Technology Fail!

I guess these things are bound to happen.  Our PDPP Posse Blog got together again this morning for our third meeting and we were really excited to be joined by some enthusiastic middle school readers who belong to the library club at Gordon Head Middle School.  We arranged for them to join us by videoconferencing in using BlueJeans from their iPads.  It was a great plan and everyone was excited to be connecting.

But . . .

There were no batteries in the remote for the conferencing screen on our end
There was feedback because we had to use a laptop instead of the usual system
The Middle Schoolers were in a noisy place (a middle school!)

So . . .

Despite the best efforts of Rich McCue on our end and Mr. D on the other, we just couldn't hear each other well enough to make the experience worthwhile.  Disappointing.  But just maybe some of our best learning occurs through failures and missteps.  Right?

And . . .

We are not quitters!  So next week we will try again with the following changes:

1. We will check the equipment the day before or morning of to make sure everything is in ship shape.
2. We will arrange for the students to be 2 to a device and hiding out in quiet spots around the school.
3. We will turn off the mics when the person on the device is not speaking.
4. We will have a set agenda of the order of presenting circulated ahead of time.

Our anticipation has only grown and we are now REALLY looking forward to hearing from those enthusiastic young people.  Thanks to Mr. D, Ms. Margetts and Ms. Ross from GHMS and to Rich McCue from UVic for their help and patience with this process.