Monday, November 8, 2010

Video Conferencing in the Classroom

Today, we had the opportunity to experience a video conference with the Royal Tyrrell Museum.  I was amazed at how well the technology worked in this particular situation.  Video conferencing is a technology that I have never really thought of using in the classroom.  Prior to this experience, I probably would have avoided using video conferencing for fear of ineffective technology.  I now know that video conferencing  has evolved to a point where the quality of the video mimics speaking to someone, or a group of people, in person.  I think it is a fabulous way to bring an expert into the classroom.  I say this because field trips are time consuming, require extensive planning and are expensive.  Having an expert come into a classroom also requires a lot of time and money.  A video conference provides students with an opportunity to talk to an expert while at the same time being time and cost effective for the teacher and the school.  Video conferencing also gives students access to experts and other people around the world that they would not otherwise have access to.

As a future educator, it is important that I understand how video conferencing works and what kind of sessions are appropriate for different grade levels.  Last class we were introduced to the three I's of video conferencing: Interaction, Innovation and Information.  It is important that educators choose video conferencing sessions that provide information that corresponds to course objectives, are presented in a way that students find engaging and are interactive so that students feel a connection to the material presented.

Video conferencing is not the only type of multimedia that can and should be used in the classroom.  Things that I found interesting in this weeks module were the effective use of video in the classroom and the online pig dissection.  I like the idea of using video in a classroom but the fact that students often view video watching as free time is somewhat discouraging.  Some pointers to avoid this are previewing material,  selecting appropriate clips and using the pause button to assess understanding and provide students with enough time to digest information.  I also really enjoyed the idea of dissecting a pig online rather than in person.  I was traumatized by rat dissection in high school biology.  If I had had an opportunity to do the dissection online, I would have been much more comfortable.  Doing the dissection online is also more cost and time effective than doing it in person (think: obtaining enough pigs for a class to dissect and the time required for clean up!)  I am now aware of a number of different technologies that are extremely useful in the classroom and cannot wait to use them in my teaching career.