This is an extract from an American article so the funding bit is not really relevant but this article does support my view on the use of webcams etc for video confrencing so I thought I'd post it for interest.
"Over the past three years the demand for video conferencing in the classroom has grown significantly. As the bandwidth necessary for quality video calls has become more readily available, an increasing number of schools and central offices are utilizing video conferencing as a convenient and reliable tool to bring administrators, teachers, and students together - anytime and anyplace.
Classrooms require room-based video conferencing systems for successful collaboration. Small web cams, although inexpensive and readily available for desktop video conferencing, do not serve a classroom of students who want to consult with a subject matter expert, nor a group of teachers or principals who wish to participate in a professional development session. The challenge for schools, however, is finding the funds needed to purchase video conferencing technology."
Click here for the full article.
Dear All
I have been asked to publicise a VC event that will be celebrating the European day of languages on the 26th September. It is being organised by one of the London boroughs in partnership with ECML. http://www.ecml.at/edl/default.asp
Their request is:
WRBKC CLC vc Productions (inc.) will be organising a vc for Secondary schools in the morning and Primary schools during the afternoon of 26 September. We are looking for:
- Schools that are planning their own event for the day
- Schools that have vc links with a school in Europe
- Schools that have devised interesting multilingual/multicultural activities (or would like to do so for the event)
- ‘Interesting linguists’ – anyone that a school has found who can make language work fun
- Any other ideas that match the criteria of the day and make for a fun session
Connections will be via VC and streamed on the internet.
I know that there has been some good work with Primary schools in Kent using VC for MFL teaching so wondered if any of them would do a slot? Any specialist language colleges that could share their experiences? Please let me know if you are interested.
Regards
Heather
Heather Pettitt
SEGfL Project Officer
We do preliminary VCs for teachers and / or students to introduce them to using VC in maths (in particular, although much is appropriate to other curriculum areas also). See
http://motivate.maths.org/about/courses.php for more details.
Our full student programme can be found at
http://motivate.maths.org/conferences/conferencelist.php?prog=all. If you have any questions, please email me directly, and I will be happy to help.
I will also add you to my email lists for notification of new VC events, if you send me an email address and indicate what age group(s) you are interested in (primary, 11-16 and post-16). Note that our primary conferences are all free - many secondary schools invite their local feeder schools in for VCs as part of their outreach to them.
Regards
Jenny
--
Dr Jenny Gage
Coordinator, Motivate Project Centre for Mathematical Sciences
Millennium Mathematics Project Wilberforce Road
University of Cambridge Cambridge
44(0)1223 764278 or 44(0)777 189 1776 CB3 0WA
Fax: 44(0)1223 765900
http://www.motivate.maths.org
In February the SEGfL funded the development of a new VC workshop at the National Archives based on the English Civil War, and due to its popularity and success another week of Civil War videoconferences is being run this May.
The session is targeted at KS3, year 8 and will be based on a role play that will take you and your pupils back in time to 1642. The key characters will lead your pupils, who will be Royalists and Puritans alike, in an inspiring debate on the causes of the civil wars. Together they will argue the causes of the civil wars and the attitudes of people to them at the time.
In order to prepare for and research their part in the debate, a pack of preparation materials and teacher’s notes, are available online at http://www.learningcurve.gov.uk/workshops/civilwar.htm. The pack includes copies of original documents and simplified transcripts, such as the very important ‘ Petition from the citizens of London, Sept 1640’ on which the pupils structure their arguments.
A flyer is attached with all the details on the workshop and how to book. The week of workshops will take place 14th May to the 18th May 2007 and are free and open to all.
Hurry to book your place!
Regards
Heather Pettit