This year we've been using a new (to us) online meeting tool
GoToMeeting to facilitate our online class sessions held once or twice a week. This tool has been working extraordinarily well. I've written
previously about this availability and feel that it could be a central component in many teachers activity set.
The Power Of Availability
A common theme of mine recently has been to bring the learning to where students are. This translates to physical pieces of technology and ethereal networks, but also time. Young people are so awesomely busy with a platitude of interesting and engaging things therefore there may not be time during the school day outside of class to sit and answer questions. This is especially true if a school doesn't have study halls or extra help periods built into the day. In the evening both myself and my students are available thats where the power of availability comes in. The video example below took place on February 5th, 2014 which coincidentally happened to be digital learning day. Since we had known that there would be a snow storm that day, I scheduled the session- these sessions are always optional.
Making It Easy To Connect
Choosing an online video conference tool should be easy. My main requirement is that it is easy for participants (in this case students) to join. They should not have to sign up for anything or have a special account to remember. Additional layers of security should be easy to enable with unique password entrance into the online space. Once in the session, we have been using microphones which has negated the use of the chat box that used to facilitate the discussions. Much more involved, lively and detailed conversation and questioning can take place when you can hear each other rather than just text.
Pulling It All Together
While there is an embedded recording feature, I chose to record my sessions using
camtasia and then upload to an
ensemble video playlist for later viewing. As in previous iterations, these archived sessions provide an additional resource for students to review content and discussion. Modern tools allow us to connect more frequently and engage in quality discussion at virtually any time and place. I'm proud that we are pushing the boundaries of what is possible in today's school environment in a thoughtful and productive way.
