Training for teaching via videoconference

December 7, 2007 | Tagged debate, Professional Development |

I had an interesting (heated) discussion with someone recently about the need for training educators in the use of videoconferencing for teaching & learning. This person considered that it wasn’t needed!!! (He wasn’t an educator himself.)

I see there are 3 levels to be considered:

Awareness - what is the technology & what can it do (or not)?
Operational - button pushing - being able to operate it.
Effective use - designing & delivering great learning experiences.

What do you think? Do educators need training in the effective use of videoconferencing? What sorts of things should be included in any training program?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts. I’ll collate them & share back to everyone. (I’ll also post this on the Facebook videoconferencing group for a wider response.)

Comments

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5 Comments so far

Rich Hum on December 8, 2007 2:16 am
Of course teachers need training on effective use of vtc technology. In our state- Alaska- tons of money has been spent to equip schools and districts with distance communication tech…. but little to no money/energy has been spent to teach teachers how to effectively use it (beyond button pushing). The price for that is in missed opportunities for students to connect and interact with people and places all around the world and a lot of wasted equipment gathering spider webs in some dark closet.

Teachers should be taught/reminded about….

Sound instructional practices- the Balanced Instruction Model (BIM)

Then they should be given examples of how videoconferencing, web 2.0, and the many other forms of distance communication we have available to us can help support each part of BIM.

They should also be shown examples of how not to use it!
Carol on December 9, 2007 11:19 pm
Hear, hear Rich. Thanks.
Roxanne Glaser on December 10, 2007 9:06 am
Hi, Carol and Rich,

Absolutely, teachers need training and support as they venture into using videoconferencing.

I have lurked in a high school class that one of our districts is participating in and it is obvious that the teacher is uncomfortable with the technology and did not receive any training on how to adapt materials for distance learning. It is one of the WORST examples of teaching I have ever seen. (This was beyond my control, so I just watched and learned what not to do. )

The majority of our videoconference events are with elementary and middle school classes. The most effective training we do is the intense week-long 123VC: Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with videoconferencing. (www.123vc.net) Every person who attends this training ends up with a deep understanding of how the technology works and what you can do with it.

Any other trainings are really short, just-in-time trainings that teach the teachers one or two skills that they will use in a student project. It is working very well and I am seeing our teachers increase in their usage and quality of interactions. I used to try to teach every possible thing I knew in a session because I was afraid I would never see the teachers again. Now, I carefully select the tool/technology that needs to be used to achieve the goal of a student/teacher project. Think “new learning” embedded in a student project.

Examples of our projects are available online at http://www.edlink12.net, http://www.edlink12.net/holidays, and http://www.edlink12.net/monstermatch. Our projects use videoconferencing as the main technology with supportive technologies such as wikis, Moodle, blogs, and Flickr.
Carol on December 13, 2007 11:11 pm
Thanks for your ideas & the links Roxanne. I couldn’t get the links to link - even when I took the commas out. Any suggestions?
Roxanne Glaser on December 14, 2007 2:22 pm
Carol, we are in the process of virtualizing our servers and they were on the fritz for a couple of days. Let’s try this again.

http://www.edlink12.net
http://www.edlink12.net/holidays
http://www.edlink12.net/monstermatch
http://www.edlink12.net/wwr

and on top of that, my blog was upgraded and it was sick for a couple of days. I think all sites are now “recovered”.