Get Connected!

One of the neatest things you and your students can do is to take a Virtual Field Trip! Your students will love being able to travel the world without missing a class, administrators will love that it costs less than renting a bus, and you'll love the fact that "experts" are available on just about everything you can imagine!

Take a look at the QuickTime video to the right. (Click on it to play!) The Columbus Zoo is one of our favorite trips, and here you can see just how cool a field trip really is! (Created by Jim Dondlinger)

NEW to Videoconferencing in education? Let us teach you a little about how you can be successful using portable videoconferencing in your classroom! Join Ms. Novinski (Joan Roehre) and the Kenosha Unified School district as they take a humorous look at "Portable Videoconferencing and YOU!" (Video is approximately 14MB in QuickTime format, created by Jav Rivera)

Educational and Enriching!

Take a look at Wisconsin Public Television's Teaching Through Technology (spring 2005) program produced by the Educational Communications Board. In this 30 minute episode, you will see inside programs produced at Pier Wisconsin and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and I'll personally tell you a little bit about how we find these great programs!

We've also put together a guide to help you schedule a virtual trip in your classroom. You can also find tips for helping to make your visit more successful.

ARE YOU READY!?

Ready to look for programs? Take a look at the TWICE-BCISD search box on the left! Don't worry, your search results will open in a new page and you can come right back here again! But when you're finished at SWING, I encourage you to take a look at Janine Lim's entire TWICE website (linked below!)

Want to see some more neat videos of trips you can take?
Check out our Quicktime sampler !

New to finding content? Museums, Zoos and other "content providers" have professionally prepared interactive programs on THOUSANDS of topics! Try these links to find more information on what programs are available: (Recommended links are marked!)

• Janine Lim's TWICE Field Trips Coordinated with the MI State Standards (and video clips)
  
• Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration/CILC (formerly Vision Athena)
• Pacific Bell’s Videoconferencing Adventures
• NASSAU BOCES in New York has a wealth of great DL resources
• Jamie Kampf's CESA 10 Field Trips Page
• Wisconsin Educational Partners List
• NYIT's Educational Enterprise Zone
• Port Clinton, OH schools have a great resource list
• Partners in Distance Learning
• NASA LIVE - interactive videoconferencing

If your topic is a little more "unusual," or you're looking for something different, many colleges and universities, as well as community and state organizations and professional associations host speakers bureaus on a miriad of subjects. (Often speakers booked through a University bureau will speak for free.)
Here are links to speakers bureaus:

• Directory of Wisconsin Ethnic Organizations
• Society of Midland Authors - Chicago IL
• University of IL - Springfield
• Wisconsin Arts/Wisconsin Folks Homepage

Once you find your speaker, you may have to find a conference room for them to speak from:

• GIANT: Global Interactive Academic NeTwork
• Face to Face Global Public Videoconferencing Directory

Not necessarily interactive, but worth mentioning are satellite based conferences and programs. In Wisconsin, we can arrange to downlink a program and resend it to you via videoconference:

• College Board AP Exams

Teleconference (audio only - conference call) links:
(In most cases, we can use your video equipment to participate as a quality speaker phone)

• National Center on Secondary Education and Transition

If you have a link to suggest, speaker's bureaus or otherwise, please email it to Dan at