Cisco WebEx | A New Virtual Classroom Tool

"This technology allows teachers to bridge the gap between school and community without the time, safety issues and expense of a field trip.  [It] allows us to increase the number of stakeholders in the education process which provides students with a much more diverse education.  Students can be face to face with someone in their desired field which can increase the buy in by students to their own education."

- Lisa Tomlin | Teacher NCWHS 

"I think this tech has incredible potential for educational use.  First it allows instructors to visit the class room without having to travel to school therefore increasing the number of hours available to teach.  Second, it allows recording so the seminar can be saved for rewatching or viewing by other classes.  [WebEx] also allows for multimedia presentation using videos, webpages, computer coding, graphical displays and any number of file formats.  The audio and video into the room allows for [the outside party to view] the classes."

- Dr. Andrew Bland | MD Nephrology 

These two quotes, the first from Lisa Tomlin (Science teacher at Normal West) and the second from Dr. Andrew Bland, MD Nephrology, demonstrate the vast potential found within our new Cisco WebEx system.  This system is made up of multiple parts.

NASA Comes to Normal

What do an Oceanographer, Business Manager, and Education Specialist have in common?  They all work for the Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) at NASA and recently participated in a video conference session with a class of fifth graders at Sugar Creek Elementary!  The NASA professionals shared their experiences on the Mars rover program and fielded questions filled with excitement from eleven year olds for almost a full hour.  The experience was a demonstration of the immense educational potential when solid pedagogy and technology combine forces!

Hangouts III: Live Stream; Record with Hangouts on Air

Hangouts on Air (HoA) is a Google service that enables you to live stream your Hangout to YouTube and automatically records the event and publishes it to YouTube when completed.  You may ask, "why would I want to do that?"  Let's explore some exciting possibilities, and how to implement them!

Hangouts Post II: Connecting to the World

The world is quickly becoming smaller, more connected, and eager to share.  Google Hangouts lets us bring that world into our classrooms and professional lives like never before!  Here are a few simple ideas for using Hangouts to broaden the horizons of your classroom.

Hangouts Post I: Connect with a Colleague

For our first in a series of posts on the value of using Google Hangouts in your work, I want to walk you through how to set up your first communication with a colleague in our district.  Topics in this post will include…

• Accessing Hangouts for the first time
• Searching for colleagues
• Starting a text based chat
• Doing your first video chat
• Sharing your screen with you colleagues