IVC ShowcaseKansas Goes Mandarin
IVC (interactive video conferencing) makes it possible.
This showcase was presented by Ann Lundy, South Central Kansas Education Service Center and featured Audra May, Zhang Kun
This project began because the state of Kansas charged the districts with the expectation that every student by 2011 would be exposed to Mandarin Chinese. They have a lot of companies that send their employees to China to train and sometimes live there. The district began by just using a phone conference between an instructor and students and then evolved to interactive video conferencing. They employed an international teacher from China to teach state-wide which evolved into reaching students across the country. This could have never been possible without the Polycom technology. As the international speaker popped up on the screen she had the audience’s attention. She spoke English beautifully and shared her lovely culture with us, via video conference from Kansas. She explained a paraprofessional is used in most cases in the physical classroom while she virtually teaches the students. My mind was flowing with ideas of how we could video conference a teacher into our community and present cultures from all over the world using our pre-existing Tandberg equipment that has been shared by the Schultz Center. Even though we use the equipment at least 2-4 times per month, can you imagine the number of opportunities that lay just ahead for us.
Next stop… Polycom and Tandberg exhibitors to find out what options we have for our students and teachers.
IVC (interactive video conferencing) makes it possible.
This showcase was presented by Ann Lundy, South Central Kansas Education Service Center and featured Audra May, Zhang Kun
This project began because the state of Kansas charged the districts with the expectation that every student by 2011 would be exposed to Mandarin Chinese. They have a lot of companies that send their employees to China to train and sometimes live there. The district began by just using a phone conference between an instructor and students and then evolved to interactive video conferencing. They employed an international teacher from China to teach state-wide which evolved into reaching students across the country. This could have never been possible without the Polycom technology. As the international speaker popped up on the screen she had the audience’s attention. She spoke English beautifully and shared her lovely culture with us, via video conference from Kansas. She explained a paraprofessional is used in most cases in the physical classroom while she virtually teaches the students. My mind was flowing with ideas of how we could video conference a teacher into our community and present cultures from all over the world using our pre-existing Tandberg equipment that has been shared by the Schultz Center. Even though we use the equipment at least 2-4 times per month, can you imagine the number of opportunities that lay just ahead for us.
Next stop… Polycom and Tandberg exhibitors to find out what options we have for our students and teachers.
Hang on to your cowboy hats, Chets, because I think we are about to embark on another great adventure.
7 comments:
K.K.,
I can only imagine what ideas are swimming around in your mind. Can't wait to hear more.
Deb
I'm ready KK. Let's contact Mrs. Sharp in Japan and Kristy in Yakutat, Alaska.
See ya soon,
Karen
Oh my gosh! How cool is this! Dave, are you listening?! Actually first grade is looking for someone to teach them about culture and the country of Australia for our theme next year and to work with our Mem Fox Author Study. See if you can find us some contacts! dayle
It was really advantage that video conferencing was developed.
I believe our district already has four teachers from China that are in Duval County high school classrooms for the next school year. Maybe we could contact them and to create our link. I learned about them at the ESOL banquet.
Lori M.
KK,
Leaves me wondering if we need more bandwidth. Can you find out how Kansas technically makes this work because remember how slow the system got just doing one live stream to Hollywood? We hawe the ideas but sometimes we are eager to embark and don't have the systems in place to get going.
Suzanne, I am so glad you mentioned bandwidth. Both companies reassured me that that will not be a problem. We will see.
I also picked up some ideas of even working around our conferencing system and just using our computers. Isn't that cool?
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