The Gift of Understanding in a Flattened World

International Education Week is November 12-16, 2007.

Giving students an awareness of the wider world in which they live and giving them a sense of their own role within it—while developing a respect and value for diversity—is a gift of understanding we cannot afford to withhold.

Have you ever stopped to think how doable this gift of understanding is because we have videoconference technology in so many schools today?

I did a quick search in the Collaboration Center on CILC’s Web site.  There are teachers searching for other teachers whose classes could connect to theirs for international-themed discussions.  

Here is what I found… and please click on any of the links to drill down to details.

Searched for international in Collaborations
International   I am looking for a classroom in Egypt, China, Greece, or Rome to collaborate with for a Social Studies class. I have a 6th grade classroom and would love to set up a pen pal type collaboration or just a cultural exchange of info.
Audience: Education: K-12 Educator

international videoconferances  I teach gifted and talented k-2nd grade in a tiny cotton farming community in Taft, Texas.  I do a unit on multicultural studies. I am looking for international classrooms to do videoconferances with. Please contact me at cguajardo1@taftisd.net or…
Audience: Education: Pre-K Students, Kindergarten, Grade(s): 1, 2, 3, 4

International Face-to-Face Spanish and Medical Spanish tutoring using real-time internet video  We are very excited to introduce the only service making educated and experienced Spanish tutors, who live in Central America, available to any school in the US with a broadband internet connection. There is no need for new hardware…
Audience: Education: Grade(s): 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, K-12 Educator, Business/Community: Business Member, Community Member, Government Agency

Debate  Our debate class would like to debate the war in Iraq with an international class (we would be interested in classes across the US). We would also be interested in discussing other debate topics of interest. Our class meets from 9:34-10:25 EST. Thank you!
Audience: Education: Grade(s): 10, 11, 12

Read Around the Planet VC Celebration  TWICE invites you to participate in a celebration of reading using video conference technology!  TWICE provides a matching service for point-to-point videoconferences between schools. Teacher matching is done based on your registration information.  Part…
Audience: Education: Kindergarten, Grade(s): 1- 12

Here are additional ways you can give your students the gift of understanding of the world around them:

 Free CILC Webinar
International Education Week is the week of November 12-16, and CILC will offer a panel of International based speakers who will explain his or her program and the various levels of involvement. Teachers are
welcome who are looking for their first step into an international experience, and teachers are welcome who are looking into their next, more involved international experience. Panelists will field teacher questions and share resources.

Breaking Through the Crust

I’m feeling reflective today. Maybe it’s the steady drip of much needed rain that gives me license to pause and consider how far we’ve come in the past decade or so.

Just a mere 15 or so years ago, “virtual field trips through videoconferencing” was a nearly inconceivable concept. Today there are many informal educators now attached to classrooms through the magic of fiber-based videoconferencing—like astronauts coupled to their spacecraft as they work in space. Our classrooms, once isolated from learning centers in our communities, routinely connect to museums, zoos, science centers and other rich, national learning resources.

I sense a quiet but revolutionary awakening.

Vast natural resources, which are inherently engaging and interactive, are embedded in our informal education communities. Content providers from our informal education institutions are becoming a wedge, helping schools break through a time-honored crust that has us believe teachers, alone, are academically responsible for teaching our young.

Videoconferencing, a technology that connects our classrooms to the far spaces of our universe, helps us know that is not true.

Today, on the CILC Web site alone there are nearly 150 videoconferencing providers from the US, the UK, Canada and Australia—and these do not represent the total list of opportunities teachers have to engage students and enrich their minds by connecting to never before reachable destinations.

But I sit in an office on the ninth floor of a downtown building, far from the classroom where I once taught. (This is a view from my window.)

Although my view is nice, I miss watching children on the edge of their seat, their eyes sparkling with the wonder of newly discovered worlds.

I thrive on hearing stories of student engagement and would love for you to tell me your stories. What content programs have you given a star rating or a thumbs-up on the CILC website? What made your videoconferencing experience so good? How did students learn needed concepts that would not have been possible without videoconferencing technologies in your school?

So, please tell me your stories — rblanken@cilc.org. You never know when Dawn Colavita may feature you in CILC’s e-News.

Honoring the Great Work of Kids (Part 2)

If you’re looking for ways to engage students in authentic research, presentation skills, and use of technology, then you’ll want to be involved in the 2007-2008 Kids Creating Community Content (KC3) contest.

The contest, sponsored by TANDBERG, is open to all students in grades 7-12 across the US.  As the TANDBERG spokesperson said, “This is about kids being creative and communicating local pride.”

CILC’s Bev Mattocks, the KC3 project manager, tells me that students are to research a topic in their community and develop an informational program geared toward a specified audience to educate them about their topic.

Students will then present their live videoconference to another school and a group of judges in February 2008.

Or… How about groups of kids already showing off their community?

You need to check out Stamford High School in Stamford, TX and Scott County High School in Huntsville, TN. These kids are already creating content — the epitome of what can happen in a school when there is a Whole New Mind(set) where kids learn what they need to learn from books and apply it to the communities in which they live.

Talk about authentic, creative, relevant work — it couldn’t be done like this when most of us reading this blog were in school.

National Distance Learning Week (NDLW)

My blogger inspiration today comes from Jan Zanetis, market manager for education with Tandberg. She is also on the board of directors of the USDLA, which is sponsoring National Distance Learning Week (NDLW), November 12-17, 2007.

The CILC Symposium, which will be anchored in Indianapolis, Indiana, November 13-14, is one of the featured NDLW events. Wow. That’s pretty cool. Especially since Tandberg is sponsoring a luncheon where John Flores, exec director of USDLA, will be addressing Symposium attendees through videoconferencing. His speech comes just before the NDLW Outstanding Service Awards ceremony where we’ll honor select contributors working in the education videoconferencing sector.

Jan tells me awards will be given in the following categories:

Content Providers
Collaborative Projects
Student Driven Projects
Professional Development for Educators
Support program(s) for Education (by Not-for-Profit organizations)
Support program(s) for Education (by For Profit organizations)

There’s still time for you to nominate a special person–even yourself, too, for that matter. That’s perfectly okay with us.

By the way, if you can’t attend the Symposium onsite, then you may attend virtually with a choice between VBrick’s streaming technology or Elluminate’s webinar application. That’s pretty cool, too.

p.s. Don’t forget to register  for the CILC Symposium. For more info, you may email Dawn Colavita at dcolavita@cilc.org.