Internship--Post 7.5

We'll I'm sold on videoconferences now! Even though it took me forever to finally get one scheduled, I'd say videoconferences are a future tool we all could use. My internship supervisor told me that EdTech had a videoconference keynote speaker with an astronaut!

Anyway, about today. Since this was my first videoconference, I wanted to start with a conference for one class--not four (each core teacher teaches four blocks because the teacher is on a four-person team; one teaches language arts, one teaches math, one teaches science, and one teaches social studies.) I selected this language arts class for a couple of reasons: 1. the teacher was willing, 2. the class was covering content that I could match with a potential content provider, and 3. the content provider was easy to work with, 4. this single gender class includes some students who often struggle with making connections between what they read and the world around them. This was a perfect choice. The all boy class loves sports, they'd just read Maniac Magee, a Newbery award-winning book about a boy who befriends a former MLB player, and the guys are extremely motivated by technology.

This morning, the students came in and were so exicted. When they say the big flat screen tv that was in the classroom, they got excited. And when we called the Hall of Fame and someone on the other end responded, they were impressed. Their goal for today was to record a broadcast of a baseball game in the old style of radio where sound effects had to be used. We recorded the broadcast using Audacity, and the Hall of Fame plans to host the file on their own site. I'll share it here, too, since I'm so proud of this group. The teacher even said he wished his other all-boy class could have experienced the conference. I invited our school's literacy coach and MYP instructional coach, and both want to share the outcomes with other teachers. I'd like to write a grant to fund more conferences throughout the rest of the school year now that I have the equipment at my school.