10 Read Across America connections today. They all worked!!!
I didn’t get to watch them all, as I’m letting go and letting my districts connect on their own whenever possible. But I saw several and what stood out today was the singing!
At least four classes shared songs today: School songs, Suess songs, even a water cycle song from a class in Texas. Some classes had actions to go with the songs, others stood in a group to sing. The songs added a fun and celebratory element to the presentations.
Andrea Israeli and I had a conversation today about whether or not we should do these all stacked together in a few days. It’s exhausting for distance learning coordinators making it all happen. But it’s such a celebration of reading and videoconferencing. We decided it’s worth all the work. It gets teachers participating in VC who often wouldn’t get around to it otherwise. In schools where several classes participate, the teachers participate in a shared experience and compare what they learned and experienced in the connections. This increases the buzz for videoconferencing and increases the enthusiasm all round. Is this true for you too?
25 down, 13 to go.
About Janine Lim
Janine Lim, PhD, currently serves as associate dean for online higher education in the School of Distance Education at Andrews University, in Berrien Springs, MI. She and her team support over 200 online courses, provide training for faculty teaching online, and work with the campus infrastructure support of online learning. Her department also provides educational technology and Moodle support for faculty and students. In addition, Janine is responsible for the faculty and courses of the Consortium of Adventist Colleges and Universities. Janine has taught over 15 unique graduate educational technology classes online numerous times over the past 15 years, with some classes attracting participants from all over the world. Her undergraduate teaching includes social media courses for communication and digital media majors. Janine has served on the board of the United States Distance Learning Association since April 2015.
Prior to her work at Andrews University, Janine coordinated distance education for 22 K12 school districts in southwest Michigan for 14 years. In that position, as one of the co-founders of TWICE, Michigan’s K12 Videoconferencing Organization, Janine has spearheaded popular international K12 videoconference projects such as Read Around the Planet and MysteryQuest. While still serving on the board of TWICE, she was instrumental in designing and implementing the CAPspace website for collaborative videoconference projects. Janine also served on a team of Michigan educational technology trainers providing a workshop called ATA Technology Academy.
Her current online learning research interests include successful teacher behaviors, quality online discussions, and student activity patterns in self-paced courses.
Videoconferencing Out on a Lim 