May 15, 2006 – Conference Call, 0930 Sharp! Options

[Samantha_Dassler_Barlow]

Date: Monday, May 15, 2006

GPS Coordinates
Latitude: 62° 31.6’ N
Longitude: 175° 17.6’ W




Today has been a pretty exciting day, even compared to the helicopter ride I took yesterday. We started out today with a conference call to schools. Here’s a list of the people I can remember that logged in for our call: One of my classes at Oakwood, Patty’s husband Dave, my husband Rich, 2 TREC teachers – Kevin and Maggie, Bob Woolf and his students in Gambell, the Scholastic office where Patty works in NYC, and I think a few others, too. The people at the table that participated in the conference call from our conference room included: Me, Patty, Captain Oliver, Jackie Grebmeier, Lee Cooper, Ruth Cooper, and Gay Sheffield.


Here we are in the conference room at 0930 on Monday, May 15, 2006, for the conference call.

Communication can be a challenge when you have to rely on satellite phone. We called in by using the sat phone and only got cut off twice. The impression I received was that losing connection only twice is not too bad for a ship in the middle of the Bering Sea. Patty sent the pictures we wanted to use for the presentation to Janet, but we could not see the pictures on Horizon Wimba. The schools and people that logged in could. That was a little frustrating because we were not sure what everyone else could see, but Janet Warburton did a great job of telling us what others were viewing and she did a really good job at facilitating the whole call.

I really loved hearing from all the different people on the call. I felt homesick when I heard my students’ and my husband’s voices, but I was so happy to finally connect with them. A Yupik Elder came to listen to the call from the classroom in Gambell, a Siberian Yupik village on St. Lawrence Island. Hearing the elder speak and participate in the conference was an honor and I wish I could have listened to him more.