Welcome to Distancelearningville!

This has been an exciting summer for me. Since June I have been Blogged and Conferenced and Bridged which is not that unusual. But I have also been Moodled and Doodled and Flickrd and Skyped and Googled. I have even Googled myself from time to time. I know that’s a shocking admission for a man my age but not near as shocking as the images running through your brain right now. It fascinates me how in today’s Web 2.0 world verbs become nouns and nouns verbs.

You must understand that I go back a long way in the Instructional Technology business. Back when I started nobody talked about being transparencied even if ones motives were clear for all to see. We didn’t admit to being filmstriped (sound or otherwise) and we certainly didn’t brag about being 16 millimetered!

Since I’m not a total technology rube I have had experiences with some of the areas listed above. Everyone knows that Google is a powerful search engine where you can find information on just about everything. Did you know that if you search on Belly Button Lint you will find 219,000 results? You can see how I spend some of my time.

Skype is new to me this summer. I had heard about it before but never bothered to download it to my computer. Skype allows one to do neat things like instant messaging folks who may be on-line and willing to do a chat with you. You get to type messages to them and they type responses to you. This instead of calling them on the phone and….

talk.

Doodle is a neat little site when you have to bring together a large group of folks for a meeting. The meeting organizer puts up potential meeting dates and then e-mails the link to all potential attendees. They then go to the site and click on the dates they can meet. And of course, if the organizer puts up three potential meeting dates the group will divide themselves in thirds each choosing a different date.

Perhaps my favorite of these is Flickr. Flickr allows one to download photos to be shared with the world. It is a favorite site of In-Service facilitators who delight in taking photos of workshop participants doing the silly things that the facilitator planned as part of the workshop. Then they post those on Flickr and tell everyone they know that they are there.  As a workshop participant you then get to explain to your friends and colleagues why you didn’t use a napkin when you were eating that spaghetti or how, even in a still picture, it looks like you have two left feet when doing the hokey pokey.

Actually, I’m just poking fun at all of these. They can be powerful tools to help us and our students learn, to keep us organized and to share or knowledge with each other. And I’m glad that I have experienced them all. Now if I could just get them to take those pictures off of Flickr…

Last week we finished our schedule of distance learning events for the school year here in Distancelearningville. I am pleased to report that we set a new record for participants again during the 06-07 school year.

We monitor only those connections in which we were directly involved. Many of our schools have videoconferencing equipment on site and are able to connect to other schools and virtual provider sites without our involvement. So, many popular programs like Read Around the Planet are not reflected in our participant counts.

What were the numbers? Last year 24,931 participants were connected to various distance learning events. Of these 7,280 students enjoyed our popular ASK programs while 7,267 students connected with Professor Gadgeteer at COSI Columbus through our Fieldtrip Friday programs. Our LAPS programs had 2,195 participants. All of these are record levels for us!

While it is personally gratifying to see our programming continues to grow in popularity it is even more pleasing to see teachers grow with this technology. It takes some courage to do the first video conference not quite knowing what to expect. Our teachers continue to embrace our programs and our growth is more of a tribute to them than to anything that I or my colleagues have done.

My pal Jim Wenzloff showed me a fun site. It is attender.com. The idea is to put in a profile and link to people you know or people you would like to meet. So, I thought we in the distance learning community could have some fun with this. To start, simply go to www.attendr.com/distancelearningville. Put in your profile. Then create a link to me, red if you have connected to me and blue if you would like to connect to me. Then, look around the map and see who else has signed in and do the same thing with them. This can be a virtual six degrees of separation!

I'll look forward to seeing this grow.

Yesterday we completed our ASK schedule as we have done for several years with the book The Wall. Our specialist for this program is Gordy Borland a retired colleague of ours who served in Vietnam in 1969. Gordy now lives in Petoskey Michigan which is well north of here and we connect him through the C.O.P. I.S.D. in Indian River to our students here in Macomb.

Many of our students asked Gordy to compare the Vietnam War to the war in Iraq. I found these questions interesting on a personal note. The Vietnam War was fought by soldiers of my generation. It, along with the turmoil as the Civil Rights movement came to a head, dominated the news and political thought and rhetoric for a decade beginning in the early sixties as the war in Iraq is today.

As always, Gordy gave very thoughtful answers to the questions posed. But it was the questions that most impressed me. They demonstrated that these students were thinking deeply about what happened in Vietnam back then and what is happening today in Iraq. And as long as we have young students willing to think deeply about the issues that face us, we will do all right as a society, no matter what conclusions they come to as they sort through the questions of our time.

Over the last few weeks we have faciliated a collabortive program called MysteryQuest Regions. This is a thrid grade program on the regions of the United States. We connect four classes to the program. Each class was responsible to present clues on their region and a city within their region to the other three classes connected to the event. It is one of many collaborative programs our schools participate in throughout the school year.

I am always pleasantly surprised at the type and variety of presentations we see during these programs. While we issue some general guidelines to teachers when they sign up to participate, the teachers are really free to develop the presentation in any way they would like.

This year during the MysteryQuest Regions programs we saw a wide variety of presentation styles. Some classes presented their clues using elaborate Power Point programs. Others had their students draw posters and other art work pieces that contained their clue information. One school did a newscast format and another did a "man on the street" interview. One even showed a quick time movie to illustrate one of their clues.

Was it quality television? Not hardly. But that is not the point. The point is the teachers decided the best way for their class to present the information and then went about the business of putting the presentatin together. I'm sure they chose a presentation style that they were personally comfortable with and that they knew their students could handle. The result? Quality presentations that enhanced the learning of all of the students connected to the program.

