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April 1, 2003
Videoconferencing in K12 Classrooms: Doable and Practical, FINALLY!
By Scott Merrick
What is the big deal about videoconferencing in classrooms? To start with, all over the country, educators are discovering that they can accomplish most of the objectives of a field trip with increasing reliability without writing notes home, soliciting parent permission slips, collecting admission fees from home, scheduling the bus or the parent drivers, dealing with behavior issues on the ride to and from a site, and (arguably the most important benefit) do it in a quarter of the time needed for a "road field trip." And even if you plan to actually visit a site, a "pre-visit" can set the tone for heightened appreciation and learning.
In schools where innovative teachers or technology facilitators have taken the lead and obtained the hardware, "virtual field trips" are the order of the day. "Informal Educators," agencies and organizations that cater to the needs of a growing "clientele" of teachers and technology coordinators nationwide, offer increasingly rich and more instructionally valid interactive experiences, travel-free and time efficient. See the list of resources at the end of this piece to help get you started, or to further refine your own school's list of options for this burgeoning branch of distance learning.
Consider these two examples from one informal education site, the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee.
1: Virtual "Pre-Visit"-Whetting Inquisitive Appetites
The High School Environmental Club at University School of Nashville, in Tennessee, has planned a working outreach experience at the Elephant Sanctuary (www.elephants.com). The Elephant Sanctuary, founded and run by Carol Buckley and Scott Blais, comprises 800 plus acres of rolling Middle Tennessee farm and woodland about a hundred miles from Nashville. Founded in 1995, it is dedicated to providing an as-near-as-possible-to-natural environment for Asian elephants, an endangered species. The Sanctuary's videoconferencing program, established through a partnership with Tennessee State University's Project DIANE (www.diane.tnstate.edu/) is in turn dedicated to educating the public about the plight of Asian elephants, emphasizing what the Sanctuary's founders perceive as the abuse of elephants through their treatment at circuses and zoos. Note that University School is also a member - a partnership which results in their receiving the Sanctuary's program free of charge!
The students know through telephone planning conversations that there will not be much time to chat or to engage in question and answer sessions the day of their trip: they'll be too busy building fences and repairing gates and bridges to learn much about the history and mission of their target site. Sophie, the club's president, takes some time out between classes and visits the school's Lower School Technology Coordinator, the teacher in the building who facilitates videoconferencing. The "Polycom 128" set-top unit, perched atop a 36-inch monster television set on a rolling cart, is located in his lab. She tells the teacher her situation, he listens, and he places a quick Email to Carol Buckley, founder and executive director of the ES.
Three Emails and 20 hours later, the interaction is scheduled, the room is reserved, and Sophie starts to do her job of notifying her constituency. One week later, 10 club members and their faculty advisor sit down to a 30-minute talk with Ms. Buckley. Laughter laces the conversation as the resident cat at the sanctuary repeatedly insists upon joining in. For the final 10 minutes of the interchange, Ms. Buckley pans out over her domain using two remotely controlled cameras connected to her videoconferencing unit. Each of the Sanctuary's 6 elephants gets its moment in the limelight, each story shared, each pachyderm's personality illuminated lovingly. These 10 high school students will trek down to the country on Saturday immensely better prepared to do their work, immeasurably more invested.
2: Virtual Field Trip-The Whole Shebang
Take the same story in reverse, sort of: Second graders have spent two weeks sharing the wealth of information at The Elephant Sanctuary and their teachers have led them in activities resulting in their "adoption" of various particular elephants. The four teachers and their students have brainstormed questions for Ms. Buckley prior to the event: Poster-sized handwritten reminders of the questions have been taped to the faces of the cubbies that line the atrium. One of their teachers even has a painting made by Tara, who wields a color-laden brush with a deft trunk (Tara's artistic skills provided the basis for quite a bit of question and answer!). Their interaction begins similarly, with the impassioned Ms. Buckley stating her mission and describing some of the history of the project, but the meat of the experience doesn't become truly evident until some of the 8 year-olds begin to ask questions. "How did you teach Tara to paint?" "Why aren't there any male elephants at the Sanctuary?" "Where's Shirley?"
They leave the atrium in which they gathered for the videoconference every bit as involved and sympathetic as their high school counterparts would leave theirs. The success of the event had everything to do with the careful planning and the dedication of their teachers. In many ways, the fact that they gathered together in a meeting room in their school instead of undertaking the long bus ride to Hohenwald has made the degree of their investment greater by far. They are fans of the wild elephant now, and one thing is certain: They will never look at an elephant in a zoo or a circus in quite the same way. A much more detailed description of this interaction may be found archived at University School of Nashville.
So: You're not interested in elephants.
How about art? How about careers in Science? How about what it takes to be a successful published writer? How about just what a human brain looks like? How about a conversation with Orville Wright? How about a half hour with a classroom in Mexico talking about how the people in their country celebrate Christmas? All these things are available through classroom videoconferencing.
The Vanderbilt University Medical School's Office of Science Outreach, under the guidance of Director Virginia L. Shepherd, PhD., and the Vanderbilt University Virtual School, directed by Jan Zanetis, are two premier resources for videoconferencing connections. You might begin your search by checking out OSO: Office of Science Outreach for starters. On it you'll find links to the Virtual School, Project DIANE, and program descriptions of OSO's own content offerings. Look, too, at the "Links" link. OSO's "Webliographer" contains a wealth of resources, updated frequently through its own (freely available!) interactive databasing technology. There are even short examples of videoconferencing in K12 classrooms available at the OSO Webliographer, provided in brief, reasonably sized (for optimal download time) movie clips. In fact, further listing of resources would be redundant. If you bookmark the OSO site and frequently visit its links and you will find yourself well positioned for exploring the rich potential of interactive videoconferencing for your classrooms or clubs.
Happy interacting!
Related links:
Email Scott Merrick or scottmerrick@comcast.net
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