The VirtualClassroom is a program of Industry Canda's Communications Research Centre (CRC). Directed by John Spence, it explores how education can benefit from broadband communications technologies. I worked on the program for two summers, watching it grow in both achievements and focus.
My first summer began with the organization of an educational teleconference. Twelve Ottawa area high school students and four Singaporean students shared a virtual classroom, giving a presentation entitled Globalization and Its Effect on Culture. To add to the level of excitement, the Singaporean students were presenting from a ballroom in a hotel in downtown Singapore with the Ministers of Industry and Communications of the APEC nations, attending the Telmin-3 summit, as their audience.
The presentation was extremely well received, and the Singaporean students were bombarded with questions about their experience from the delegates. On his return from Singapore, Deputy Minister Kevin Lynch invited the Canadian students to his office to thank them.
From left to right, back row: Eric Tsang, Joanna Bostwick, Andrew , Lucas
Zarkovich, Deputy Minister Kevin Lynch, Geoff Irvine, John Spence, Gerry Turcotte, Yaacov Iland
Front Row: Emily Darby, Debbie Zucker, Jennifer, Elorra Farouhk, Melissa Moi, Ginny, Micheal
Absent: Chris, Greg
My role in the preparations for the teleconference included working with the students to do research and write the script, stage managing and coaching the students in communication skills, and teaching another group of students to run the ISABEL software, microphones and cameras that enabled the teleconference.
As much as possible, autonomy was given to the students. The Communications Research Centre's goal was to prove that students could not only benefit from broadband communication, but also make use of it without needing a team of trained technicians to run the equipment. Three students took the controls of the software, microphones and cameras for the entire session, which went off without a hitch. The student participants wrote the script and did a debriefing with teacher Geoff Irvine of Sir Wilfrid Laurier High School.
Half of the rest of my summer was spent researching what educators wanted from technology and how to give it to them. Along with two high school students, Elorra Faroukh and Debbie Zucker, I produced the content for a web resource on using information technology in education.
The other half was spent preparing a set of teleconferences with European schools called the SUSIE program. These conferences between Ottawa, Lucan(Ireland), Basil(Switzerland) and Berlin(Germany) were held through the next school year and were deeper examinations of many issues from the history and social studies curriculums.
My second summer was spent finishing up the SUSIE program and preparing for the Pan-Canadian Broadband Learning Conference. The conference was jointly hosted in Banff by the Edmonton Public School Board, Alberta Learning and the Communications Research Centre.
Companies, federal and provincial government organizations and school boards from Newfoundland to British Columbia participated in the three day conference. The goal was to build a partnership of these organizations to run a pan-canadian broadband education project. It was very interesting to watch these organizations, with different goals and sometimes in competition with one another, twist their way to an agreement.
The report of the conference summarizes the findings of the participants and formed the starting point of an application to CANARIE for funding and high speed network access. At the time this page was written the proposal was in the second round of consideration, with approximately twenty-six of the original hundred proposals. The proposal has now been approved for CANARIE funding.
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