Category Archives: Video Skype

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More Skype Connections

Today we video-Skyped with Paul Schwan’s fifth graders in Florida. Wes Fryer suggested we touch base with each other to work on some future projects … and today was the day. Dealing with the 3 hour time difference (or any time difference) is always part of the fun.

On a side note, last year when my class started Skyping here and there, we had to learn about time differences … “What do you mean its a different time there? . It became a teachable moment. We pulled up a sunlit earth map (follow the link then click on View Equirectangular Chart) that shows where the earth is light and dark at any given moment. We also shined our projector (the Sun) on our earth globe so they could see how it works that way (my ActivBoard comes in handy sometimes in ways I don’t think they envisioned). The upshot is … now they get it.

Paul and I connected just before his kids were going to recess, and just before my students came in to start the day. When a few of his kids heard me say that, they commented that we started our day kind of late (since they had already eaten lunch) Don’t worry … they’ll get it Paul! (see above for ideas)
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We introduced our classes to each other … discussed where we were and the make-up of our classes … and then just shared the kinds of things we were both working on and answered a few questions. At one point I had my kids raise their hands if they speak a language other than English and all but 3 hands went up. Paul’s kids raised their hands if they had been to a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral and hands went up all over his room. Later this year we are planning to share some of our learning this way with each others’ classes.

This was a new experience for Paul’s class, and you could tell by their reaction. What I think is really neat about the whole thing is that my class has done this enough now that its just something we do. Sometimes we go to the library or go online or go on a field trip or work on our reading or math … and sometimes we talk to other students 2500 miles away for free. Its just what we do.

UPDATE: Paul’s class brainstormed this great Venn diagram of our Skype conversation.
Learning is messy!

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Sorry, But This Is Just Too Exciting!

I blogged a couple of days ago about a using Skype to connect a family that is split by cancer. Mom and 3 year old are 250 miles away in Oakland at Childrens’ Hospital – Dad and siblings are here in Reno. We just successfully made a connection so that now the family can see each other and converse to their hearts content. I know I bring this kind of connection up a lot – its not hard to do and it has so many positive implications for education – just way too cool. They put the headset on the “reluctant to speak” 3 year old and after much prodding I got her to wave and look at Mom and say hi and wave. Can you tell I’m totally psyched!?
Learning is messy!

Update – I’m adding this to this post to show someone new to blogging how a trackback works.

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Have You Used Every Tool In Your Toolbox? Did You Throw Away Those You Haven’t Used Yet?


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Originally uploaded by CieraH

Do you have tools you keep somewhere in your house? If you do, are there some of those tools you have never used? Say a socket for your wrench set that you’ve just never had reason to use?

How about kitchen utensils. Do you have some that maybe you got as a gift that you’ve just never used?

OK, one more question. Can you ever remember suddenly having a use for one of the tools or utensils and being glad you had it? I had a car once that I had for 4 or 5 years and had never used the jack, and obviously the previous owner hadn’t had reason to either because it was still wrapped in the original paper – but when I got a flat out in the middle of nowhere I was sure glad I had that tool (jack). I had no experience using the jack but the directions were there and I figured it out and I made it home safely.

What’s the point? The current Web 2.0 discussions have doubted the usefulness of applications like Flickr and Twitter (but others too). I’m not sure yet how I might ever use Twitter in my classroom … but I’m glad its “in my toolbox” because if I ever see a legitimate educational use for it I have it available to use. If I didn’t have that jack in my car when the flat occurred, or I didn’t even know there was such a thing, I would have been stuck.

Skype is a great example. Wes Fryer invited people about a year ago to join a Skypecast he was moderating about edtech. I had never used Skype, didn’t even have an account (I had used iChat once before). So I got an account, joined Wes’s Skypecast and another later in the summer. So lo and behold the situation with Celest came up and it literally occurred to me that instant that Skyping her into class just might work, just because it was in my toolbox. I hadn’t used Skype with my students before … hadn’t even been on Skype at school, but it became a possibility just because I knew about it and saw a potential use. I’m sure there are similar stories you could tell about using wikis or blogs or whatever. So whether its Twitter or Second Life or the next web 2.0 app that comes out, I just hope I have the time to put them in my toolbox so they are there when I might need them. I mean do you throw out the sockets for your wrench that you have never used?

So those that doubt the usefulness of playing with and learning these applications (Twittering our lives away) I say bunk. Its only a waste of time if it becomes too much of a distraction and negatively impacts your work. As professionals we are supposed to be able to moderate ourselves and make just those kinds of decisions.