So, to all of the teachers out there who have stayed away from collaborative programs because they were concerned about these types of presentations, here's some advise. Chose a presentation style that you are comforatable with and go with it. There are no wrong answers here in Distancelearningville! I urge all of you to get involved in a collabortative program. You'll be glad you did.

Song Parody sung to the tune of Margaritaville

With apologies to Jimmy Buffet.

Making connects today in Distancelearningville

Looking for my lost codec remote

Some days I claim this job will drive me insane

But I know

The Boss loves what I do.

Don’t know the reason

The picture is freezin

Grab the remote and check packet loss.

Got to resolve it!

I Need to solve it!

This video conference is for the boss!

Making connects today in Distancelearningville

Looking for my lost codec remote

Some days I claim this job will drive me insane

But I know

The Boss loves what I do.

(at least he used too)

Still no solution…

For this resolution…

Need all my skills to earn today’s loot.

Reconnects fail…

Expletives sail…

Nothing to do but have him reboot!

Making connects today in Distancelearningville.

Looking for my lost codec remote.

Some days I claim this job will drive me insane…

But I know…

The Boss loves what I do.

Finally fixed it…

No need to nix it…

The boss came back in all filled with praise.

Kind words don’t matter..

Hold all the chatter

Find a way to give me a raise!

Making connects today in Distancelearningville.

Looking for my lost codec remote.

Some days I claim this job will drive me insane…

But I know…

I just love what I do.

The music video for this song will be out shortly. Or never.

A few days ago some colleagues and I were reminiscing about what video conferencing was like when we first began connecting students to programs. It was a completely different world. Back then we had video conferencing was done almost exclusively using ISDN phone lines (H.320). Essentially to connect to another codec somewhere else in the world (whether it was a mile down the street or to Tokyo) you would key in a phone number and connect on six lines to the desired destination. If all went well you would connect at 384 Kbps and see and hear from the folks on the far end. We watched with eager anticipation as each line connected. And like magic someone popped up on our television screen and the conference could begin. That is when everything worked the way it was supposed to work. Sometimes you would have to dial out several times to make a connection. Sometimes you would have to downspeed your codec because one of the lines connected through a 56 Kbps circuit in the Bell system instead of the 64 Kbps it needed to pass video. And sometimes good old AT&T would just arbitrarily drop the long distance service placed on the ISDN lines. It was new and exciting and somewhat expensive. Schools would have to install ISDN lines and pay a monthly fee plus long distance usage fees (for 6 lines) plus any fee charged by a Virtual Fieldtrip providing site. This is why we started developing programming like ASK, the Michigan Collaborative, etc. Still, it was enough as many schools installed the lines at one site and bused their students to the connected site (usually the high school in the district) to participate in a distance learning event.

Then along came video over IP (H.323). It promised all of the connection potentials of ISDN without the cost of the lines. Using the district’s LAN in the building and out through whatever WAN they were using to connect to the Internet one could connect to another IP capable codec anywhere in the world for free! Well, at least without suffering additional line charges and connection charges. Early on it was a connection nightmare! The connections would go up, maybe stay up for a while and then drop. Or you would suffer missing picture tiles or freeze frames. Or choppy audio. Or sometimes all of those things at once. I remember when we first started with H.323 video conferencing. We were trying to connect three of our schools to us using our bridge. Each school seemed to drop one after another with no set pattern on how long their connection would stay up or why they dropped. And when they were connected it was freeze frame city! I remember thinking what have I gotten us into! It was, after all, my recommendation that we convert to H.323. I thought my stay as a leader in Distancelearningville would be a short one.

Fortunately most of those problems have gone away. We routinely connect to sites all over the state and country on H.323 with almost no packet loss or problems. As do my colleagues from around the country. What changed? For one thing capacities on the Internet have increased enormously. Capacity at the schools has increased as well. And the codecs we use are better and better.

High definition video conferencing is now offered by the major codec manufacturers. This will demand more in capacity. These units are outstanding. They are also expensive. But it is only a matter of time before we will all be using them.

And we will look back at these days and marvel at how far we have come.

Thursday last was a difficult day here in Distancelearningville. The day began with us connecting a school over to my friend Janine Lim in Berrien county so that they could participate in the excellent MysteryQuest USA program she offers. For some reason this school could not connect directly to her bridge but could connect to mine and so we set up a reservation to connect out to Berrien at 8:25 a.m. with the school to dial into my bridge after 8:30. At the appointed time the bridge connected nicely to Berrien and so I went off to a meeting I was to lead confident that everything would go well on this connection.

It didn’t.

When I returned to my office and looked up at my monitor I noted that we were visiting freeze frame city and my phone was ringing. It was Janine wondering what was going on. I disconnected from her and the freeze frames went away. Then I reconnected to her bridge and made a perfect audio only connection. Since video is almost always important in a video conference this would not do. We quickly disconnected. Then I had the school dial into a multi-site codec in my office and connected that over to Berrien. The video was a bit choppy but useable. It was high pressure stuff as the MysteryQuest had already begun but at least we got these students connected.

Then it got worse.

