Tag Archives: edvc

Making personal the ACMI Screenit Competition

Posted on February 28, 2014 by murcha | 1 comment

Whiteboard discussion

ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) runs an annual Screen It Competition. Watch the Screen It 2014 Teaser Video for an overview of the competition. It’s aim is to foster, develop and encourage creativity in future film makers, games designers and animation creators etc. This year’s theme is “Reflection”.

My year 7 ICT class logged into the blackboard collaborate room to be part of a session that outlined the Screen It competition, encouraged the participants to share what “Reflection” means to them via the whiteboard of the chat, view last year’s award winning movie and then share on the following:

how can photographs help us reflect
how reflections help us contemplate the future
how does it make you feel to reflect on your past, your family, your dreams for the future.

Students were engaged with this virtual lesson because:-

they are individually logged on, can watch their own monitor and can join in the conversations via the chat or have a voice on the whiteboard.
it was a well structured lesson
30 mins in total (just sufficient for year 7’s concentration span)
captivating imagery used on slides
variety of activities – listening, interacting, discussing 1:1 in the real classroom, clicking on links to watch the winning video – Visiting Grandpa from last year
interactive activities eg encouraged to use the chat, emoticons, polling, writing on whiteboard making it all worthwhile.
two links were given to watch the video should one of the links be blocked.
there were classes, students and participants from across Victoria.
links were shared for later viewing or re-viewing

The challenges:-

logging on 16 students simultaneously on individual computers, the java download took a little while, so some were late getting in. But next login will go faster as java is downloaded
protocols – students need constant reminding to use the chat effectively and to use the whiteboard as asked and not to graffiti over it.
encouraging everyone to simply use the text tool – some chose the pencil and this took up a lot of the whiteboard are.

This was a great addition to my double class of year 7 ICT where some of the boys find it very difficult to concentrate for 100 mins on one subject, but breaking up the activities, giving then an outside, expert speaker, a virtual and a physical classroom, made the time go fast and they had fun.

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Posted in virtual classrooms

Tagged ACMI, blackboard collaborate for online conferences, blackboard collaborate in the classroom, edvc, Screen IT, virtual expert speakers, webinars with students

eConnecting Parents – Opening up the Learning

Posted on December 4, 2013 by murcha | Leave a comment

e-Parents – Connecting Parents

Please note that this is an article written primarily for Parents Victoria who are interested in using technology to connect and have asked for ideas on how technology might be used. Please note: Our Victorian Education Department has a multi-user license for Blackboard Collaborate and MS Lync.

Technology opens up many doors, flattens classroom walls and enables involvement in learning in innovative ways, many of which are now only being pioneered. Distance, time, cost and effort are no longer barriers to the ability to attend classes, meetings and special events. Connecting, collaborating and communicating can take place anywhere and anytime.

Tools such as Blackboard Collaborate, skype (free tool) and MS Lync; and high definition videoconferencing equipment via eg Polycom mean that parents, teachers and students can attend meetings, lessons and professional development provided there is access to the internet using either a mobile device or fixed hardware. Following are some of the ways that technology could be or have already been used to connect parents:-

All types of online meetings:

Committee meetings -State committee members no longer need to meet in a central location, they can attend the meeting virtually online from the comfort of their home, work place or other appropriate nearby centre, by logging on to a virtual meeting room in Blackboard Collaborate, using a link provided by the moderator. Alternatively, if Polycom equipment is available at a local school, parents can dial into the room and be part of a meeting via a large monitor, webcamera and microphone. An app is now available for mobile devices to provide access to both Polycom and Blackboard Collaborate. Both types of virtual meetings can be recorded for members who can attend.

