Connecting to the Outside World, A Live Conference with Several Schools Options

[Steve_Marshall]

6/14/05 #1
Connecting with the Outside World

The first order of business today for me was a live connect to several different schools and a few other organizations around the country (Schools and organizations from at least seven states participated). After months of planning, the idea was to bring a live conference call to the schools and the ship, and simultaneously have a live connect to ARCUS in Fairbanks, Alaska so the students could see maps, pictures, and other visuals as the lead scientist, Dennis Darby, a few other researchers, and I spoke about the cruise and our project. Participants were also invited to ask questions.

Just as with the research cruise, there were MANY different factors and people involved with this event, that had to come together to make it work. With the exception of a few technical difficulties that I truly regret, I think we had a pretty successful conference. I thank the students who were dedicated and interested enough to participate, and I really enjoyed talking with all of them and answering their questions (hopefully I did OK with the answers!). The crew of the ship was very supportive in getting things set up for us, and in addition to them, I want to thank EVERYONE who had a part in this. Just as everyone has an equally important part in this research project, everyone had an equally important part in this conference, so the list would be too long to name everyone individually, and I don’t want to take the chance of forgetting someone. So, just know that I truly thank everyone involved, and also thank the other TREC teachers who joined us.

I have gotten some feedback that several students were amazed at the technology that allowed us to set up this event, and others were excited about the overall project and what we were doing. With that, I think we can all realize that the work that went into this was worth it, and I again thank you all.