The New York State Distance Learning Consortium
Meeting Minutes
For
October 10 and 11, 2002
Binghamton, NY
The following is a summary of our most recent meeting. Please let Steve Smith know as soon as possible if anything has been omitted or reported in error.
- Introduction,
Agenda Review and Review of May Meeting Minutes
A. We went around the table and introduced ourselves for all of our new participants at this meeting.
B. Agenda Review—We did a quick review of the agenda for the 10th and 11th so we were on the right track for what we wanted to cover.
C. Review of May Meeting Minutes—After review of the May minutes, a motion was made by Andy Verdon to approve the minutes and was seconded by Mike Bayba. All were in favor.
- Roundtable Discussion-
· Mike Sylofski routed our mailing list for update which will be placed on our website when Mike submits it back to Broome BOCES.
· Tracey Clark, Madison Oneida BOCES, offered a discussion board system that could replace our consortium listserv. The discussion board does have listserv and threaded discussion capabilities available. After considerable discussion, the group decided that Tracey would get back to us on how the discussion board would work. She will report at our next meeting.
· Tony Abbatiello brought up the concerns regarding PBS’ free streaming video services that are being given to schools and teachers. There is a major concern among many of us how this free service will impact the performance of the wide area networks that we support for districts in our regions.
Roundtable
Discussion-(continued)
· Mike Sylofski asked if colleges are giving credit for distance learning courses. Many around the table indicated they were working with colleges giving credit-bearing courses to high school students. In many cases, the students are paying for the college credit course. Sometimes if the course is high school credit course provided by a college, the schools are paying the tuition.
· Shelley Rossitto asked if anyone had heard of a company called “ID Solutions”. This company coordinates electronic field trips for schools. ID Solutions has a good idea but are very expensive for schools. Their website is www.ideasdirectory.com and the contact person there is Tom Barshinger if anyone wants to follow up. His number is 317-774-3525.
· There was discussion that sometimes the listserv does not handle attachments very well. Tracey Clark indicated she would look into increasing the size of files that the listserv can handle as attachments.
· Bonnie Nizamis will send out information she has on free Career Days via video conferencing to us via the listserv.
· Patricia Ianacone, Nassau BOCES, told us that their website now has on it a video conferencing guide. The website we can check out is www.nassauboces.org/d/n . Patricia noted that this is Carol Brown’s resource guide put on line for all to view.
· A question was asked if anyone was using I/P for electronic field trips. At this point, no one had indicated they had much success with that. It was indicated the quality of the video was poor and the audio does not always work in synchronization. Still, there is a growing demand for it.
· Steve Putnam asked if anyone was using software that allows teachers to review kids computer screens from another school. Steve Smith indicated that at one time IBM had a software package that would allow that and will see if he can get some information on it.
· Rita Wissinger indicated that she had tried a site called Colonial Williamsburg. It is not an interactive site but thought the program had value and the actors actually dramatize the historical point. You can call in with questions as part of this program. This series cost $500 and gives you video tapes and other materials.
· We discussed the possibility of the NYSDLC doing a grant to get companies to help subsidize our distance learning needs. Such as creating curriculum and content for video conferencing. This content would have to be based on the NYS standards. Shelley Rossitto offered to write the grant and assembly a subcommittee to work with her on it. At this point Linda Whynman, Patricia Ianacone, Paul Rubeo and David Connors offered to help her.
Roundtable Discussion-(continued)
· Andy Verdon asked if we should be collecting data on the number of courses we collectively offer. That is are we increasing the number or are they dropping. Also how are we doing statistically state wide. This kind of survey would be good to show us how we are doing state wide and to help all of us in our planning. We will have further discussion on this at our January meeting.
· Bonnie Nizamis passed out our new NYSDLC brochure that we can use for our conferences. Thanks, Bonnie, for spearheading this effort.
· Mike Sylofski asked if anyone had classroom attendance policies for their districts. Most indicated there were no written policies other than what is expected in a normal classroom.
· Jeff Elliot passed out information on a satellite broadcast program that is free to all sites. Contact Jeff for more information.
· Andy Verdon asked the group if anyone is doing portable unit distance learning rooms. Andy mentioned that many of his districts have a space issue with distance learning, and portable units can be used to solve that problem. Rita Wissinger indicated she is doing something similar to that in her region. Others indicated they are looking into the same concept: perhaps using wireless video.
· We continued discussion on bell schedule problems where various schools clocks are not in sync, not to mention the start time of the day not being in sync, as well as competing with block scheduling. This will continue to be a problem into the future.
· Mike Sylofski asked how we could ask schools about what programming issues they have and how distance learning can fit into that. This needs to be discussed further.
· We discussed problems we are encountering if a district wants to pull out of distance learning. The impact it has and how to deal with the hardware and the room itself being vacated. This needs to be discussed further.
· It was asked if anyone was doing violence prevention over distance learning. No one is doing this at the time, but it is being considered.
· Common scheduling—Rita Wissinger indicated she posts all of her courses on the website and encourages counselors and principals to check it out and see what is being offered.
· Tony Abbatiello indicated that he goes over E-rate and aid ratios with his school districts in order to help them justify distance learning expenses. He also indicated when talking about upgrades with them, he talks about it in terms of bigger bandwidth or capacity on their network.
Roundtable Discussion-(continued)
· Bob Fraley brought us up to speed on the pilot between his BOCES and Monroe BOCES cross lata for distance learning. He indicated that it has been very difficult dealing with the state and NYEnet. He said it took over a year just to get the right person to talk to. Indication from the state is that it will cost $5,000 per month to use this network.