Parent Information Evenings – Hawkesdale P12 College trialled online nightly parent information meetings over a 4 week period. The first evening was held physically in the school library. Students and parents were stepped through the basics of virtual meeting rooms using their student netbooks. One hour meetings were then scheduled over a 5 week period. Parents were either emailed a link to the room or accessed it from the school blog, logged on from home, with their child supporting them and participated in a planned webinar with the chat feature being used for questions, feedback etc. A sample agenda:-

Ice breaker (6 mins)
From our Principal (7 mins)
Assistant Principal (7 mins)
Online exploration: Ms Murnane (7 mins)
An e-guest from Darwin – Rachel Neale (7 mins)
From the classroom – Mrs Gow (7 mins)
Mr Poynton – Education Week (7 mins)
Question time (7 mins)

These webinars were recorded for interested parents who could not attend. Read more at Techno Parents

Online school assemblies – Scott Duncan, is an innovative ICT teacher at a new school in Melbourne’s south-east suburbs. His school shares the site with the local secondary college and has limited access to the gymnasium. This led to the introduction of broadcasting and recording of their school assemblies using web conferencing and Blackboard Collaborate. Classes, teachers and parents login and participate. Read more at Online Assemblies

Global Student Summits

Parents have been invited to virtually join online global student summits with students presenting and sharing their learning across different countries.

eSchool Council Meetings

School Council Members from Hawkesdale P12 College and Apollo Bay College met virtually using Polycom videoconferencing equipment, discussing the value and nature of using videoconferencing for learning.

Further ideas: There are so many ways in which technology can connect parents to learning. Further possibilities include bringing in expert speakers, virtual art exhibitions, online book character parades, book clubs, other special classroom activities, parent teacher interviews etc

What suggestions do you have? How have you used virtual meeting/classroom software or hardware to connect parents with learning?

Sharing War Stories of our Ancestors

Posted on April 24, 2013 by murcha | Leave a comment

The two classes in action

Our year 6 students linked up virtually with Lismore Primary School (approximately 1 1/4 hours drive away) to share war stories of their great or great great grandparents. As Australia celebrates Anzac Day tomorrow, April 25th, to remember those who fought for our country, this was great use of polycom equipment and smart boards to be able to connect and share.

The army uniform

Staff from both schools worked with Concetta Gotlieb (@chetty) of See Share Shape on this project. It involved using the Polycom Videoconferencing equipment and our smart board to share a presentation by Lismore PS.

Innovative use of smartboards and polycom for sharing

Students researched their family’s involvement in previous wars, wrote a report or story to share and then using the web camera shared that story. One of our students brought her great grandfather’s army jacket complete with medals and cloth badges and share that with all. Students from Lismore shared a powerpoint presentation which included video footage of interviews with and ex Russian prisoner of war and his memories. Another Lismore student revealed what it was like to be a civilian during World War 2 with rations etc.

Illustrator uses Polycom to teach drawing

The link up was a direct result of a previous project with See Share Shape when an illustrator, Mark Wilson, virtually taught a number of virtual classes how to create drawings to illustrate stories. Mark had illustrated Jackie French’s story on Anzac Day, A Day to Remember

As it looked on smartboard

Creating an educational hashtag

Posted on April 22, 2013 by murcha | 2 comments

Most of my working life is spent teaching at Hawkesdale P12 College but for one day per week, I also work for Digital Learning, Victorian Department of Education as a Web or Virtual Conference coach helping teachers in to use Blackboard Collaborate, MS Lync, Skype and Polycom Equipment. There are 4 other coaches appointed to this position.

For some time, we have wanted to keep track of tweets that might mention virtual conferencing in education and learning. However, we need a hashtag which needs to be unique and short in length. After some discussion, it was decided to use #edvc (educational virtual conferencing). Education is the main objective so “ed” comes first, then the vc for virtual conferencing. Here is what I did:-

thought up a generic hashtag that was broad and global in nature and not confined to any specific organisation
checked whether #edvc was already used. Online searches failed to come up with any finds.
registered the hashtag with hashtags, tag definitions and twubs
sent out a tweet with the hashtag