Thursday, March 29, 2007

IVDL participates in Heritage Science Night


The distance learning department was a module of the 2007 Avon Heritage North and South Science Night. Students and parents had the opportunity to take part in a videoconference while taking a closer look at our planet and solar system using Google Earth and Celestia.

Students and parents learned more about the distance learning project and the virtual journeys their children have taken this school year. The parents were a bit camera shy but enjoyed learning about the technology and how the Avon Schools are using videoconferencing to enhance their curricula.

Once the butterflies were gone, the group looked at satellite images of our planet using Google Earth. This was followed up by a virtual tour of our solar system using Celestia. These open sources programs provide students an interactive look at our planet and solar system.

This opportunity is a great way for the community to better understand interactive videoconferencing. This is third year participating in this program. Each year we catch a parent commenting on the power of the technology and how lucky our students are for having this unique opportunity.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Avon High School and Middle School students learn about careers in photography


Students from Avon’s Alternative School Career Connections and students from Avon High School’s Multimedia classes connected to WVIZ PBS Ideastream for a career session on photography. From the TV studio at PBS 25 professional photographers gave up their time to discuss their jobs, the equipment they use and the positives and negatives of the careers.

Using the Ohio K-12 video network bridges at eTech Ohio both schools were connected with several schools from Ohio. The students from Career Connections have the opportunity to learn about many different trades through interactive video without having to leave the school or to have guests visit their classroom.

WVIZ provides schools in Ohio with exciting and rich programming through their partnership with Playhouse Square and visitors to WVIZ PBS Ideastream. To learn more about distance learning programming through WVIZ visit them on the web at http://www.wviz.org/edsvcs/k_12/distance_learning/involvement.asp