoconferencing
across the curriculum in the UK and around the world

Hope these are useful for you all.  If you know of any others, please pass them along.

Karin

If you took any photos at the symposium, please send the best of them to me (kdavidsontaylor@rbg.ca).  One or two of these will be used in a article about the symposium in "Professionally Speaking"  I'm not sure which issue, but hopefully the June issue.

I will also need some people who would be willing to be interviewed.  Let me know if you are interested.  I'm counting on Jeff and Shawn of course. 

Thanks for your help,

Karin

 First, thank you to Jeff and Shawn for bringing us all together.  It was well worth it. 

Second, thanks to Polycom and Tandberg for the snacks in the morning and afternoon respectively.  As stimulating as everything was, it's always nice to take a break and chat. 

Finally, thanks to Tandberg for dinner on Tuesday evening.  It was a good opportunity to either start new or continue conversations from the afternoon.

One of the outcomes of our symposium was to have a steering committee get together in person or virtually to discuss our vision of video conferencing and how it is connected to education.  Karen Andrews, in her endnote, said that in order for us to approach government agencies and corporate sponsors we need to have a common message. 

Any ideas?  Could we adopt Alberta Education's vision?  Adjust it to reflect our situation? 

I look forward to hearing your ideas.

Karin

Thanks also to Polycom for their sponsorship of one of the breaks.  Their involvement was much appreciated.

/shawn

I would like to thank Boris and the Tandberg folks (Mark Sterling, Tim Rollwagen...hope I didn't forget anyone) for picking up the dinner afterwards at the restaurant...I know the folks there really appreciated that and your involvement and the sponsorship of the break.

Take care,

/shawn

Hi All

Thanks to everyone EVERYONE for yesterday. I think it went very well and that the fact we were all so involved...and exhausted at the end of the day pays tribute to how we all worked at Making the Connections with others. I am writing this on the train on the way back to Kawartha Pine Ridge Distict and hope we can continue to move foward. Thanks for the dinner later as well as there was considerable buzz developing and I think we can turn that Buzz into and Loud Hum

Jeff

Good morning!

 I am the vice-principal at Broadview Public School in Ottawa.  I have participated in a number of video-conferencing projects with the board and within the schools that I have been at.  I have used NetMeeting, Skype and Breeze to conduct these activities.  I am interested in using VC as a vehicle for professional development and for bringing rich, authentic activities into all schools (but especially our beacon schools).

 Short and sweet!  I have to get to the symposium.

Take care,

 Brent

Hi Everybody:

I am with the Renfrew County District School Board and we have a strong interest in VC but we do not have the capability. We even have trouble with Macromedia Breeze due to narrow bandwidth so our ability to communicate through the Internet is limited to e-mail, blogs, web sites etc.

We have seven high schools (5 small ones) in a large geographic area so any meetings take extra release time for teachers to drive and we have enormous mileage expenses. When we do meet it is usually a subject rep from each school and it is rare that all teachers of a subject would get together. We would prefer to see more face to face time between our subject teachers especially in the isolated subjects where there might only be one or two teachers per school. Hopefully, VC might help us.

Dave Bishop
Secondary Initiatives Leader
RCDSB