I continue to be under-impressed with video conferencing as tool for “revolutionary” new educational applications. It connects us, provides for more information and perspectives, and it solves problems of geographic distance. But what I’m looking for is spanning the distance between experience and intellectual/cultural growth — and sometimes that distance is only a few inches. That said, my crusty fuddy-duddy resistance is slowly being chipped away.
Lucy Sutton, with Waggener Edstrom WorldWide and part of the PR team for Promethean, shared with me an activity that took place the other day between students in the UK and students in China. It was a Chinese language lesson where they had video and audio conferencing and were able to share the interactive white board. Here is a video of the activity.
I was most taken by the interviews with several students from the Lambeth Academy. One child admitted that the Chinese students “..work a lot harder than us!”
What strikes me is the peer learning that is taking place, which seems quite relevant to education in a time of rapid change…
We can hook up two classrooms around the world. We cannot save time and money to video-conference between doctor and patient within the same state because health insurance won’t pay for it. I’m frustrated with a health insurance system that made me, a disabled women, drive to Baltimore for a 10 minute consultation. This was a waste of both the doctor’s time and my time. And there wasn’t one Starbucks along the way to make the drive more bearable! Could we please elect someone who will change this?