Fire Drill
Schedule

• Fire Chief's Comments
• Firehouse Tasks
• Hot Topics This Week : Distance Learning
• Drills
  • 1-Alarm Drill: Distance Learning
  • 2-Alarm Drill: Research and Reflection
  • 3-Alarm Drill: More on PowerPoint
• Chief's Inspection List
• Fire Marshal Badge Skills
• Future Drills

Welcome to your ninth week of firefighting at Firehouse 6287. This week is a long week given it actually last two weeks. We have Spring Break next week so no new content will be posted next Wednesday and this week's requirements will be due the Wednesday after Spring Break - March 18. I hope everyone has a great Spring Break.

You are now over the hump and in the downhill slide to finishing the semester. We still have much to learn though so let's keep it in high gear for a few more weeks. From your posts to the listserv and on the threaded discussion everyone is learning a lot about different aspects of instructional technology and their application in education along with some of the important issues that come with their application.

We have finished our CMC and everyone seems to have learned a little something about the tools and what they like and don't like. Most of the 3-alarm drill tools are best for one-to-one communication as many of you may have noted.

As I am in a very reflective mood this week I thought I would share with you one of my first synchronous CMC experiences well over a century ago (I am dating myself here;-() when it was definitely in its infancy. My own major frustrations with CUSeeMe began many years ago in graduate school. As a project for a course I was taking, I decided to set CUSeeMe up so those who could not make it to my wedding could log in and watch it. This was a while back and slow modem connections were the norm, but I really wanted an A in the class :-). So I went about working on it. My main goal was to be able to broadcast from the church in Tennessee to our friends in Oklahoma that could not come (we were living in OK at the time - Go SOONERS!).

I proceeded to get everything up and running at the University Computer Lab in OK and was sure it would provide a decent connection speed. Getting a decent connection at a church was a whole other story. With a lot of help from my father --a pretty good computer guy - and the one that got me into this whole mess by buying me one of the first personal computers available (an Apple) and telling me to sit down and figure out how to program it (I think I was about nine at the time) -- we got a T3 line run to the church and set up a computer and a reflector site so we could get it all to work.

We went about getting a camera (a quickcam eyeball) with a long enough cord to run it from the computer hidden in a side room to the flower arrangement close to where the ceremony would be (we even had to mark X's on the floor for the minister [my younger brother] and us so we would be sure to be in the eyeball's range). The whole thing created a bit more hullabaloo than we imagined (remember all I wanted was a grade) with some of the local news stations getting a hold of the information and coming in to see the rehearsal and interview everyone and touting it as the first wedding broadcast live online (they even publicized the reflector IP on the evening news so anyone could log in that wanted to) and some people who were local choosing not to come to the wedding so they could see it on the computer and then driving over after for the reception! All in all the connection went well for those in OK and they were able to see the whole thing. Others with dial up were able to view it but with not as much clarity.

That story was longer than I thought it would be. Anyway, I have soft spot in my heart for CMC and CUSeeMe because it served me so well (I got the A). It is a great tool for many-to-many conferencing when everyone is set up to use it. And just think how far we have come! The idea of sending a video of just about anything live over the Internet is nothing exciting these days. My kids have been doing it for years.

The 4-alarm CMC drill had most having very positive experiences. As many of you noted, the instructor side of the set up is a bit heavy.

My goals for you during this week's drills are to:

• Discuss different aspects of distance learning
• Spend some time reflecting about the course and what you have learned
• Add lecture notes to your PowerPoint
• Work on your research summary table

None

• Check the FAQ Page to see if your question has already been answered.
• Email Chief Curda.
• Email EMT Kelly.
• Email the firehouse crew and see if another firefighter knows the answer.

Now let's see what the hot topic is this week!