At 9:15 a.m. while I was still working to resolve the MysteryQuest connection problem my bridge fired off a reservation for the first of two sessions of our LAPS program. LAPS is a program funded by the Michigan DNR and focuses on earth science and ecology as it relates to various state parks in Michigan. We offer this program monthly featuring a different state park each month. The sessions are led by an instructor who organized the materials and sent each of the four teachers connected to this session their materials to prepare their students for the program. So, once the connection is made and we test audio from each site I turn the program over to Mrs. LAPS Instructor and she runs the show with a 9:30 a.m. start. At least that is the way it is supposed to work. At about 9:25 I received a phone call from my technician who was in our Distance Learning Classroom which is the origination site for the LAPS program. He wondered if I had heard anything from Mrs. LAPS Instructor as she was not on site. I hadn’t and this was highly unusual for Mrs. LAPS Instructor. I quickly looked up her cell phone number and called. Of course I got her voice mail. I left what I’m sure sounded like a panic attack driven message and new I would at least have to get the program started. I was at a distinct disadvantage in that I did not have a copy of the materials sent to our connected teachers. To quote “The Boss” I would be “Dancing in the Dark”.

What to do? I remembered that during these programs we always showed a video program on the state park. Normally this video is run somewhere in the middle of the hour but I was already desperate and hoping to buy some time so that Mrs. LAPS Instructor could hopefully arrive on site. So I had my technician roll the tape and immediately made a more desperate call to Mrs. LAPS Instructor’s cell phone. This time I left a page. The tape ended and I had on my dancing shoes.

As part of LAPS each connected class develops a part of the lesson to present to the others. So, out on the dance floor I went and called on the first school to give their presentation. Then the teacher reminded me that we were supposed to do school introductions first. Recovering nicely I thought after waltzing around I asked each class to introduce themselves. At the end of that we still had no word from Mrs. LAPS Instructor so I shifted to the tango and asked the first class to make their presentation. While they were in the midst of this my phone rang. It was Mrs. LAPS Instructor. Seems she had miss read her calendar and thought the program was scheduled for the following week. I was relived knowing she was ok but nervous over what would happen next. I asked if she could be here for session 2. There was a really long pause and then she said she would.

I then did my best cha cha knowing that I wouldn’t have to dance during the second session. The next class made their presentation. The teachers connected realized that I had just about come to the end of my dancing skills and jumped in to help me out. They started pointing out to the connected students what they should be filling out on the worksheets they received and which was very helpful in that I had no idea the students were supposed to add information on worksheets. So, mercifully, before I had to do the chicken dance and the hokey pokey to session finally came to an end.

Then it got worse.

The connections for session 2 went up nicely. We had three schools participating. Mrs. LAPS Instructor was still not on site but she was close as she called me with an ETA. So, confidently I began with the school introductions and then went to the state park tape. And when the tape was done there was Mrs. LAPS Instructor. Phew! I had made it. Now all I had to do was sit back and watch Mrs. LAPS Instructor perform her magic with the students. She got through all of the student presentations and added the quality instruction she does so well filling in the blanks. At the end of the program is a drawing lesson that is on tape by the artist who illustrated the LAPS materials. The students really enjoy this section of the program. While this tape was running it happened. Bang! The power went out. Then it came back on. Then went out again. And so on.

My bridge is on the back up power supply for our building. But not my office or my Distance Learning Classroom. Past experience tells me that the schools were still connected to the conference but we weren’t. I finally remembered that I had the cell phone number of the technician of one of the schools connected in my PDA. I fumbled around, found a flashlight, found her number and called her. I explained the situation and asked if she would explain it to the other schools connected.

It just goes to show that sometimes there isn’t such a thing as an easy day in Distancelearningville.

So, if you will excuse me I am very late for my dance lesson. This week we learn the Macarena!

Today marked the start of our MysteryQuest Regions of the United States program. This is a program that we modified from Janine Lim's MysteryQuest USA and MysteryQuest World programs which she modified from the Where in the USA program (see how Distance Learning Coordinators steal from one another all the time?).

We ran two sessions today with more to come. In the morning we had a class from Yacks Elementary in L'Anse Creuse, Tenniswood Elementary in L'Anse Creuse and North Elementary in Watervliet. It was the first video conference this class from North had ever participated in. The afternoon session found us connected to Ebeling Elementary in Utica, South River Elementary in L'Anse Creuse, Springview Elementary in Allendale and North Elementary in Watervliet.

The student presentations were very well done indeed. I am always impressed with how well students do in presenting using video conferencing. It speaks both to how they are not intimidated by the technology as well as the hard work the teacher's do with them to get them prepared for the program.

For the most part each class was able to determine the region and city presented by each of their connected peers. But, that is not the point. This activity promotes research, presentation, and teamwork skills. The fact that they arrived at the correct answers is just frosting on the cake!

Take a bow students and teachers. You earned it!

Last week I attended the MACUL conference the premier technology conference for K-12 teachers in the State of Michigan. Many of my colleagues have blogged about this conference so I won't rehash it here other than to say it was excellent.

At the conference I had the opportunity to participate in four awards. The first I want to tell you about is the MACUL President's Award. This year MACUL chose to give this award to TWICE. It is given "In recognition of contributions to the advancement of the use of technology in education." As the current President of TWICE I had the priveledge of representing our organization and accepting the award. MACUL has always been supportive of TWICE and in fact we wouldn't be where we are as an organization without their nurturing us along. On behalf of the TWICE organization I would like to thank MACUL for this award.

Each year at the TWICE annual meeting we give out two awards. And as President I have the honor to make these presentations. The first of these is the Board of Directors award given to an organization "for outstanding contributions to the distance learning community in the state of Micigan and across the United States". This year's award went to COSI Columbus. Those of you who have participated in their fine programs will know why. Those who haven't, should.

