Videoconferencing to Enhance Instruction
Where in Washington Project
Location:
The project originates in any Washington school and one event usually involves about 6 schools across the state. Kent School District is the location for the video and interviews for this example.
Description
Several schools in different geographic locations are identified and contacted for participation. Students in each school develop descriptive information about their community in a number of categories, and prepare graphics and a presentation. During the first videoconference, each school team makes their presentation while the others take notes. During a non-video work period, students do the research and problem-solving activities necessary to determine the location of each participating school. In the second videoconference session later that day, the results are shared and verified.
Student information
The activity is used with fourth graders but has been used with a variety of other age/grade levels, and a wide range of ability levels.
Source Note
The information for this project was collected May 9-11, 1999 in the Kent School District, Kent, Washington and Aberdeen Schools, Aberdeen, Washington.
The following narratives were transcribed from those interviews, and discuss Background & Goals, Planning and Presentation, Support, and Outcomes.
Interviewees quoted here are
Diana Eggers and Anne McGlone, Teachers in Kent, Washington.
Background & Goals
Eggers, Teacher:
"The Washington Legislature provided the K-20
network for all schools in the state. Last year the Kent School District was
chosen as one of the 12 pilot sites. We decided that we wanted to design a
classroom project and do it right away so that as these videoconferencing units
are placed in districts, they are seen as a classroom tool that teachers can
use to help instruct their students. So we designed the Where in
Washington project. In the project, we usually have about 6 classrooms that
connect via videoconferencing and we don't tell the kids who they are
videoconferencing with. Each classroom prior to the conference develops a
project or presentation that explains where they live in Washington. During the
conference, each one of the classrooms presents their presentation and the
other students are taking notes. They then have about half an hour of down
time, where no one is actually interacting through the videoconference, but
based on their notes the classrooms are trying to locate one another in the
State of Washington."
"One of the purposes of the Where in Washington program is to meet some of the standards that we have in social studies and reading. Students will be using various sources of material to gain information to try and locate each other across the State of Washington. Students are reading off the web page, they may be reading encyclopedias and they are definitely reading maps. So using all that information, they are improving their reading."
McGlone, Teacher:
"This is actually the first student project we did and we wanted to start
with something simple. We knew communication was going to be an issue with
other sites and so we wanted to do a very simple plan, something that
integrated directly into what the teacher and students were already
researching. So we did the first one and it was extremely successful."
Planning and Preparation
Eggers, Teacher:
"In the planning for Where in Washington, we generally try to set a start date, because if you ask people if they want to participate, they want to know when right away. We set a date about a month to 6 weeks ahead of the actual conference and then we need to advertise it to get enough classrooms across the state to participate. We also created a web page. When we initially did it, there was more planning but now that we have the web page, we can just continue to update that. On the web page we put in an agenda so that all of the schools know what is expected of them and when. We also put in a timeline, so they know that maybe 2 weeks before the conference date, they need to begin working on their classroom presentations. Scheduling the bridge through KOCO, our bridge scheduling service, also takes time. You need to find the videoconference phone numbers for each one of the sites and a voice contact name. It's not always the teacher, sometimes it's a technical person."
"Generally, when planning the project, I would say that it takes between 5 and 10 hours of my time. That includes sending e-mail to find the participants, confirming with the participants, scheduling with the multi-point bridge and then asking or answering any questions of the different participants. Depending on whether or not they have done it before, there may be a lot of questions. So, between 5 and 10 hours of planning time. And that's on top of what the classroom teacher does. The classroom teacher, I'm sure, has a lot more planning considerations as he or she is getting the kids ready for their presentation.
"The students need to be informed about what to expect with the videoconferencing. I think because we're in a TV age, students think that because they can't see themselves on TV, they're not really sure if the other kids can see them. We make them aware that their actions and their movements and their behavior and their language can be seen and heard from other sites without them knowing it, so they always have to be on their best behavior. We haven't had any problems arise from the videoconferencing. When there's not something that's particularly happening, we have kids on the other sites waving into the cameras and making their little peace signs, but nothing that's really out of line."
McGlone, Teacher:
"For a videoconference to be successful, I think the most important piece
is planning. There are several steps involved, but first of all I think the
stumbling block is finding partners to actually do the videoconference with,
especially if you don't personally know the people you are working with.
Most of our communication is via e-mail and through our web page, so you may
not particularly have face to face contact with that person. You're almost
going on trust that this person is going to show up and participate in your
project. So first of all, planning, getting the people that you're actually
going to be working with, and getting things confirmed. This is new to a lot of
people so a lot of the schools aren't really used to having students in the
classrooms using the equipment, so there has to be some arranging with the
equipment and also technical people to support during that time. That's a
really important piece."
"If you did want to do a project, and you had a great idea, how could you find another classroom to participate? We've always found success with the Learning Space, finding other teachers there. There are several list services where you can post a request for a conference that you'd like to do and that's a good way to find participants.
"Also videoconferencing, because it is something that actually isn't available to students in classrooms all the time, is usually a culminating type activity, so there is a lot of preparation in the classroom beforehand, and that preparation is key. Even though your video conferences may be only an hour and a half, it's a really crucial and critical learning as well as sharing time for the student because they have been building up to this time. There is also a lot of follow up that can happen after the actual videoconference. So, it's not often that a classroom project focuses just on a conference but it is more like a culminating activity."
"When developing clues to share with other classrooms, it's interesting to watch the process as to how they are going to decide which clues, since out of the 12 clues they only have to share 7. So they were picking and choosing which clue would still give information about their city but not technically give it away. They didn't really want to share their lake or the nearest body of water because there's no other town around that body of water, so if they were to give that clue then they would know for sure that the other schools would be able to guess their location. So they were really very careful about which clues to share."
