Distance learning is a new technology that is exploding into schools across the nation. Once only used in universities and private industry, interactive video conferencing (IVC) has become an innovative way to bring instructional content to students that is not available by other cost-effective means. Using IVC students and faculty can connect and interact with experts, scholars, peers and other content providers for staff development, instruction or just cultural exchanges. The power of distance learning is in the ability to literally bring the world to our students to enrich their educational experience.
In 2002 Odessa Montour participated with other rural school districts in the region on a successful grant application that brought thousands of dollars worth of IVC equipment to the GST BOCES region. Odessa Montour's portion of the grant funding was used to purchase two Tandberg IVC units that are housed in custom made mobile cabinets that also houses video and sound equipment used in videoconferencing and a universal wireless control system to control all of the various components. Funding from the grant was also used to create an ISDN gateway at GST BOCES so that videoconferencing could be done from all the participating districts via phone or by the Internet depending on the capabilities of the connecting site.
Since the implementation of IVC in the Odessa Montour district many students and most of the staff have participated in various distance learning sessions. During the 2005-2006 school year some students took ACE Calculus through a neighboring school district by using IVC technology when we could not provide it to them internally. Kindergarten students at B.C. Cate Elementary connected with a neighboring district's Fourth grade class to teach each other about things that they do in their class.
For the past two years students in the Odessa Montour district have participated in the national Read Across America IVC program. Classes are matched with other schools across the nation for a one-hour connection where students read to each other books, poems and student created writings. A portion of each session is then spent with students exchanging information about the area where they live and asking each other questions about life in their hometown and schools. Despite the size of the district, Odessa Montour has had the greatest participation rate of any district in the GST BOCES region thanks to the willingness of our teaching staff to want to bring the experience to our students.
Odessa Montour students have also participated in Virtual Learning Experiences where they have talked to experts at NASA about careers in the space program, learned about history through the examination of ghost stories, and learned about different types of animals. In March of 2006 the entire 8th grade class at the Middle School connected with the USS Arizona Memorial in Hawaii to learn about the Pearl Harbor attack from someone who experienced it first hand. As participants in the museum's Witness to History program students were able to spend an hour learning about the historical importance of the tragic attack and listened to veteran Herb Weatherwax as he shared not only his experiences at Pearl Harbor, but his experiences in Europe during World War II.
To see a video clip of this experience, click on the picture below. The video is seven minutes long and approximately 4.5mb in size.