· Rita Wissinger asked if anyone is experiencing schools that don’t have a distance learning room and want to go to a neighboring school to use theirs. Steve Putnam indicated to let them do that because they will end up building a distance learning room once they see the value of it. Holly Sharp said they charge so much an hour to use the other district’s room and it is without aid.
· It was asked if anyone was considering doing bus driver training over distance learning. David Connors, Paul Rubeo, Jeff Elliot said they were going to put together a draft of how such a program might look and be presented for our January meeting.
· A comment was made that perhaps we should call Virtual Fieldtrips, “Educational Enrichment Activities” to make it more appealing to superintendents.
· Tony Abbatiello asked if anyone had seen recent legislation on copyright. He indicated there was a new copyright on “Harmonzation Act” and it was located at www.copyright.iupui.edu. He indicated a new law is being written on copyright for distance learning and it talks about digitized video.
3. Conference Discussions-
NYSSBA- 10/24 -10/26/02 Syracuse
· Tony Abbatiello is coordinating all the technical aspects for this conference.
· Chris Staats is coordinating all the program activities for this conference.
· Tony Abbatiello, Chris Staats, Steve Fenton, Steve Smith, and Jennifer Del Villano will all be supporting the booth at this conference.
· Tony indicated he was about ready on the technical side.
· Chris indicated he was still short on programs for this conference and will be contacting the listserv for additional support.
· Since this meeting we have had the NYSSBA conference and was quite successful despite the fact we had numerous problems with the telephone company on providing ISDN capabilities.
B. NYSCATE Conference-11/24 – 11/26/02 Buffalo
· Barb Buonanno is coordinating the program activities for this conference.
· Rita Wissinger, Holly Sharp, and Jennifer Del Villano and Steve Putnam will be supporting the booth. Others are needed to help during this period of time.
· Mike Bayba will be handling the technical activities for this conference.
C. Video Conferencing-
The Video Conferencing Committee will be discussing the potential for future conferences on this technology.
4. Breakout Sessions:
“Technical, Current Programming, and
Communicating with Districts”
A. Technical—The technical group discussed preparation for the NYSSBA and NYSCATE conferences.
B. Current Programming and Communication Committee—
1. Jeff Elliot shared information on satellite programs. He indicated that we should be careful not to compete with our media services department. Many of our BOCES already have strong media services departments that do many of the satellite programs.
2. The State Department of Education has resources called “Tools for Schools”. You can register for them and you will be sent a list of programs coming up.
3. Bell schedule discussion on some schools having 5-10 minutes difference in class start time, which isn’t a problem. Others use block scheduling to deal with bell scheduling problems.
C. Summary of Breakout Sessions—It was felt that these breakout sessions continue to be of value to our consortium. Particularly the current programming and communicating with districts group. We may need to find a way to have more time available for this group in future meetings.
5. NYSDLC
Webpage-
Jennifer Del Villano reviewed the new opening page format for our website. She is in the process of trying to get our website modernized and more of a value to the NYSDLC as well as others who may visit our website. There are many parts to our website that have gotten out of date. Those include our mailing list, DL site directory, managing networks, and BOCES links. We also would like to add a part to our website that is called ISDN directory. Jeff Elliot has started work on this. Please look over our website and send any corrections/enhancements to Jennifer.
We decided that at future meetings, Steve Smith would distribute copies of our various web pages for update while the meeting is going on so that we can collect information much more quickly.
6. Blackboard-
Jennifer Del Villano reviewed with the group the Blackboard Service she has designed. It is a new option in the Broome-Tioga BOCES distance learning service.
7. Schedules and Data-
We decided that as part of creating a report card of how we are doing, we would like to summarize what all of our schedules and student numbers look like. Everyone was asked to send to Steve Smith by December 20, 2002 copies of their course schedules, number of students in each of the courses, RWADA’s for each of their districts. Steve Smith will try to email to us before Thanksgiving a template that can be used to fill in this data.
8. Our
Next Meeting-
January 9 & 10, 2003
May 15 & 16, 2003
Please submit agenda items to Steve by December 13, 2002.
9. According to the sign in sheet, the following individuals
attended this meeting.
NAME SCHOOL/AGENCY
Abbatiello, Tony Cayuga-Onondaga BOCES
Bayba, Mike Erie 2 BOCES
Carver, Rene SCT BOCES/Spencer Van Ettan
Clark, Tracy Madison Oneida BOCES
Conners, David N. Rose-Wolcott
Curry, Byron Tompkins BOCES
Elliott, Jeffrey Questar II
Fraley, Bob Orange Ulster BOCES
Iannacone, Patricia Nassau BOCES
Jennifer Del Villano Broome-Tioga BOCES
Kelly, Neva Horseheads
Nizamis, Bonnie Monroe #1 BOCES
Putman, Steve St. Lawrence-Lewis BOCES
Rossitto, Shelly Orange Ulster BOCES
Rubeo, Paul Ulster BOCES
Sharp, Holly Monroe #1 BOCES
Smith, Steve Broome-Tioga BOCES
NAME SCHOOL/AGENCY
Verdon, Andy Dutchess BOCES
Walton, William Ulster BOCES
Whynman, Linda Sullivan County
Wissinger, Rita Cattaraugus Allegany
Zampardi, D. Oenida Herikimer BOCES