Internship--Week 3

Making Progress. I'm knee deep in articles and books about video conferencing and am enjoying it immensely. I've completed the first draft of the annotated bibliography and have also started using some of the resources I uncovered to begin identifying possible video conferencing resources. The Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration will likely be the most comprehensive resource.

I'm a little unsure how to approach the subject with some teachers, partly because I'm unsure how providers feel about conducting multiple events on the same day. If I work with a core academic teacher who has four classes, the program would work best if the teacher could bring all four classes at their regulary scheduled time to the event. At the same time, exploratory teachers meet with students on an A/B schedule, so an event for 6th grade art would need to be arranged for two consecutive days. All the what ifs are giving me a headache.

I consulted our school's curriculum map for the year have a general idea of the topics teachers will be covering the next few weeks. I used those topics to begin searching the catalog, but haven't find anything perfect yet. I'm still looking though and hope to be able to approach a teacher some time next week with a possible program event.

Internship--Week 2

I would call this week my research week. I spent a good portion of time researching on USC's website to find articles to begin my annotated bibliography. I did have some setbacks as I searched. After my first session, I thought had identified 10 different articles using the search term video-conferencing. After I printed them, though, (I like to read and highlight articles) I realized most of the articles were about teaching a distance education course. It turned out only three of the articles were along the lines of scheduling with an expert group like a museum or organization for some kind of video conference event with students.

I decided to change my search term to virtual field trip. Turns out that term can mean exactly what I was looking for, but it can also mean just a website with links/photos about a location. While helpful, those vft's lack the interactivity of an live expert responding to students' questions. After all this, I decided to combine the two phrases, and ended up with a good number articles that included both search terms. I even started compiling my annotated bibliography. I'm assuming we're using APA for this, right?

Internship--Week 1

This week has been full of decisions--I'm finally glad to start working toward some goals. It was so difficult developing my own goals and having to put them down on paper. I really struggled with where to begin. After looking at some examples from other semesters, I like the idea of creating video tutorials about different topics. In my job, I get asked lots of repeat questions, so it will be nice to be able to direct students and teachers to video resources that are available 24/7.

When I starting thinking about potential supervisors, I chose one of the district's instructional specialists in charge of technology. She has helped the media specialists with a recent changeover in circulation systems, has pushed for smartboard integration, and assists teachers with designing school-based webpage. When we met, she liked the tutorial ideas, but also mentioned that the district has some video-conferencing equipment that isn't being used. I agreed to take that on as a part of my internship! So there we are--video tutorials for students in using our circulation system, for teachers using email, and both groups using our website. I'll also be researching the possibilities for video-conferencing and then collaborating with a classroom teacher for some conferencing event. It will be a busy semester!