Video-conferencing has come a long way in a short time. Once, you needed special ISDN digital phone lines and a stack of expensive, specialist hardware and software. Picture and sound quality was patchy at best, and a lack of standardisation made it hard to communicate with anyone who didn’t use the same brand of equipment. Now, almost any school with a cheap webcam and a broadband connection can join in.
Collette Cotton, ICT co-ordinator at St Mary’s CofE Primary School in Folkestone, is a big fan. Her pupils have used video-conferencing to collaborate on a bird project with students in a school in Mississippi; brushed up on their French skills with a Canadian school in British Columbia; and talked about, and exchanged, books with a school in Maryland, Washington.
“It’s a great way of meeting others and sharing ideas,” says Collette. “It’s incredible for speaking and listening skills, because the children have to speak and listen carefully.”
Flexible and affordable
Video-conferencing can take place one-to-one on a laptop, or with whole groups communicating with a projector and whiteboard. St Mary’s for example, uses Apple’s iSight webcam, which costs less than £100. “The clarity you get from the camera is amazing,”says Collette. Agreed communication standards have made it easier to connect to others, too.
“Three or four years ago, the use of video-conferencing was minute, now it’s a regular resource for many schools,” says Mike Griffiths, a teacher who regularly uses video-conferencing. It has proved so useful, that earlier this year, the London Grid for Learning launched Click2Meet version 4, a pan-London video conferencing network, that is free to all London schools and LEAs.
Global Leap
One of the most impressive educational video-conferencing initiatives is Global Leap, which was launched by Tony Blair four years ago. Originally set-up and supported by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), it now has almost 1,000 schools registered worldwide.
Mike Griffiths is also the project manager for Global Leap. “It’s not about technology, it’s about collaboration,” he says. “And it’s happening at a local, national and international level. It’s like a global staffroom, where teachers can exchange idea and practice.” There’s also lots of collaboration with museums and galleries around the world and during the last school year, more than 1,000 classroom events were available to schools. All key stages and subject areas are covered.
An extra dimension
One event, “Mutiny on the Bounty”, involved staff and students working with three institutions: the National Maritime Museum, The National Archives and the Museum of Tropical Queensland in Australia. The first stop, at the National Maritime, allowed the students to get background information about the mutiny. They then looked at Captain Bligh’s original documents at the National Archives, before linking up with Australia to see some of the artefacts recovered from the ship Pandora, which was dispatched to deal with the mutineers, but sank off the Australian coast.
Another project, “Human Rights”, involved 12 schools in the US and UK whose students were able to see and hear survivors of the Holocaust talking about their experiences. There were also discussions on Rwanda, Sudan, Bosnia and Cambodia - the latter included a talk from someone who had seen the “killing fields”. “Video-conferencing just adds an extra dimension. To get someone talking face-to-face with your peer group is powerful experience,” explains Griffiths.
When teachers in a New York school acquired their first interactive whiteboards, teachers from a school in Hull ran a training course on how to use them via a video-conference link. “There’s so much good practice out there now and teachers should be sharing it. It should be about collaboration and not competition,” adds Griffiths.
Growing community
Global Leap already has hundreds of events lined up for the 2005/6 academic year and the project is ready to offer schools advice on video-conferencing and even loan equipment (although there is a waiting list). Although the DfES funded Global Leap for the first three years and technology agency Becta provided funds for the fourth; but the project is now self-funding and relies on the sponsorship and goodwill of its participants.
It’s a shame that a project that’s helping to bring people together from all around the world, helping to foster greater understanding towards others and is broadening the educational experience of thousands of pupils, now has to survive on a hand-to-mouth existence.
Top tips
- Video-conferencing doesn’t require lots of expensive equipment - a cheap web cam, broadband connection and some software will get your school up and running
- Talk to your LEA or RBC for advice. Becta and Global Leap (see below) can supply it, too
- A good connection is more important than lots of fancy kit. Global Leap provides a free automated connectivity quality test on its website
- A digital projector and whiteboard, or an interactive whiteboard, are useful when using video-conferencing with a large group
- Good loudspeakers will greatly improve sound quality, particularly on laptop
computers
- Some school firewalls (which are designed to control internet traffic) can block video-conferencing systems, so advice may be needed on getting around this problem
- If you’re contacting schools abroad, bear in mind time zones. You may need to be in school earlier or later to connect to another school at a reasonable time for them
- Video-conferencing works best as part of other forms of online collaboration (such as email or chat)
- Use the opportunity to display things as well as talk about them. Get children to show each other pictures and artefacts, for example
Contacts