TWICE also honors and individual "for outstanding contributions to the distance learning community in the state of Micigan and across the United States" with the President's Award. This year, for the first time, the award went to a local school district representative, Ren Baldwin from St. Joseph schools in Michigan. As I said in my comments I first met Ren virtually as he had one of his schools participate in one of the programs we offer from Macomb. He was there taking the responsibility to make the technology work (no small task back then) so that the teacher could concentrate on what her class needed to do for the program. Ren has been a champion of distance learnig ins St. Joseph and is always willing to share his experiences and expertise with his colleagues. Well earned and well deserved, Mr. Baldwin.

Each year MACUL awards the "Making it Happen" award to an educator who has made outstanding, creative contributions in the use of technology in education. This year, my good friend Jim Wenzloff received the award. I had the honor of representing his colleagues here at Macomb ISD in the presentation of the award. Jim has won several awards in his distinguished career (notice I didn't say long and distingushed,,,oops I guess I just did!) all of them well deserved. I consider myself lucky to work with an individual who has more creative ideas in a day than I do in a month. Jim has always put students first in everything he does and this award is a reflection of those efforts. I am proud to call Jim my colleague and my friend.

Ah the joys of blogging. There is nothing I enjoy more than recording my thoughts on an electronic sheet of paper for the whole world to see.

No wait, I haven't blogged in months. And the three people who have visited my blog have mentioned it to me. Well, actually that is not accurate. One person has mentioned it and only after I brought it up. But, humor me would ya? I mean, I have all the good excuses in the world for not blogging on a regular basis.

Excuse 1: I can't blog today, I'm too busy!

Yeah right. I am busy. But nobody I know is busier than my friend Janine Lim and she manages to blog at least every 20 minutes of every waking day. From wherever she is in the world.

Excuse 2: I don't have anything interesting to say!

Have you read some of the blogs out there? Nuff said.

Excuse 3: The Dog ate my laptop!

Not a bad excuse, but I don't own a dog or a laptop.

So, for the three people out there who read my blog, I promise to write an article at least once a week. And this one doesn't count. Look for more tomorrow.

Last night we hosted another Virtual Providers Showcase. This is a program we offer to teachers to view virtual fieldtrips offered by content providers around the United States (we have even visited the Great Barrier Reef in the past). We have been offering the Virtual Providers Showcase for six years now in Macomb county and it is a pretty popular in-service event. This Showcase focused on programs in Language Arts and Social Studies. We share this event with Janine Lim and our colleagues at Berrien County ISD.

For this program we connected to three virtual provider sites that were new to both Janine and I. We decided to take the risk as we like to expose our teachers to new programs. Still, you never know what you might get. While the overwhelming majority of providers we have connected to in past events have been anywhere from acceptable to excellent we have booked a few clinkers.

We began our virtual journey in Long Island New York with a connection to the Holocaust Memorial. A Holocaust survivor shared an abbreviated version of his experience. These are powerful programs which give students the opportunity to ask questions of someone who survived the horrors of the Holocaust. While not visually rich, the testimony is captivating. And since this is an eastern time zone site, it allows for Michigan teachers to more easily connect for multiple sessions during our school day.

We then journeyed virtually southwest to our second stop at the Discovery Center in Springfield MO. The Discovery Center offers a variety of Science programs for K-12 but they also offer Language Arts components within these. They also offer several Social Studies programs that examine different cultures. They send out kits of materials to use in all of their programs and have many pre and post activities.

We then completed our virtual journey with a visit to the Columbia Gorge in The Dalles OR. The first question I asked is where is The Dalles. Turns out it is at the end of the Oregon Trail. They offer many programs focusing on Lewis and Clark and are developing other programming as well. Their programs are visually rich and the presenter has a very engaging personality.

And speaking of engaging personalities, interspersed with these connections Janine Lim presented on the TWICE Read Across the Planet program and MysteryQuest. These fine programs are staples in our collabortive offerings and we encourage teachers to participate.

This was a very good evening. We had 45 teachers in Macomb county and Janine had 20 at her ISD. We will be offering another Virtual Providers Showcase on February 8, 2007 focusing on Science and Math.

Stay tuned for further details.

Last week I received a call from a "Fabulous Media Specialist" in one of our local buildings. This person has done a terrific job of integrating distance learning programming into her building as well as being an advocate for it within her school district.

"Are you ready for a tremendous distance learning story?" she asked. "Sure am" I replied. "I'm always ready for one of those". Her school had participated in two of our program offerings earlier in the week. The first was MysteryQuest Regions a program for third grade students on the regions of the United States modeled after my good friend Janine Lim's highly successful MysteryQuest USA. The second was and ASK program on the book "The Breadwinner". The "Fabulous Media Specialist" went on to tell me that one of the students who participated in both of those programs is a selective mute who does not speak in class at all and hasn't all year.

Within the MysteryQuest Regions there is an opportunity for students to ask clue questions on clues they may have missed during a presentation from another school. Guess who went up to the microphone and asked a question? And, of course, the ASK program is all about students asking questions of the author of  the book or a specialist who has first hand knowledge of the subject of the book. Guess who prepared questions and then went to the microphone to ask it?

Now I'd like to tell you that the questions she asked were so outstanding that they just knocked my socks off. But they weren't. And that is the point. The questions were similar to what her classmates were asking and to what her connected peers from other schools were asking.

So, for this student at least, there is something about the video conferencing environment that makes her want to come out of her self imposed shell. And I think that is so neat.

Sometimes, you never know.

This morning I along with 9 classes of fourth grade students did LAPs around Michigan (and as the old joke goes boy are our legs tired!).

LAPs is an acronym for:

Learn from the past.

Appreciate the Present.

Preserve our outdoor heritage.

