Flies on the Wall

I have referred to myself before as a 'fly on the wall' in my work with C.I.S. 339 School of Technology, and today I had two other 'flies' observing proceedings. The two visitors were Dr. Michael Fox (psychologist and high performance coach for athletes and businesses), and his wife Karen, an Assistant Principal at St. Ursula's College, and one of the best educators with whom I have had the pleasure of working along side.

Michael and Karen sat in with me during two morning Skype meetings, and were astounded by the ease with which the teachers and administrators at C.I.S. 339 handle not only the technology, but grapple as well with pedagogical issues like differentiation and student goal-setting.

The visitors were first treated to a Differentiation Task Force planning meeting with the AIS, IEP and Bilingual Coordinators, Ms. McHale, Ms. Lovett and Mr. Betancourt respectively. After making the initial Skype contact, we flicked between shared Google Docs and Google Presentations, and ventured into discussions about how we would live stream the next Differentiation Task Force meeting using ustream.tv.

This level of comfort not only with the technology but also with such effective collaborative planning, barely existed before the start of the school year. Without a doubt, technology has been our accelerant for positive school change.

Following this first meeting, Karen and Michael were welcomed into a Curriculum Team session, with noone in the team even slightly fazed by their virtual presence. This time Google Spreadsheets came into play as we discussed our need to 'close the loop' in terms of some systems in place to support teachers. These systems involve members of the Curriculum Team providing instructional and goal-setting feedback to teachers on Google Docs, which are all tracked on a spreadsheet.

Every day there are exciting new developments, whether they be a class recording podcasts, a teacher using chat for the first time, a novel use for blogs, or making contact with educators in other schools through an iteach-ilearn ning, set up by Lisa Nielsen.

What is most exciting about all of this is that there is a sense of a shared vision and a united commitment to improving learning opportunities (for everyone within the school community) together.

Testing ooVoo

I'm liking what ooVoo.com has to offer in terms of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), in that it can be used with up to 6 video contacts simultaneously, unlike Skype. One thing against ooVoo is definitely the slow download to get the initial software, but once operational, it is much like Skype.

Skype still has some extra features (such as emoticons in chat), but I also like the ability to capture snapshots or video (and then save as an avi file) that ooVoo offers.

Note to self: Trialing the application on two computers only a short distance from each other probably doesn't give a great indication of audio quality, and using your son as a stand-in on your wife's account probably doesn't bode well with the teenager.

339web

Using 'Skype'

Skype is easy to download for both Mac and PC, and best of all it is free. It enables voice and video calling over long distance, and is user friendly. We trialed this video conferencing option a number of times, and found it amazing.

The most obvious problems in commencement are usually due to cameras or microphones not being connected properly. Skype has many other associated applications, enabling recording, large file sharing, desktop sharing, and interactive whiteboards. Not all of these features are available with Mac though, and sometimes the sharing can be very slow or problematic.