Support
Eggers, Teacher:
"What would really be nice to have is a state level, videoconference
project designer and coordinator. If what I've done for the Learning Space
and the Kent projects was my job statewide, I could work with the teachers and
put together projects at a statewide level, develop a statewide
videoconferencing project calendar that all of those schools can participate
in. I don't know if one person could do that statewide, but if there was
through the state a person or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5, however many they could afford,
funded to put the projects together and serve as an instructional leader on the
K-20 network."
"Sometimes its hard for teachers who have never seen videoconferencing to imagine what videoconferencing can add to their classroom projects and it's hard for them to see the benefits of it. I think that the projects that are designed, need to be designed not because we can videoconference, but because the project will be enhanced through the videoconferencing. I don't know if a regular classroom teacher is going to invest, or be able to invest a lot of time in designing these projects and coordinating them. So, if there were project resources at the state level that participants could just call into, I think that would be a tremendous benefit and it would really provide the content to go on the wires which the state has provided."
McGlone, Teacher:
"I think to successfully implement videoconferencing, it's not
essentially something you can drop into the classroom and it's going to
work. The teacher needs to be comfortable with at least making a call and
finding resources. It's always been helpful to have a technical person at
least on call, somebody they can at least call or someone that is close by to
come and assist them. Our goal is to always make the technology seamless so
that you're really focusing on the learning and not the technology. Once
you're in a call, the technology is very seamless, but in actually
connecting a call, sometimes you do have trouble, so it's very important
that there is some type of technical person that can assist with the actual
connecting. It's also important that there's the teacher background
working with this technology person because a lot of times the technology
person doesn't have an idea or vision as to how you can use this in the
classroom. It's critical that along with the technical person you have some
kind of teacher resource or curriculum resource person that can help teachers
figure out how to use this effectively in the classroom and connect the teacher
with resources."
Outcomes
Eggers, Teacher:
"The Where in Washington project was definitely worth it for all of
the classes that have participated. If you design your project so that it's
part of your curriculum and can improve student learning, then it will be worth
it. If it is just to get together to share pizza and to say, 'Ok,
there's the kids we've been e-mailing for the past month,' then
it's probably not worth it.
"We've had teachers comment that they've taught more about geography within the 2 to 3 weeks of the Where in Washington project than they have all year. And it's simply because the kids are demanding it. The kids want to know about lakes and rivers and nearest bodies of water, and why a river is over here but doesn't flow over there, and it's due to the mountains in the middle. It's been a great geography tool for teachers in the state.
"I think it's most beneficial for the kids in that they get to see other kids across the state of Washington but they also get to hear from a student's perspective what a student who is their same age feels about a similar topic. I think one of the biggest benefits for the kids in having the videoconferencing available is that as we proceed into the future, videoconferencing will become more and more apart of the workplace. Students will experience videoconferencing in school and not be intimidated by videoconferencing when they go out into the workplace and get jobs.
"It's generally a fantastic project for the kids and the teachers. The kids seem to really be engaged in the videoconferencing and I think that the engagement comes from saying that there are real other kids out there with them. I think the project could easily be done over e-mail in the same capacity but the kids don't seem to be quite as engaged because they are seeing other real live kids that are their age that live in another part of the state.
"As a former Special Ed teacher I didn't see all kids involved at all times, and I think one of the remarkable things about this project is that all of the classes that we've had do it so far, all of the kids are actively involved. They are given an assignment or a task and they all want to complete the task, they want to find their partners across the state. It's been a wonderful learning activity as they learn more about Washington State through their peers.
"I think one of the best comments that I have heard from kids, is that our Executive Director was talking to one of the students and saying, 'What did you learn today?' and the student said that he didn't learn anything. This is something that you don't want to hear out of a student's mouth, so Kent asked him, 'What were you doing?' He said, 'Well, we were using the Internet and we were looking at maps and we were reading the books, and we had taken notes, so we were using our notes to try and find these other sites.' After that conversation, we could see that the child was learning something, he just didn't know it. So, that was a nice side benefit, as they are seeing it as something fun to do, and it is fun, but they are also learning a lot about the state of Washington."
McGlone, Teacher:
"When we first did the Where in Washington project, the teacher
came up and said 'We've learned more about Washington state in the past
2 weeks than we have in the last 2 months doing the unit as I usually do in my
classroom.' So, just the investigating before hand, and the sharing during
that short videoconference, really hit home for the kids and they really did a
lot of learning. That was exciting for the teacher that she could accomplish so
much and have the students learn so much in a short amount of time.
"With Where in Washington, it was wonderful to watch the expressions on the children's faces as they shared their information. In Kent, when we were sharing our population and we said we had 70,000 people in our city, the mouth or the jaw dropped on one of the students because they came from a very small town with under a thousand people, and they couldn't imagine having that many people in town. So I think it's a very personal connection for them. They don't see it as far-fetched, they've been inundated with it throughout their lives, and this is just one more piece of technology that looks familiar to them. I've been able to show a student how to control the equipment in just a couple minutes, and they have done a wonderful job moving the camera around and switching cameras.
"I think what two-way videoconferencing does is really establish a connection between the kids and the other students that they're working with. It's very real-life and it really opens up their world and makes it a little bit more global for them, because they know they are studying the history of their state and where they live and they are also researching other areas. A lot of the words on the map they don't know how to pronounce and when they actually meet someone from that area and hear them talk about where they live, it makes a connection, something for them to actually relate to. When they see the pictures of the state parks and pictures of the lakes and what the kids actually like to do in the summertime, it gives them a personal account, someone on their level explaining some place else in their home state. So I think when an actual student is teaching them about their area, it's much more personal and it's much more meaningful, and the students have something they can relate to."