Lightning in a Bottle

We held a statewide videoconference last week, and really pushed the limits of the technology at hand. We had a great guest speaker named John Kuglin, who is currently the Director of Technology for the Eagle County school district in Colorado. We had 11 sites in Washington hooked up, and then John came in from Colorado. Things started off OK, but then a glitch kicked in that prevented us from seeing John. We could hear him, and he could hear and see us, but no video came through from his site (except for frustratingly brief two-second moments when his smiling face would appear).

So what did we do? Well thankfully, we were also running a screen-sharing session using a program called GotoMeeting from Citrix. Each of the eleven sites had, in addition to the videoconferencing system, a computer and projector hooked up. The computers were logged into a GotoMeeting session with John’s computer, so his Powerpoint presentation on 21st Century Students was being shared on each screen, projected in each of sites. Since we could hear his voice and see his screen, the presentation was able to continue with only minor problems. (John uses a lot of videos in his presentation, and the screen-sharing system couldn’t handle those. They had to be skipped.) There is also a chat window embedded into the product, so I could send messages back and forth to John and to the facilitators at other sites without interrupting the videoconference.

The added advantage of the GotoMeeting software was that, in addition to preventing a disaster, it actually works far better than sharing a PowerPoint in the videoconferencing system. The video quality of the average video conference is murky at best, and it can render presentation slides almost completely unreadable. Through the screen sharing, it comes through as sharp and clear as if you are watching in on the presenter’s own computer.

Just to be clear, there are other similar products besides GotoMeeting - WebEx has a new similar product, and there are others such as Elluminate and Adobe’s Acrobat Connect. Regardless of the product, however, it was just fun to try out new ways to present and collaborate.

We are pleased to be hosting the Metiri Group for a two-day workshop on May 30 & 31. The presenters will be Cheryl Lemke and Ed Coughlin, and it promises to be a great program. The focus of this seminar will be on how to measure the impact of technology in schools, a topic that is of pretty high priority to almost everyone I know working in our districts. Cheryl and Ed have an enormous amount of experience on this issue, and have worked on evaluating technology in education in a variety of contexts in districts states across the country. I’m really looking forward to what they have to say, and the conversations that will develop between our participants!

Registration is $275 for an individual, $500 for two, and $225 for each additional registrant from a single district. We really encourage team registrations to have a more meaningful experience. You can download a form with more information and a registration information here. I hope we see you in May!

I just read an article about a new line of multimedia-equipped GPS units. Targeted at museums and historical sites, these weatherproofed devices have color screens and can store up to 4 gigabytes of audio and video files, and as you walk around they monitor your location and can display information about the the significant items nearby.

As a history buff, this sounds pretty cool. But what really intrigued me was the idea of putting the devices in kids’ hands. Not to learn from them (which would, of course, be pretty interesting), but to have the students actually create the content that plays back. I can’t imagine there’s enough of a market for the Historical Walking Tour of Burien to generate much investment, but a team of students could put something together that would be a very popular item at the local library and historical society. And of course, there could also be nature walks in the local parks, and many other ideas that creative students and teachers could develop.

I wonder if they send out evaluation units…

For those of you reading this in the Pacific Northwest, we are partnering again this summer with NCCE to offer Digital Photography Bootcamps. It’s held at the Pack Forest Conference Center near Mt. Rainier, which provides a marvelous setting for learning about digital photography. Each session is three days and two nights, providing instruction on a variety of topics and lots of time for practice and application. Anne Allen and I had a great time last summer, and are really looking forward to the sessions this summer!

For more information and registration, visit NCCE’s website, or email me at cmcquinn at psesd.org.

Edweek has published an excellent article on cyberbullying. It gives a comprehensive look at the different forms of online harassment, impacts on students, and strategies (and challenges) that schools face in dealing with the situation.

The most important step is awareness. Schools need to understand that this is happening, so they can be vigilant in uncovering it. I think most harassers operate with the assumption that the adults in the system are clueless to what they’re doing, and sadly they are often right.

Today was the day that, at three seconds past 1:02, the time and date was 1:02:03 04/05/06. I took a screen capture of the event on my network-synchronized computer clock.

And on a completely different note, this is my 300th post. Whew! I’ve been doing this for three years, which is hard to believe. Thanks to Karl for getting me started on this and encouraging me to keep at it. It’s been a blast, and I’m looking forward to doing for quite some time to come!

Seed Magazine has now posted their fascinating article on the research regarding how we do (or don’t) grow new brain cells from the February issue. I referred to this article in a previous post.

I love it from two entirely different perspectives. First, as an educator, the insight into how our environment hinders or enhances the growth of new brain cells is really powerful. We now have evidence that the kind of learning environment many of us seek for students actually makes a difference in the physical structure of kids’ brains. When we talk about shaping their minds, it’s literal!

Second, as a science-type person, I am fascinated to read about how a researcher with fresh eyes can come in and turn a long-accepted fact (”People do not grow new brain cells”) and turn it on its head. This doesn’t just happen in science - any profession develops a herd mentality, which is why sometimes the most clueless people on any given topic are experts in that field. (Witness the mass delusion of investment experts during the tech bubble, for instance!) I have great respect for the kind of person that can come in and see through the unchallenged assumptions and argue for a radically new vision against long-established thinking.

The question that it brings to mind is this - how do we innoculate ourselves from this kind of group thinking? I hope we can use blogs and the internetworking created through Web 2.0 to help challenge incorrect group-thinking, instead of reinforcing it.

Based on the lack of a single person thinking that I needed to have the comment function returned, I won’t be turning on comments. You can always feel free to drop me an email at cmcquinn at psesd.org if you want to ask a question or make a suggestion. I’m always interested in more email!

Yes, I know. It’s a sickness.