Learning is messy.

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The Gift That Keeps On Giving


Boxes!Originally uploaded by mooosh

We are at the end of our extended vacation on the East Coast – Fort McHenry and other Baltimore points of interest tomorrow and home on Friday.

We got into our room tonight and thanks to me bringing along my laptop, and free wifi in our hotel, an email came in from one of the childhood cancer support groups in Reno (The Keaton Raphael Memorial) that have helped Celest so much. Skype has donated 4 web cams and headsets to them so they might use our model to include other children with cancer to attend school using video-conferencing. Like Celest sometimes these children have to travel 250 miles to the San Francisco Bay Area to get special treatments at Oakland’s Children’s Hospital. Here’s a quote from the email:

“We have been thinking that the best way to utilize the equipment right now would be to initially set it up at Children’s Hospital in Oakland (where Celest and the majority of the Northern NV kiddos are treated) as a way for families to keep in touch while one is away at treatment and the other is at home with the other children (if applicable). There is a Reno mother currently in Oakland that is halfway through their 180 day stay. Her husband and three other children are in Reno. They are having a hard time keeping in touch and are perfect to try out the Skype set up.

I am heading down to Oakland Monday July 30 to help get them started. They already have internet accessible computers available for families to use, so I will just be bringing the web cam and headsets from Skype. Eventually we will have laptops available. I plan to head the family’s home in Reno on Friday to deliver the other webcam and help them get set up from home. That way we will be able to test it while I am in Oakland.”

She goes on to ask if I have any tips and could offer support if they run into any issues. I mean is this awesome or what!?

Yeah … this free Web 2.0 stuff … no impact on student learning.

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Pinch Me, I must Be Dreaming!

After finishing up our second and last day of ActivBoard training today I was talking with Mark Skoff, our school district’s Technology Program Coordinator (translation: He gets a teacher’s salary and puts out every edtech fire in a district of 65,000 students). He was explaining about what our plans are for next year. We are rolling out 200+ classrooms that will have ActivBoards, but he went on to mention that we have already purchased video iPods for podcasting and vidcasting classes for teachers next year – more digital photo classes – PDA classes – and the possibility of iPhone classes – they are serious! Realize that when you take any of these classes you get (for free to use with your students) the iPod or camera or PDA OR iPhone!!!

The reason this excites me as much as it does is that not even 2 years ago we blocked almost everything – Flickr, blogs, wikis, Skype are not blocked now and they are even talking about unblocking MySpace and other sites IF teachers take trainings in best practice use with students. Not even 2 years ago the classes offered beside one digital video class per year – a couple digital photo classes and some PDA classes were 3 classes on Word, 3 classes on Powerpoint and 2 classes on Excel … oh and classes on Groupwise (our e-mail client) and EasyGrade Pro, that was it. Attitude toward edtech was ..”just be happy doing Powerpoint presentations and Word docs with your students … and use the net, but not too much.” Those of us doing Marsopolis were hassled some about setting up yahoo email accounts in our classrooms so students could communicate with each other between schools – IT was really uncomfortable with that.

So what happened to change minds? (because pretty much the same people are in charge of Ed tech and IT now as were then). Some higher ups have been to some conferences, some of our edtech people finally “got it” how restrictive and narrow minded some of our policies are, and the few of us that were doing things anyhow raised awareness for how powerful web 2.0 is and could be. Like the title says: Pinch Me, I must Be Dreaming! Oh, and so I guess this is more news that keeps me optimistic about finally making some progress towards trying some new ways and new tools. Yea!!!

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More Media Coverage And Some Really Cool News!

Last Tuesday a reporter from the local paper came to spend 45 minutes to do a story about how we Skyped Celest into class, but now-she-was-able-to-return-and-she-knew-how-things-worked-in-our classroom-because-she-had-been-here-via-Skype. Two hours and 45 minutes later he left. He stayed because he saw students blogging and using our class wiki page and working on more than 20 wiki pages we are making for a local animal park. Today 2 front page stories (Here and Here) came out about what we are doing with technology in our classroom (the reporter explained to me last week that they put the story off until now because it came after a three-day weekend and helped fill the pages on an “off-day”). Actually he did a pretty good job.

I tried to push the web 2.0 story, but that came out as “free software” and didn’t really capture the essence of web 2.0, … but he tried.

