During the school year 1997/98 we made contact with schools in the US and Netherlands using CuSeeMe and Netmeeting. We are going to continue these links during this school year (1998/99). We communicate weekly with Percy Julian School. Each link is for about an hour and we use our ISDN line which is sponsored by Telecom. Contact is made over the internet using an IP address or a reflector, such as the one set up by the Global Schoolhouse. We have sound and video and the quality is usually very good. At this stage the children have begun to take complete control of the technology during the sessions.
We sometimes structure our discussions around a predetermined topic and often follow this up with a web site which further develops the topic discussed. At other times we just chat! Sharing work both through communication and then in written and picture form on our web sites further links between our schools. The children in 5th class do all the work on their own web pages since November '98.
Read our Reports on Videoconferences with Julian School.
We were on the Gerry Ryan radio show on Tuesday 20th October '98 and we talked about our links with other schools and we really enjoyed it a lot.
We took part in the Broadcom Classroom of the Future Competition.
The project submitted by 5th class on Videoconferencing with Julian School came third in the Telecom Information Age Schools competition and won £1,000 in computer vouchers for the school. Well done to all concerned!
Percy Julian School were busy working on a newsletter at the time of one of our links and then asked us to do a report for it. We were delighted to see that this was published in the newsletter. Well worth having a look!!
We began links with Bernardsville Middle School, New Jersey in January 1999 and have a Cu-SeeMe conference with them every Thursday for an hour. All of fifth class do this because it is in school hours. These conferences are usually structured around a specific topic - usually history based.
Read our Reports on Videoconferences with Bernardsville Middle School.
We had successful links with DeWadden School, Harlaam, Netherlands during June 99 - these were based on music concerts that we performed for each other. They were great fun and very successful. Read about these conferences.
Read about our links during 1999/200 school year.
Read more about our video and audio links with other schools.