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Wednesday, November 11, 2009

NaBloPoMo Day 11: Live Video Web Conferencing in a face to face class?

Ok, so one of my assignments at work has been to develop an online course about a tool we provide for doing live Video Web Conferencing. I have been uncertain as to how exactly your average classroom teacher would use this. Two things have changed my vision on it.

I was with the State Technology Specialist last Friday and he said to me: "You guys (meaning me and my colleagues) shouldn't be teaching Word Processing. You should be on the cutting edge."

I realize that developing a course on collaborating via web conferencing would definitely be more cutting edge than teaching Word Processing.

Secondly, and this came today. One of the folks involved in using the software and a real advocate for the software invited me to watch her train a teacher on the software. The teacher was using some of my friends materials and she conducted a couple of authentic review type questions. She used the software the way I have seen people use a clicker system. She asked questions. Allowed kids to chat about their ideas for an answer and then submit an answer. One of the major things I noticed was that all the kids were engaged and working. But yet again, I don't think technology inherently made it engaging. It was good quality content. But all in all It was terrific! The kids were engaged and we had a great time. I really think I can see where to use this better now.

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