Good Practice - Case Study

St.Luke’s School

School No: 635

Video Conferencing

St Luke’s School in Redbourn have been involved in various video conferencing projects for over two years. This is largely down to the enthusiasm, energy and vision of Chris Carter and John Warwick.

One such project is with an international group of teachers and learners. The teachers meet virtually through FlashMeeting and are now setting up collaborations and overseas visits.

The Project

The project was started by John and Chris at St Luke’s. John had been involved in video conferencing with a British Council officer in Gloucester; these were set up by Mike Griffiths of Global Leap. John discovered that the British Council were looking for schools to take part in a Europe-wide project.

Through the British Council, John made contact with a group of teachers from Norway, Spain, Italy and Germany. They contacted each other through emails and set up video conferences using FlashMeeting. The video conferences added an extra dimension to their discussions and helped the teachers build up a close working relationship.

Through the video links, the teachers developed their plans for the project. They wanted to bring youngsters together in social and educational contexts to give them experience of other cultures and contribute to their development as global citizens.

In October 2004, the teachers met (for real) in Madrid and resolved to set up a website to provide a focus for the children and hold archives of video conferences. The FlashMeeting conferences became a weekly event and began to include the children. They are multi-node conferences with, in some cases, participants from each of the schools.

The website (www.come-together-right-now.org) has become a great success. It is run by Graham Harper; the network manager at St Luke’s and is building up a useful and interesting library of children’s work. It now gets around 500 visitors a month.

Although the project is about educational value rather than the technology, John and Chris are hoping to upgrade from FlashMeeting to higher quality IP conferences. They have had a one to one IP link with Minde Skole in Norway with astounding picture quality. Multi-node IP conferences through HGfL should be possible soon.

St Luke’s is an MLD school and this has added a further dimension to the links. John says that it has been great for all the participants as it is bringing together children from different cultures, different age groups and with different physical abilities.

They exchange Christmas cards and a group of children from St Luke’s has been on a trip to Germany. They are also putting together a joint 2006 calendar and Chris is preparing pupils to record a collaborative song with other schools in Bergen, Norway next year.

Overseas links always have good educational value. But video conferencing added a visual dimension that allowed the bonds between the children to develop more quickly.

Useful Links

• www.come-together-right-now.org

For information and archives of video conferences

• www.global-leap.com/

For useful links and information

• www.britishcouncil.org/learning.htm

For support in finding link schools across Europe – not solely for video conferencing