Lessons learned from my class Skype meeting

My class met last Friday (4-18-08) with Mrs. Page Sorey’s 3rd grade class at Nag’s Head Elementary in NC. It is right next to Kitty Hawk, NC. I blogged about it Episode 4 - Earth Day Skype podcast on our class blog Our Global Refrigerator Door. You can also listen to part of the conversation on the podcast there.

Upon reflection, here are a few lessons learned about Skype conferencing for next time.

• Do a test call beforehand to test connections.
• Have students ask questions of students at the other location.
• Have an order to go in as far as who asks and who answers questions.
• Have them prepared with a question and allow them to ask follow-up questions.
• Sometimes the best nuggets come from spontaneous conversations.
• Vivid verbal descriptions really help to envision what the speaker is saying.
• It would be great if we could snap a picture of the class to send to other class just as the conference starts. That way we have someone to look at during the voice chat.
• We really had a good time just getting to know each other.
• The weather is not the same in different parts of the country at the same time.
• We looked up beforehand the location of who we were talking to, so we could see that the typography was like.

I still have some questions I haven’t resolved.

1. How do you make sure everyone heard what was said?
2. How can the IT department help the quality of the connection?
3. What do you do about only one person being able to talk at a time when you have a whole class of students who want a turn?
4. Can we tie it to a content curriculum objective as well as a Communication Arts objective?
5. What are the best practices for a Skype conference?

The kids were really excited just to live the experience of a live Skype conference.

We’ll get better each time an build our way up to global collaboration in our classroom. Let me now if you would like to collaborate with your class.

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Possible Linux Thin Clients in my Classroom

All that work learning about Edubuntu Linux thin clients may pay off.  I talked to our district’s IT department this week.  I asked whether I could experiment with an Edubuntu thin client mini-lab in my classroom.  The Tech Director said they had tried an LTSP thin client network in the Junior High a few years ago and pulled the plug after one year.  They also use SUSE linux, too.They now use MS Windows thin clients.  He sent me to the Junior High computer lab teacher and the Network Administrator.

The computer lab teacher said that they tried running all the windows program she had used before on Linux.  Any time they tried to scale it up to more than a few machines it would lock up.  The windows applications in a Linux environment did not play nicely together on thin clients.  I think user resistance (especially teachers) to open source software in teaching is a very real barrier, as evidenced here.

The network admin said that the Linux distros were very resource hungry.  They were running 90 thin clients on two servers and he was spending 2 hours a day getting them up and running.  He didn’t put much stock in claims that people were running thin client labs from simple desktops.  He said the servers need multicore processors with lots of RAM (8 MB).  I had asked for a 3GHz 3MB RAM desktop from the computer lab, and he said it would probably run the 14 or so computers I wanted to use in my classroom.   We may use two 8-port switches to connect the old computers.

He also said that hooking the thin clients up through the network was an issue, but since the clients in my room would be behind the server, it would be much easier.

He mentioned the lack of adequate support since he was spending 2 hours a day at the Junior High working on the thin client system.  I am glad to say that  will give professional support if the forums are not enough.

I sounds like a lot of the problems they had was from teacher resistance to giving up MS Windows applications.  People issues have to be considered seriously when change occurs…and change will occur whether we want it to or not.  The tech issues seem solvable, but the issue of scalability worries me about future implications of a pilot.

Next I need to go back to our Tech Director and see whether he will give his final approval.  Then I have to get the go-ahead from my principal.  If I can clear those two last hurdles, I will have computers for my student next year in my classroom.  Yippee!

Ever the practical voice, my wife asked me, “Why do you need computers in your room?” I find it hard to give a concise answer.  What would be your answer to that question?

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The Incredible Power I Hold In My Hand

I recently got my first cell phone. It’s ironic that I was a computing geek and didn’t have a cell phone. Basically, I didn’t see a use for it. I hardly ever use the phone anyway, so why would I want to carry one with me. However, whenever I would travel by myself, I found myself thinking about how far I would have to walk and the hassle I would have if my decade-old Camry broke down or I were in an accident. The lease was up on my wife’s old cell phone, so I told her I wanted one, too.

When I got the phone and started playing with it, I was amazed at the power I held in my hand. I programmed in the phone numbers for my family and school and gave them each a unique ringtone. I put my upcoming meetings and events in the calendars with alarms to remind me beforehand. I put things I needed to do on my to-do list. I can also pull up the calculator when needed.

I could snap my son’s picture and make it my wallpaper. I could customize the home screen so I had one touch access to the camera and the mp3 player. Holy cow, I had an mp3 player for listening to podcasts through the wireless earmike!

Then I discovered that I could connect my phone to my laptop using bluetooth. I could transfer podcasts from my computer to my phone. I could pull pictures I had taken with the camera onto the laptop in include them in a blog post. I could record my voice with the voice recorder for a podcast. I could even record videos! All this power, and I hadn’t even called anybody, yet.

Electronic devices are becoming so small that they had to be consolidated in order to still fit our hands. They are all converging into the cell phone, the next mobile computing device.
The iPhone is the first view of this new computing platform. This tool that I held in my hand wasn’t an iPhone, but it was a multimedia computing device that could record and play video, music, voices, images, and text. I could also call just about anybody in the United States just as easily as I could call someone in the next room. This was a tiny digital story-telling device that could help me collect sounds, images, and videos with which I could tell a story.

I after I first got mine, I asked how many of my 8 and 9 year olds had cell phones. Half of them raised their hands. This is a class in which all but 5 of my students are on free and reduced lunch. 60-70% of them either had their own mp3 players, cell phones, or both. These are third graders!

Do I need 1-to-1 laptops to do digital storytelling? Not when I have students with cell phones (although it would be nice). Students have their mobile recording devices right there in there hands.

However, my students have no idea how to use that power. They know how to play games and play ring tones. Isn’t it ironic that students have such power, and our school bans cell phone use during the day. I know, it’s a distraction. They talk, text message, play games and play music to entertain themselves on their cell phones. Cell phones will probably continue to be banned in 1.0 schools as long as they are used as a distraction from learning rather than a tool for it. When we teachers learn how to use cell phones in the classroom, then schools can begin allowing them in.

Tools - purpose = toys

The reason they don’t use cell phones for learning is because they haven’t been taught how. If we teach them to write, create, record, podcast, storytell, calculate, communicate, and collaborate, aren’t we teaching them how to learn?

Toys + purpose = Tools

I admit, I haven’t taught my students how to do digital storytelling, mainly because I didn’t have the time or the tools to do so. It’s looking like I’m getting access to the tools. Now I just have to get the time.

Once we teach students how to use cell phones in the classroom, then they can begin unleashing the incredible learning power they hold in their hands. If used carfully, cell phones could become the mobile computing tool of School 2.0.

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