1. Scott Armburger Director of Computing Services Franklin Area School District sarmburger@fasd.k12.pa.us

3.  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 2007-2008 school year.

4.  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 +

6. 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

7.  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.

8. 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

9.  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

10.  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

11.  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

12.  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.

13.  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.

14.  Create an email 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 emails being sent to determine Video Conference particulars  Try to focus on collaboration video conferences

15.  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

16.  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.

17.  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

18.  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

19.  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 E-Mail Mailing List  Collaboration VC’s

20.  Polycom/Tandberg Unit  Elluminate  Skype

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

22.  Video Conferencing in the Classroom Scott Armburger Director of Computing Services Franklin Area School District sarmburger@fasd.k12.pa.us Special Thanks to my tech staff for making all these Video Conferences happen and also for all the help with tech camp every year.

23.  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.