It is a program, developed by EDCO publishing, and is available to all fourth grade classrooms throughout the state of Michigan. It is funded through a grant by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Each month we do a program featuring a different state park. And we offer this program to schools from around the state. Today we had classes from Macomb county connected to classes in Berrien county and Lenawee county. Today's program featured Hoffmaster State Park.

EDCO provides materials to each class that is signed up for the program. Each class is responsible for preparing a portion of the lesson and then presenting that to the other schools connected to the program. We do this in a two session day connecting up to five classes at a time. The sessions are one hour in length.

Today the students presented information to their connected peers on sand dunes, Maram grass, the Great Lakes, practical uses of sand, Genivieve Gillette and the Hognose snake. They also participated in a drawing lesson on the Hognose snake.

The nice thing about collaborative projects of this kind is that the learning takes place long before the connections are made.Presentation skills are demonstrated during the connection. The students really enjoy connecting with each other and they enjoy presenting their hard work to students around the state.

This is the fifth year we have offered this program and the teachers get better and better at preparing their students for these programs. It doesn't get much better than what happened today.

I would bet that if you asked any major league baseball player where the node of standing wave is on his baseball bat he would say "Huh?"

But some 52 middle school students from Trinity Lutheran school in Utica could tell him. That is because yesterday they participated in the "Science on the Sandlot" program offered by the Baseball Hall of Fame.

For those of you who don't know (and I admit I didn't) the node of standing wave is that area of a baseball bat where a player will experience the least vibration when striking a ball, and therefore be able to place maximum force on the ball. In other words what players commonly refer to as "the sweet spot". During this program the presenter had the students use a ball and tap it on both a wood and aluminum bat to find the sweet spot and to see if there were differences between the two.

The students were then challenged to find the center of mass of the bat and were asked if the center of mass and the node of standing wave were in the same area of the bat. Then they were asked how the center of mass would dictate bat control and where a batter should place their hands on the bat if they wanted to bunt, hit and run and swing away.

These were a few of the hands on activities the Trinity students experienced as part of this program.

At the risk of full disclosure you should know that I am a huge baseball fan. I also love the Baseball Hall of Fame having visited there often in the past (I even buried my business card in one of the exihibits just to tell people I'm in the Hall of Fame!). And they are now doing these programs from the museum floor instead of off the library which is also a plus.

What I liked most of all is that the teacher thought outside of the box when choosing a science based program. She could have easily searched the various science centers to find a quality program. But this is baseball season and she knew her students would be motivated to learn some science by this visit. I encourage my teachers all the time to think outside the box when looking for programs to do with their students.

This teacher was glad she did. Play Ball!

It was a quite afternoon and I was sitting in my office contemplating the heavier issues of life (like why God chose to create mosquitoes) when one of my codecs began to ring. When the connection was established I saw it was my colleague Frank Miracola with a classroom of students. I opened my microphone.

“Hi Mr. Miracola what’s up?” I inquired.

“We have been connected to COSI and we are getting nothing but choppy audio and freeze frame video.’ He answered. “COSI suggested that maybe if you bridged us in it would be a better connection.”

“OK” I responded. “Disconnect and I’ll be back with you shortly.”

I quickly set up a reservation on my bridge connecting COSI Columbus, my office codec, and our classroom. A stable connection was made and the students were able to complete the program.

So what was that all about? How could I, using my bridge, provide a good connection when the point to point connection failed? What magic was I able to perform?

Actually it wasn’t magic at all. I noted when Frank dialed into me that we connected at 768kbps which is the default speed for the codec he was using. I established the bridge call at 384kbps and the connection worked well. Why? At 768kbps they were asking too much of the public Internet infrastructure between the school in Warren Michigan and COSI Columbus. When we cut that demand in half the problems went away.

In Macomb County we are blessed with a ton of capacity. We have a fiber optic network that connects our building to all of the school districts we serve as well as fiber to all of our center program schools run by the MISD. So capacity is not an issue when we are connecting schools within our county. We routinely connect at 768kbps for programs that involve schools within our infrastructure. And most of the newer codecs on the market today are capable of connecting at very high speeds. Some capable of connection speeds as high as 3 megabits. Normally, you should use the highest speed your infrastructure will allow. On a closed network, where bandwidth isn’t a problem, go for it. But, when you are connecting to a distant site across the public Internet this may cause problems.

You might be thinking that you have connected your school to virtual provider sites at 768kbps and had no problem. So have I. I have also experienced connecting to a virtual provider site on one day at 768kbps and then getting a lousy connection to them the next day at the same speed. The point is, you are not in control of the infrastructure beyond your wide area network. And there are lots of things that go bump in the night that can affect the quality of your connection on the public Internet.

You might ask, couldn’t they have selected 384kbps to connect from that school? The answer is yes. But they didn’t know that and we had to intervene quickly to get the fieldtrip in. I will teach them how to downspeed and all will be well.

The moral of the story is: Sometimes less is more.

The teacher didn't like the program at all.

And he shouldn't have.

It was one of the worst virtual fieldtrips I had seen. There was little interaction between presenter and students. The presenter was ill prepared. He seemed to be reading from a course outline as he went along and really did not offer much to the students that they couldn't have gotten from other simpler resources. There were no pre or post materials for the teacher to use with his students. In short this was a poor example of a virtual fieldtrip.

It was surprising.

I had connected to this site several times over the years and always found their programming to be worthwhile. We used this site extensively for a series of programs we ran with middle school math/science students. We were always pleased with what we received from them.

It has been a few years since we connected with them. I do not know if this was an abberation with a poorly prepared presenter, or if this site's programming has fallen to this level. And the only way I'll know is if teachers take the time to file an evaluatin on the virtual fieldtrips they use.

