Flat Classroom Conference

Building bridges today that society tomorrow will walk across

Almost virtual participant.

I've been trying to check in from my classroom, including describing the conference to my grade 4 class and watching some of the live video together.

You can add my experience to the list of people experiencing tech problems, however I haven't found it to be frustrating since I'm not trying to participate actively.

However, it appears that the technical problems are almost all related to the 'live' elements of the collaboration, ustream & backchannel in my case. When I have more time, I plan to try to contribute to the wiki and blog, and so far it feels that those may be the more effective vehicles for collaboration.

Tags: participation, virtual

0 members like this

Comment by Julie Lindsay on March 8, 2013 at 8:30pm: Bart, thank you so much for your thoughts and contributions. Yes! we do have some tech issues on our side, and I know many virtual people have tech issues related to this. The conference moves so fast, and even though we have 2 dedicated virtual coordinators we are not always able to connect people as we would want in real time.

However you raise an excellent point - we need to know how to connect and collaborate asynchronously - that is when more effective co-creation can take place. We welcome your contributions via the wiki and blog!

Comment by Nathan Ho on March 9, 2013 at 1:50am: Very interesting discussion you have raised here Bart. As technology users and educators we need to think of ways to address this and come up with efficient solutions. In saying that perhaps both facilitators and participants require additional testing of tech.preparation/setup for streaming.

We're all getting there. I'm impressed with the way the conference is moving along and has included a space for virtual participants to take part :)

Comment by sibila cherry on March 9, 2013 at 10:20am: Hi Bart!

Being a virtual participant myself, I found that it definitely had its 'ups and downs'. I do believe that I have learned about a few new tools and have found out about quite a few new resource/ websites that I can use with my students- and all of that information was shared through our chat on the Backchannel. So my suggestions is that you check in there tomorrow, if you have the time. I think that the energy and the enthusiasm shared by some of us there, would keep you going, even when the connection is not good:) Networking and sharing our experiences has added a great deal of support and kept quite engaged. Thanks to Anne, Jason and Julie, for trying hard for all of us too!

Comment by Bart Miller on March 10, 2013 at 3:36am: Yes, thank you so much to all the organizers and their crews. At one point, I tuned in to one of the live streams while someone walked around taking video of groups at work and interviewing them and it was very cool. Perhaps that's something to try in the future: 'Reporters' who maintain a live stream, perhaps in a certain location or with a general theme.

Out of curiosity, after being assigned, were the individual teams responsible for keeping their virtual members connected? That would seem like the most reliable way by spreading out the bandwidth needs. Also, was most of that interaction done with Google Hangouts? That also seems very reliable but I'd like to know if that was, in fact, the case.

Anyway, thank you very much, again. I look forward to getting more flat. @barmill

Comment by Anne Mirtschin on March 10, 2013 at 9:51am: Hi Bart, being a virtual participant as well, I also found it challenging at times.I loved the backchannel where a lot of the action was and the google hangout, google document and the resultant video engaged us and gave the virtual participants a purpose and a time to play. Thanks for being one a virtual participant. You are helping us pioneer territory that is completely unmapped but using the cutting edge of technology to flatten classrooms and conferences.

As to your question of google hangouts, there was one tried officially on the last day. A hangout will allow 10 video participants, but many of us do not have strong enough bandwidth to stay in them. I kept dropping out all the time. It I had been at school we have better access but at home in the country it is hopeless. However, for those who can stay in a hangout, it can be a great tool for connecting and communicating.