The other news story that happened today was that a producer from NBC Nightly News called me to do a story about Celest … but she decided that since our last day is next Wednesday, it was really too late to do a story this school year – she’ll keep us in mind for next fall – Celest has been granted a variance to be in my room next year so that if things don’t go well she can go online with us again.

The way cool news is that representatives from a local cancer support group talked with me last week. They told me that there are over 40 students like Celest in our area and that about 10 of them are at risk students that they would like to support by doing Skype set-ups like we did this year. A computer and web cam at home and one at school. We’ll see where this goes. Hmmm … using web 2.0 to connect students to learning, What a concept!

Learning is messy!

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Come Join Me On WOW2 Tonight!

Women of Web 2.0, Cheryl Oakes, Jennifer Wagner, Sharon Peters, & Vicki Davis have asked me to be a guest tonight on their live webcast. On their web site they describe themselves as:

“…four women who not only love using the tools of the Internet but also love sharing the tools with others.”

I’ll share what my class has done and is doing right now using Web 2.0 tools and more. That’s tonight (Tuesday) 6:00pm Pacific Daylight Time – 9:00pm Eastern.

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We’ve Had To Stop Skyping Celest Into Class

It’s actually good news.

I was finishing getting ready for students this morning when in walked our counselor, Celest and her mom. They had news,  Celest won’t be needing to Skype into class anymore because as of today she is a showing-up and-sitting-in-a-chair-in-class-like-everyone-else member of class. The doctors surprised them last week with the news and they decided to surprise us. So we’ve gone in a matter of weeks from a possibly life threatening infection. To Here’s your seat right here. How cool is that!?

Heres the proof: Pink shirt, just to right of center.
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A picture I really didn’t think we’d take this year!

And below taken in January.
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Learning is messy!

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The Cost of 1:1

workinghard.jpgWe read all the time about how cost is one of the disincentives to technology in schools, and certainly I don’t know if my current experience is anywhere near what does or would usually be the case, but I left this as a comment on Tom Hoffman’s blog and thought it was worth posting here too:

“My 1:1 laptop pilot is going pretty well so far with old Apple iBooks – 7 years old – we use Appleworks because it “came with” and iPhoto and iMovie and web browsers and Flickr and blogs and wikis and all kinds of free math and language and science software – haven’t paid for anything but new batteries – once (AND I’m rolling this class to fifth grade and plan on using them for an eighth year). I don’t know if laptops will usually last this long – they aren’t the latest and greatest and the screen resolution isn’t fantastic – but I haven’t found anything I wanted to do yet that they won’t do (I expected that to happen by the way – “sorry guys we can’t use Fun Brain, the computers are too old” but that hasn’t happened yet. We paid over $1600 per originally so we’re down to almost $200 per year per computer, but the price has dropped close to half and current computers have more power etc.
Maybe it depends on what you want to do with them??? But so far we’ve done everything we wanted to. I do have to use a newer computer when we video Skype, but how often would you need more than one computer doing that in your classroom at the same time? Not that I would necessarily start a 1:1 laptop program in Kindergarten – but 7 years means our current 6th graders (I’m in 4th) could have received these laptops in K and still be using them today as they leave sixth grade.”

So … how far offbase is my experience?

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Good News All Around

Celest was back today after an almost six week absence. She rang our Skype bell just as students were entering at nine and except for recess and lunchtime – and a short break to take a blood draw, she was with us all day. She got a chance to read the 28 comments left for her by her classmates, and many of you, on her blog (she read non-stop for over twenty minutes – she really enjoyed them – thanks). Mainly for her benefit we spent a little time brainstorming topics for future blog posts, she even started one.

Next, we got her started on our animal wiki pages project, a tie-in to the field trip we went on 2 weeks ago – she’s never been there : ( . We also did some multiplication facts practice and explored angles online. All-in-all a good day.

About 10:30 though Celest dropped a bombshell on us when she explained that she has been told that she will be able to attend “regular school” next year!!!! – we’re not sure where yet – maybe here, her area has been moved to another school’s attendance zone … so we’ll see.

There was one scary part of the day though – not long after Celest came on I noted a mark on her cheek about the size of a half-dollar. It was brownish-red and seemed like a sore. My vice-principal came through not much later and noticed it right away … we gave each other sad looks … and she left. All was well though … when Celest turned her head a few minutes later the “sore” turned out to be a press-on decal of a cat with a red bow. Whew! She let me take a picture of it –

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