Filing an evaluatin only takes a few minutes and it helps other teachers determine if a virtual fieldtrip they may be considering for their class will be the right choice. TWICE averages these evaluations and then provides a recommended label for those programs that earn a 4 or better in all categories. But we can only do this if you will take the time to file and evaluation.

You can file an evaluation off of the TWICE website www.twice.cc or at http://www2.macomb.k12.mi.us:591/dleval/ and click on Add an Evaluation.

If others had filed evaluations on this site maybe this teacher would have chosen another program.

Because he took the time, chances are you will too.

It was an interesting request.

A few months ago Gail Wheatley, Director of Electronic Education at COSI Columbus sent me an e-mail asking if I could provide a quote for her to use for a grant proposal she was writing on their new Autopsy program.

Hmmm...

It was true that I had seen this program a few times and found it to be an excellent program for high school students. It was also true that I have developed a close relationship with the folks at COSI so I decided to have some fun with them. Here is what I offered.

How about “I laughed, I cried, I hurled!" No that probably won’t meet your needs. OK try this "At least with the Autopsy program (unlike Open Heart Surgery) it doesn't get cancelled at the last minute!" No, you probably won't use that either. Here’s one “What next from those scarlet and gray wearing heathens in Columbus, an attack on the scientific principals of Intelligent Design?” No, none of those will do. So, try this...

“The Autopsy program is one of the best virtual fieldtrips I have ever seen. It is motivating, and stimulating for our students. The pre and post materials are well done with excellent educational activities that support our curriculum. I recommend this program highly to all of our teachers.”

I have no idea if she used this quote but I do know that it is an excellent program. Others apparently agree with me as the remainder of these programs on the schedule for this school year are sold out.

Put it in your plans for next year. You’ll be glad you did.

It took some doing. But we got it done. And it was more than worth the effort. Last Friday we participated in our second Freedom Call. This one had an interesting twist.

Staff Sergeant Lisa Hamm is responsible for setting up Freedom Calls in the area in Iraq where she is stationed. She decided to re-enlist for another six years. She wanted her family to be able to see the ceremony and to be able to spend some time with them. She contacted me because her sister lives in Warren Michigan and her brother lives in Clarkston, two communities not far from us. She wanted to have her mother be a part of this as well. Her mother lives in Texas close to Fort Hood. I volunteered to use our bridge to connect her siblings from our site here and her mother from Texas to her in Iraq.

On Thursday I received an e-mail from Lisa asking if I knew of a site near Grayling Michigan. Seems she has another brother who lives in that area who would not be able to make it here in time for the ceremony. I responded that I would search to see if I could find a site in that region of the state. I also told her that there is a National Guard site at Grayling. I did find a site but so did Lisa. In her resourcefulness she contacted the National Guard distance learning coordinator for the state of Michigan. Turns out they have a distance learning classroom on the base at Grayling and were more than willing to connect up to our bridge for this ceremony. We tested Thursday afternoon and all worked well.

At the appointed hour on Friday the call was established. Lisa’s commanding officer spoke to her family telling them how proud he was of Lisa’s efforts to connect soldiers to family members across the United States. Then the ceremony began. I watched as each family member in each site looked on with such pride in their sister. Once the ceremony was over the family reunion began.

They acted just like most families would act who had been apart for a while. The joked and teased and reminisced. They acted silly and serious and you could feel the love and pride they had in one another. It was an hour that was special to all of them. It brought a little bit of home to a Staff Sergeant far away and to a family spread out across our country as well.

 No matter what your feelings may be on the war we must remember that it affects families. The men and women serving in Iraq are somebody’s brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, husbands and wives. And if we can use the technology we have in our schools to bring a little bit of home to them we should do that in a New York minute! If you are approached to do so I would urge you to get involved with Freedom Calls. It is well worth your time and effort.

The program was going along very well. The three classes were connected to Professor Gadgeteer and it was progressing nicely. I had two classes from one school district and one class from another connected to the program.  Then it happened. I heard the dreaded chirp of my MCU indicating that we lost connection to one of the classrooms.

I quickly looked at my manager’s screen. The news was even worse. Two of the classes had dropped connection. Odd, I thought, both classes were from the same school district, although not the same building. I took a moment to see what the disconnection cause was. “Devise no longer reporting “the software reported.

Hmmm.

Strange.

These were active classrooms just a few moments before. So I quickly connected both classrooms and the program continued.

The next hour the same two schools were connected with a third school to Professor Gadgeteer. Things were again going along nicely when both schools dropped again. And again the software reported that their codecs had stopped reporting. But this time I noted that the disconnection happened about an hour after the connection was made to the schools.

After the lunch break I had the same two schools connected again. This time I started a timer and sure enough one hour into the connection both sites dropped.

So, we have a gremlin somewhere in the school district’s networking infrastructure. And it is a change within that district as we have never had this problem before. We haven’t solved this problem but I will be that someone made some change in some software that is causing these devises to time out after an hour. It is the biggest problem I face with H.323 video conferencing. The codecs sit behind firewalls and as techs make changes they don’t happen to think (or don’t know) how these changes might affect codecs connected to the network. It is especially true of vendors who may be contracted to maintain the network. They may not even know that video conferencing is being done in the district.

We will find this gremlin and when we do we will eliminate it. At least for now.  That is until some other gremlin gets into the system.

To quote my good friend Janine Lim, “Argh!”.

Listen easy.

You can hear it.

It has a definite beat.

A pulse all its own.

Close your eyes and listen for a minute.

