// Langwitches Blog

“Video-Conferencing It’s Easy, Free and Powerful”

By Brian Crosby

This school year has started off with some great collaboration with Argentina and our 6th grade students. It was the first time that we incorporated video conferencing for and WITH our students as part of the project. We are bout to start another collaboration with a Pre-K class from Lima, Peru and have some great ideas in using video conferencing with the little ones.

Brian’s presentation came in at a perfect timing for me, as we experiment and prepare for using the available technology to us.

I am hearing him make points like this: We need to use video conferencing effectively, not just plain use it. There needs to be something in addition to the “Wow” factor.

Video conferencing is like a field trip you take without leaving the classroom.

When we were in the Urubamba Valley in Peru, we had the opportunity to Skype with most of our students, since we were “stuck” due to a strike in the country. It turned out to be a very productive day getting caught up with blog post on our travel blog and being able to have an open Skype connection to our school. As the classes rotated in and out of TechConnect, where we were “peeking” in, the students were able to talk to us, ask questions, let us know their favorite parts, images or videos they had seen on the blog and take a look around our surroundings. They were able to see the butterflies and hummingbirds zoom around in the background and (at a different Skype opportunity during the trip) watch the Arenal volcano in Costa Rica in the back of us.

Brian in his presentation gives examples of effective use of video conferencing.

Inclusion

Allow students, who are not capable of attending school physical to be able to participate in class
Communicating with teachers and students around the world

Sharing an Expert

Allow other classes to participate, if you have an expert in a certain topic or field coming to your school to present

Sharing an Experience

Practicing Oral Language Skills

• Practice and gaining experience in public speaking
• Expressing themselves orally
• Powerful motivator to become and effective communicator
• Recording conferences and reviewing it at a later date proves a powerful assessment tool.

Analyze, Critique and Get Feedback

• Higher order thinking skills: Analyze, evaluate and internalize

Collaboration

• video conferencing maybe most valuable opportunity for collaboration
• 
  I loved this frozen moment during Brian’s video presentation. Students collaborating on a story writing, not only with a shared document, but in real time connected via Skype while working together. Instant feedback for the kids: “Can you tell me how you like it?”

Brian’s presentation makes it clear that the learning experience does and should not stop by simply video conferencing, but needs to continue in:

post presentation discussion or debriefing of what was learned so that information can be used in writing, by note taking, or any number of activities or project designed for leverage of what was learned

Students are learning to reflect after the actual video conference and  liek this continue the learning process. Valuable 21st century skills. I thouroughly enjoyed Brian’s presentation. It was well structured and combined Tech- How-to with the even more important Pedagogy- Why. Brian remnded and inspired me to continue my efforts to take video conferencing at my school to the next level.

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