The article
“Bring the World into Your Classroom”, demonstrates all of the benefits that
video conferencing brings to the classroom. It tells how with the use of video
conferencing students can do activities such as virtual museums, and
interacting with other classrooms. There are two videoconference programs that
are described in the article. One is called Read
Around the Planet and the other
one is called Megaconference Jr.. The
Read Around the Planet program
involves two classrooms in videoconference sharing different reading
activities. Megaconference Jr. allows
students to join in activities and present projects within a twelve hour time
span video conference. The article then goes into discussion about how teachers
can implement videoconference into their classrooms. The article is the
finished by stating the skills that students will learn from videoconferencing,
such as “being able to work collaboratively and present project information”.
I think
that video conferencing could bring many opportunities for my students to learn
when I am an elementary school teacher. I would be interested in having my
students experience the virtual museums as they correlate with material that we
are covering. It would also be fun for the younger students if we did a craft
that corresponded with the museum that we explore. I think it would be very fun
for the students that I plan to teach to be able to participate in Read Around the Planet. I think
elementary students that I teach would enjoy dressing up in costumes and performing
plays for books that we read to other classrooms. For Megaconference Jr., my students could prepare projects for subjects
we are covering in history and present them.
This
article definitely represents ISTE standard number two. Standard number two is
titled Communication and Collaboration
and requires students to “use digital media and environments to communicate and
work collaboratively”. The article tells how students can use videoconferencing
as a means of “being able to work collaboratively and present project
information”. In video conferencing students are able to work with classrooms
of other cultures using various forms of digital media such as “email,
websites, and wikis”. Students are able to work on team projects or plays in
the classroom that they can share with large audiences on videoconference.
Learning & Leading with Technology,
34-35.
This videoconferencing idea is becoming a huge resource tool in education! They are actually beginning to experiment with "flipped classroom", which means teachers are videotaping themselves presenting lectures and students watch at home and then the next day the students come to school and go over classwork/ homework. I think this would be super time efficient and more beneficial to students' learning (provided the student actually watches the clips, of course). It will be interesting to see how "flipped classroom" plays out...
ReplyDeleteBut back to the topic of video CONFERENCING. The only problem is technology can have communication difficulties (dropped service, glitches, etc.) and it takes away from a personal relationship.
Nonetheless, this is the way things are headed but we have maintained relationships despite the screen in front of us. And technology has been beneficial in that- if two+ people are all far away, then they can videoconference.
There are pros and cons.