Broadband of Brothers

On October 18th there was a videoconferencing reunion of sorts. The reunion took place via videoconferencing of course. The participants were nine distance learning coordinators who during the first week of August facilitated

123VC Jazzing Up your Curriculum with Videoconferencing.

I have blogged about Jazz before. Now over two months later we were asked by one of our colleagues in Texas to reflect, review and share lesson learned with a group of teachers who were participating in a workshop on videoconferencing. It was nice to see everyone again. It was also nice to support our colleague in Texas.

Today, I needed a site to connect to. I am doing a PD session for a group of math teachers and I wanted to connect to a site and talk about a Math Exchange. I e-mailed my Jazz friends and two offered to help out. I feel this kind of camaraderie is special to videoconferencing. We all share a passion for videoconferencing and a genuine desire to see it succeed. We are all vc good will ambassadors. So when I called my friend Janine Lim in Michigan at 9:00 one morning because a group of visiting educators from Norway were in the building. She was ready by 10:00, Dr. Seuss hat and all to talk about "Read Around the Planet". Or when I needed to help a teacher set up a Vtel unit and I was a little shaky on the connecting and using the equipment, Paul Hieronymus from Ohio spent the better part of an afternoon guiding us through our trials and errors. And the time I needed someone to connect to for a workshop I was doing on a Saturday afternoon and Elaine Shuck from Polycom spoke to the group right from her home. Yes, we are a broadband of brothers. The truth is you can't talk about videoconferencing you need to connect to someone. I appreciate all those connections I've been able to make. And hopefully I can help on my end too, when needed.