It is the ebb and flow of the give and take between presenter and student.

It is the instructor presenting the challenge and the student rising to it.

It is the praise and encouragement of teacher to student.

It is the sound of learning.

Now open your eyes.

See the look of wonder on the students’ faces as they grasp the concept.

See the look of satisfaction on their faces as they know they understand.

It always leaves me in awe.

Tuesday last was another of our Fieldtrip Friday days (and oh by the way I have heard all of the jokes!). This is a multipoint program connecting up to three classes of students to COSI Columbus for their excellent Gadget Works program. Some of the teachers that participated in the four sessions had done this program in the past and had also participated in other distance learning programs. Others had not and were taking their maiden voyage. All had taken the time to prepare their students well for this program and it was a joy to see! Well done teachers, well done!

So give a listen and a look see. It is why we do what we do.

And it is so rewarding.

When they first saw each other they giggled. And one of them cried. It topped off a very good three days for me.

I was at the MACUL conference where I was able to rejuvenate and get some fresh ideas to try and launch here in Macomb County. It is always a special time for me to be with leaders in the videoconferencing field to hear what they are doing and to share ideas. All of the connections out of the TWICE room worked well. My session with the Cleveland Institute of Music worked. They are such a fine provider and I hope people take advantage of their high quality programs across the curriculum. MACUL was a huge success. Kudos to TWICE colleague Diane Zoellmer who was co-chair of the MACUL conference committee on a job well done!

When the conference was over I had to hurry back to Macomb. We were participating in a Freedom Call at 6:00 p.m. Freedom Calls is an organization that connects soldiers serving in Iraq to family members here in the U.S.A. using video conferencing. I connected a young expectant mother to her husband serving in Iraq. And when they first saw each other they giggled. They weren’t quite sure how to relate to one another virtually. So they giggled for what seemed like the longest time. The wife brought the soldiers 18 month old son, his younger brother and her sister and brother-in-law. The soldier’s brother, a young pre-teenager, broke down and cried. Finally the soldier looked at his brother and said “Hey, I love ya man. I’m all right and I’ll be home soon enough”. After that the conversation started to flow. I could tell that my presence in the room was hindering the conversation, so I excused myself and came up to my office to catch up on some e-mails. When I returned toward the end of the hour it was almost like they were in the same room, laughing and recalling and relating to one another. The conference ended with each of them telling of their love for each other and how much they missed each other. And when it was over the young wife couldn’t thank me enough for connecting her to her husband so very far away. Since his deployment to Iraq she has received several e-mails from him. She has even talked to him on the phone a few times. But this experience, being able to see him and talk to him made it seem more real to her. It was, in her words, “almost as good as having him here”. That should be all we need to know about the power of video conferencing.

As video conferencing has made its way from the regional level to the school district level and now more frequently to the building level it is interesting to see the amount of use this equipment gets building to building. Some building staffs embrace it immediately. Others ignore it completely. It begs the question, why? Have the staffs that have embraced it studied the realm of distance learning opportunities for their students and decided they were a valuable tool to help them teach what they need to teach? Have the schools that ignore it done the same study with a different outcome? Chances are neither happened.

One doesn’t have to look long and hard to find the reason distance learning programs flourish in some areas and flounder in others. It has been my experience that everywhere distance learning in flourishing there is a champion behind it. Champions are people who see the value of something and become disciples for the cause. We see it all the time in our schools on the technology level as more and more use of various technologies become part of the way teachers teach the curriculum. Champions see the value of the technology and evangelize for it as a better way of teaching what we teach. They are hand holders who take the responsibility of the technology on themselves so that the teachers can concentrate on preparing their students for the upcoming distance learning event.

Fortunately I know a lot of distance learning champions! Here in Michigan it is people like my good friend Janine Lim who is always a wonderful, helpful resource in finding programs, sharing programs she has developed and solving problems. People like Sue Porter who was more than willing to share her wisdom and expertise when we started down the distance learning path in Macomb and is always there when we need her. People like Debbie Glasgow from Midland, Mike Richardson from Copper Country, Aaron Schippert from Saginaw and Terry Harrington from St. Clair, all of whom beat the distance learning drum constantly to their constituents.

Closer to home it is people like Craig McBain in Chippewa Valley and Margaret Jelsma in Utica. It’s Angela George in Fraser and Mike Antoine and staff in Roseville. Here at the MISD it is Jim Wenzloff with the ASK program and Susan Hardin and Frank Miracola with Begin With Me and countless others who handhold everyday to make distance learning a success regionally, district wide and building wide.

I know I know, you would like to be a champion for you school in using your new video conferencing equipment with your teaching staff. But, it is one more thing added on to the million and one other things you have to do. In other words you’re too busy. I understand as I’ve used that excuse myself from time to time (read almost daily!) as the burdens of other job responsibilities weigh me down. But ask yourself this question, if not you, then who? And if you are not going to take full advantage of what various distance learning programs can offer to your students then why have video conferencing equipment? I challenge you to be a champion! Work with your teachers to get them involved in the wealth of programming available around the country. Your students will benefit! And that is what it is all about.

I am leaving today to attend the MACUL conference. MACUL is the premier technology in education conference here in Michigan. I get to spend three days with technology champions from all over the state! I hope to come back renewed and re-energized.  I’ll write more on Monday.

Part of my job responsibilities at the Macomb Intermediate School District is to connect schools to a variety of programs using our Polycom Accord video bridge. Most of these are multipoint sessions where more than one school is connected to a virtual fieldtrip provider or an author or in some collaborative program. It is not unusual to suffer audio problems from one or more of the sites connected at least at the start of the program. So, following are some tips of the trade which you can use to help solve audio problems from your site.

