Eye on the World: Sharing
and Learning Through Video Conferencing
A Teachers' Resource Page
Video conferencing is a
wonderful way to open the door to new learning and sharing your world and work
with others. If you are interested in what my first grade class has done,
visit their page.
How to Start:
To find a school to video
conference with there are a number of resources to check.
EPALS.com,
GSN.com,
GlobalLeap.com and
Teaching.com have project registration
services and you can actively look for a school through them or register for
someone to locate your class. I have found however that actively looking
for a classroom is the most effective way, rather than registering and waiting.
Equipment:
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To do this
project you will need a computer that is connected to the Internet.
The faster the connection, the better.
Because you
are doing this whole group with younger children, you will need
either a way for the class to gather around the monitor, have it on
a larger TV screen, or use a projector. We happen to have a
projector, so the whole class is able to view it as a very large
picture projected on our wall.
Some sort of web cam is
also necessary. We have an EyeBot camera, but you might also
use a LogiTech QuickCam or a video camera. |
| Then you will
need a microphone. Some cameras have a microphone in them, but
a separate microphone is easier to handle and keep close to the
speaker. Our microphone is an AccusticMagic array type
microphone which is fairly expensive, but I wanted to be able to
pick up voices from a distance and reduce the echo and feedback from
the speakers.
The speakers are sometimes on your computer, but
if not, you will need some external speakers. We have some
fairly inexpensive AltecLansing speakers that work very well and
have a nice sound. |
 |
 |
You will also
need a way to connect with the other class. We used iVisit for
this. I bought a one year membership for $40 so that I could
set up a room for just our class and the classes that I wanted to
invite in. The other classes don't need a paid membership to
meet with you in your room. You also don't need to be a paying
member to conference, but there are time limits and only two people
can meet at a time then. You may also be able to use MSN, AIM
or Yahoo to video conference. Sometimes firewalls at the
schools can be a problem, so you will have to work with your
district or school technology coordinator to make sure the correct
ports are open for the connection to take place. |
Before You Start:
Setting up an area for
video conferencing is essential for good communications. I have found it
helpful to have the student who is sharing or talking to be apart from the rest
of the group, with the camera on them alone. The rest of the class then
isn't on screen to be tempted to wave to themselves, forgetting that the other
class is also watching them. It also helps in the frames per second (fps)
transmission somewhat because there isn't as much motion and change in the
picture being transmitted. The students listening and watching in the
other class also then are not distracted from the topic by watching others in
the video also.
| When video
conferencing, make sure you have connected with the teacher and
school beforehand to make sure that the connection is good and to
agree on a topic for discussion, time of meeting and length of
meeting. You may find after checking the world time zones that
it is difficult to have a meeting during the school day. In
that case you may have to come to school early or come back later in
the day and have parents get the children to school. We were
fortunate in meeting with France to be able to come just a bit early
to school to meet with them at the end of their school day. |
 |
Technique and Timing:
 |
Having an
object or prop to go with the presentation also helps. For
example, when talking about winter clothing, showing the jacket,
mittens, boots and hat add much to the understanding and interest.
Keep the presentation moving, with one student at a time making a
short presentation and then moving on to the next.
|
| Leave some
time between student presentations so that the other class might ask
a question or make a comment about the topic before moving on. It is
sometimes helpful to type in the chat window what is being said.
It helps in case some words weren't clear, or in the case it needs
to be translated by the other class. |
 |
Students must learn to
speak slowly and clearly, in short phrases with pauses, to keep the audio from
losing some of the speech. Although this seems a hard task at first, it
works well after some discussion and practice. An interesting side benefit
to this practice is that students with some language difficulties actually
become quite good at speaking clearly with this goal in mind.
Knowing what the topic is
well in advance and having students prepare for the presentation means no wasted
time and more involvement by both the presenting and audience classes. It
seems to work best if two sessions are scheduled back to back with one class
presenting one time and the other presenting the next. A half hour
presentation per session is just about right also for this age group's attention
span both for presenting and for listening.
Assessments:
The opportunity to share
research and other skills that are required in the state's standards gives a
real purpose to these tasks. The use of the Internet as an informational
resource to do research and as a medium to publish gives students necessary
skills in both the acquiring of information and in communication, both crucial
skills in the development of a confident, independent learner. The
students during this long term project learned to use the Internet as a research
tool and as a communication tool. They became quick to suggest ways to
search and ways to find out what they wanted or needed to know. They
became less dependent on the teacher as the expert, realizing that there is
great strength in knowing how or where to find the information, and that they
didn't need to know it all if they knew where or how to find it!
Links to Enable, Enrich and Enhance
your Video Conferencing Unit:
