It’s easy to get distracted by the technical details of video-conferencing, but it’s more important to focus on the practical benefits for both teachers and pupils.
The most basic one is that it allows visual and audio communication between people in different locations, and can therefore eliminate the need for teachers to travel from site to site. This will be particularly useful for specialist subjects such as maths or music, where teachers tend to be in short supply.
However, video-conferencing can also be used in more imaginative and innovative ways to provide teaching experiences that might not be possible using traditional methods.
One particularly appealing aspect of video-conferencing is the ability to conduct 'virtual field trips' to visit locations that might normally be too far away for a normal school trip. It can also give schools access to experts in various subjects who might not normally be able to visit schools in person.
Wales advanced
The Welsh Video Network (WVN) is one of the most advanced video-conferencing systems for educational users in the UK, and it regularly conducts video-conferencing sessions with outside experts.
“Quite a lot of museums and galleries in the UK offer content via video-conferencing,” says Alison Walker, Teaching and learning adviser at WVN. “The National Portrait Gallery, Cabinet War Rooms, and National Archives in London all offer content. It’s a huge benefit for schools that are long way from London.”
The London Symphony Orchestra has been particularly active in this field, regularly conducting music ‘master classes’ with schools across the UK. Schools can go even further afield as well. The Welsh Video network has linked with marine science experts at the University of Cape Town in South Africa for a series of lectures, while the West Midlands-based Digischool project has followed a group of divers as they explore the Red Sea.
Obviously, many of these projects have direct relevance to specific aspects of curriculum teaching. However, video-conferencing has the potential to go beyond the strict limits of the curriculum.
Beyond the curriculum
The Digital Media Education Centre in Devon links a number of small village schools in the area to encourage “children’s growing awareness of the world beyond their own school and village”. And, of course, with video-conferencing that world can extend well beyond the bounds of the pupil’s own local area.
Global Leap is an organisation that provides schools with advice on video-conferencing, and can help to put UK schools in touch with other schools all around the world. Its founder, Mike Griffith – a former deputy head who had a particular interest in video-conferencing – says that he is currently conducting projects that link UK schools with other schools in the US, Australia, Pakistan and India.
“It really just depends on where you want to go in the world,” he says. One recent project allowed two UK schools studying human rights issues to speak to some of the world’s top experts on genocide who were based in the US."
Speaking your language
Language training is an obvious use for video-conferencing, as it is so easy to link up with schools in other countries, and Global Leap is also involved with the British Council’s Comenius project, part of the DfES’ national language strategy. Comenius often provides travel grants for teachers and pupils to visit their counterparts in Europe – “but with video-conferencing they can meet each other anytime. That’s what’s so exciting about video-conferencing”.
Staying in touch
All this video globe-trotting certainly sounds glamorous, but there’s one other aspect of video-conferencing that can help teachers in their daily routine in their own schools. In Birmingham, Athena has started a project called Headroom, which allows headteachers in several schools to conduct meetings via video-conferencing. As well as cutting down on travelling time, the Headroom project also helps to keep teachers in touch with each other, and offers the luxury of being able to compare notes on a day-to-day basis. As one Athena teacher asked, “How often do people in one school know what’s happening in another school half a mile down the road?”
Resources
The Global Leap project was initially funded by the DfES, but is now funded by subscriptions from participating schools. The basic subscription is £195 per year, which gives schools access to a regular timetable of video-conferencing events, as well as a network of UK teachers who are keen to explore the uses of video-conferencing.
Another useful organisation is JANET, the education and research network, which can provide information to schools interested in getting started with video-conferencing.
Staff at the Devon Digital Media Education Centre have produced a useful book called Video Conferencing In The Classroom, which can be ordered for £5 postage from DMEC, or downloaded in electronic PDF format from the BECTA website.