Where’s The Remote?

All codecs come with the ultimate man toy a really sophisticated remote. This device allows you to dial up other sites, pan, tilt and zoom your camera and adjust focus to name just a few. It also controls whether your microphone is on or off. Called muting it is an essential concept to video conferencing especially in a multipoint session. Simply stated, the remote has a microphone mute button on it. Pressing it mutes the microphone so no sound is coming out of your codec. Pressing it again allows audio to pass. And to help you know whether your microphone is muted or not use your eyes. All codecs that I am familiar with has some kind of notification that the microphone is muted up on the screen. It may be a microphone icon with a slash through it, or words that say mic off or some other indication. You can even set your codec so that the microphone is muted upon connection. This is in the menu structure of the codec and is a selection you can make.

The good news is you can experiment with the remote and the audio mute button without having to be in a conference. So power up the equipment and play.

Hello, Hello, Hello….

Echo can be a problem in video conferencing. While most codecs have very good echo cancellation it can still be a problem. The rule of thumb is, if you can hear yourself back when you are talking, the problem is at the other site. If they can hear themselves back when talking to you the problem is at your site.

There are two simple fixes to this problem. The first is simply turning down the volume on the T.V. monitor or whatever device is supplying audio into your room. Or, you can move the microphone away from the speaker. Or you can try a combination of both. And most times that works.

Can You Hear Me Now?

This happens a lot. A connection is made, audio is tested from each site and it sounds fine. Then when we return to the site we can barely hear. What happened? Chances are at the initial audio check the person or persons who were talking were close to the microphone talking in a loud voice. Then, during the event, one lone voice from the back of the room responds to the question posed by the presenter. It is loud enough so that we know a response was made but not loud enough to hear what the response was. To solve this problem, establish a designated microphone area. If you are using a boundary microphone, place it on a table or chair and have the student come up to the microphone to respond. If you are using a hand held microphone place it in a stand. You can establish a preset camera position on the infamous remote at the microphone position so that everyone connected can see and hear the student.

I know that some of these things take some time to set up. I also know that we are all busy. But participation in a video conference is not a spectator sport. Our students deserve our best efforts. Learning good audio practices for video conferencing will make everyone’s experience more productive and enjoyable. And besides consider learning these practices an opportunity for professional growth!

It happened a few weeks ago. I was bridging one of our Fieldtrip Friday programs to three of our elementary buildings. Fieldtrip Friday connects students to COSI Columbus for their wonderful Gadget Works program on simple machines. We sponsor this program for our school districts and this year we will have over 280 classrooms participate.

The bridge reservation fired at the designated time and I had on my television screen the three participating classes and COSI Columbus. That’s when it started.

“Oh shoot,” the voice cried out from one of the connected classrooms. “The tech’s not here and I don’t know what to do.”

Feeling confident that I could solve whatever her problem was from a distance I unmated my microphone and said

“West Elementary, can you see and hear me?”

“Oh shoot, “she repeated. “Where did Jim go? I don’t know what to do!”

Quickly assuring myself that my microphone was live I repeated my earlier question. But if they were hearing me at West Elementary they certainly weren’t responding. Over the babble coming from West I decided to check audio from the other sites.

“North Elementary can you see and hear me?” I inquired.

“Yes we can hear you and see you just fine” came the prompt reply.

“How about at South Elementary, can you see and hear me?”

 “Yes we can.”

“COSI, how about you?” I asked.

 “Gotcha loud and clear” Professor Gadgeteer replied.

My mind immediately started thinking of what to do next. I could always hard mute the audio from West and open it up when Professor Gadgeteer called on them for a response. This would require me to monitor the entire conference closely to open the audio from West when needed. But with a 54 year old bladder and two cups of morning coffee in the system this did not seem like a practical solution. And considering that West Elementary didn’t seem to know we were connected to them it wouldn’t have solved the problem.

“Oh shoot” she went on, “Jerry, could you go to the office and see if they can find the tech?”

 “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Oh shoot”!

Frantically, I started writing a note to place on my document camera hoping that they would be able to read it at West. While writing I decided to try one more time.

“West Elementary, can you see and hear me?” I inquired.

“Yes”, came the reply, “I can see and hear you”. 

Stunned, I inquired about the problem.

 “I don’t know what to do!” came the reply.

“Do you have the codec remote?” I inquired.

“Yes”.

“Do you see the microphone mute button on the remote?”

“Yes”

“Aim the remote at the camera and press that mute button for me please” I asked.

Immediately the audio was muted from the West Elementary room.

“Press the mute button again” I requested.

Audio was again live from West.

“That’s all you will need to do throughout the program.” I assured her.

“Oh, thank you very much. That was easy” she said sounding relieved.

This is a dramatically shortened version of what happened that morning. Her wailing went on for a good five minutes. My attempts to get her attention went on for all of that time and more. A media specialist from one of the other schools connected called the Principal of West Elementary to try to get her to find the technician.

There are lessons to be learned here for all of us. The technician needed to stay in the room until after the connection was made and some quick training could be done with the teacher. I know technicians are busy people. But nothing should get in the way of doing good things for students. The teacher needed to pay attention to what was happening at the time the connection was made instead of worrying about the whereabouts of the technician. Whoever is operating the bridge can usually help with technology problems at the remote site. We do hundreds of connections each school year and know how to troubleshoot most problems. Pay attention and listen.

What did I learn from all of this? Never have two cups of coffee on Fieldtrip Friday days!