Scott Armburger Director of Computing Services Franklin Area School District

 If you belong to an IU5 or IU6 school District, you probably have one somewhere in your district.  One Polycom VSX 7000 was bought for each district through the E-Fund grant during the school year.

 How many Video Conferences does your school district do per year?  None  Less than 5  Less than 10  Less than 20  Less than 30  31 +

Only used video conference equipment twice during the first year: 1. The initial test with the IU 2. Where in Pa Video Conference  Where - 4 th grade at Victory Elementary  Who - 6 schools from across Pennsylvania  Content -  Our School gave clues about our location  Our students had to use an Internet search engine to research clues in order to guess the other school’s locations.  Review - Teacher and students loved it

 Teachers did not really know what it was or what to expect.  Very little information was given to teachers regarding video conferences.  No demonstrations were done for staff only.  Teachers were not sure how to correlate this new technology with their existing lessons.

How to increase teacher interest in Video Conferences:  Contact a teacher at each building who could be persuaded into doing one video conference by:  Help determine what can be tied into their curriculum  Offer 1 to 1 support from tech department on day of conference  Encourage Principal and other teachers to attend the initila video conference  Tech Camp with a focus on video conferencing  Held August 24 – August 28, 2009  Volunteer signup for teachers and staff  Conducted 14 video conferences to different sites during the week  Held drawings for prizes at the end of the day Tech Camp 2009 Schedule

 Set up a schedule to accommodate ½ hour to hour long video conferences  Contact Video Conference providers  Most have teacher trainings for free  Some gave free Video Conferences as a door prize.  Modify schedule around the Video Conferences  Add the other instructional classes around Video Conferences, such as:  Office 2007  File Management  Web Design

 Smart Board Training  Scheduled as training for Tuesday and Wednesday  In order to get a smart board in our district, you have to attend the 2 day training.  24 people must be signed up for those 2 days  Mandatory Attendance – On Tuesday all teachers attending SmartBoard training had to attend a video conference  As a result of this people showed up on Thursday and Friday for the Video Conferences that

 Summer of 2009 was the first time we held a summer workshop on Technology  On average had 15 people a day  Around 40 different teachers took part at some point during the week  Collaboration - Teachers showed others what they learned during the week  Teachers are already interested in this year’s tech camp

 Had over 50 video conferences this year at all instructional levels  Used 6 different providers  Approx. 30 different teachers participated in Video Conferences  Purchased 2 more video conferencing units to meet demand  Set a line item in our budget for Video Conferences  Plan to have a Video Conference unit for each building by 2011.

 Scheduling the Video Conference  Create a separate shared calendar for Video Conference scheduling  Make sure you have time to get the equipment to each building at least 24 hours before Video Conference  Do test calls prior to ALL Video Conferences  Video Conference Equipment Training  Train each tech aid how in the use of the equipment and how to set it up.  Train one person from each building to aide in setup and dismantling of equipment.

 Create an template for scheduling the Video Conferences  Make sure to have date, time, teachers name, building, room being used, name of Video Conference, IP Address connection, provider, grade level, and number of students  Add a backup date and time in case of last minute technical difficulties  Eliminate the amount of s being sent to determine Video Conference particulars  Try to focus on collaboration video conferences

 Determine the amount of interest you have from your teachers  Purchase in bulk from the provider  Contact each provider for bulk purchase information  Each vendor has different prices and bulk levels  Purchase at least 5 more from each provider than what is needed  Do the bulk purchases before school starts  Complete in July if possible  Allows scheduling to start before school starts  Vendors fill up fast

 Created a spreadsheet for each vendor  Allows you to keep track of how many were purchased and how many are filled.  Include this same info into your Video Conference template  Track teachers that requested Video conferences that did not get one due limited funds.  Makes budgeting easier  Helps to determine how many Video Conferences will be purchased next year.

 E-Missions by Wheeling Jesuit University E-Missions by Wheeling Jesuit University  Over 10 missions this year  Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum  Over 30 VC this year  Cleveland Museum of Art Cleveland Museum of Art  Over 15 VC this year  MAGPI MAGPI  3 VC this year  PDE PDE  2 VC this year

 How and when to cancel the connection to Video Conference provider due to technical issues  Make sure Video Conference units are configured for each building (DHCP address Reservations)  Make sure firewalls are configured to pass this traffic

 CILC – Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration CILC – Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration  MAGPI MAGPI  TWICE – Two Way Interactive Connections in Education TWICE – Two Way Interactive Connections in Education  PDE Webinars PDE Webinars  CFF Coaches Mailing List  Collaboration VC’s

 Polycom/Tandberg Unit  Elluminate  Skype

 Share what you may be doing different with video conferencing in your school district

 Video Conferencing in the Classroom Scott Armburger Director of Computing Services Franklin Area School District Special Thanks to my tech staff for making all these Video Conferences happen and also for all the help with tech camp every year.

 Tech Camp 2010 Draft Tech Camp 2010  This camp was designed for our preparations for one – one netbooks in our high school next year  We are considering opening this up to our students this year  If you are interesting in sending someone for a day, contact me.