Education Beyond the Classroom- Adopting Webex in Schools

A few weeks ago, our Cisco Webex team attended the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference, excited to listen and learn from teachers about their dreams for using technology in the classroom to bring material to life. Educators of all kinds had ideas for using Webex collaboration technology like:

1. Bringing Remote Experts Into The Classroom
• Imagine being a geometry teacher, and inviting your neighbor who’s an architect to virtually speak to students from their workshop?
2. Classroom Collaboration Between Students
• What if students could work together in group chatrooms for projects, like so many do in the business world?
3. Taking Students (And Parents) On Virtual Field Trips
• What if a classroom (and parents) could visit the great barrier reef, without airplanes and wavers?

These teachers were dreaming BIG about how to expand the imaginations and experiences of their students in new ways. Our goal at Cisco is to enable educators’ dreams of bringing their classrooms to the next level. With technologies like Webex, classroom collaboration isn’t bound by geographies anymore.

Getting Started with Webex

So, how do schools or school districts get started? We’re preparing the tools needed create a buzz, to help people like instructional technologists, instructional designers, IT, or technology leaders drive innovation. Let me introduce the Webex for Schools Adoption Toolkit.

This is a guidebook full of the best strategies, guidance, and tools you need to help get teachers, administrators, parents, and students started with Webex. Check it out for yourself! I’ll break down some of my favorite tools for helping teachers accomplish the three classroom collaboration dreams above:

• Bring remote experts into the classroom When teachers are enabled to think outside of the 4 walls of their classrooms, possibilities are endless. When it comes to inspiring teachers with what technology could do in their classroom, the first place teachers often go to get started is Pinterest. Following asks from teachers, we have Pinterest-like worksheets to help your teacher brainstorm ways to take their classroom to the next level, like “Top 6 ways to bring your students out of the classroom while staying in the classroom.”
• Classroom Collaboration The #1 goal of many teachers and admins is to enable students to work together to solve problems for themselves. It’s important to teach students critical thinking skills, and also what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. The Webex For Schools Adoption Toolkit has worksheets to help teach students how to get started. There are lesson plans to help teachers facilitate group work among students. Check out fun items too like bookmarks to remind the students how to be most successful with technology.
• Virtual field trips One of the ultimate ways to see a “lightbulb” in a child’s eyes, is to take them somewhere they never thought possible. Virtual field trips allow you to bring students out of the classroom for a fraction of the cost (often even free!). We want to make setting up these experiences simple for teachers, so we put it into their language- Lesson plans. Check out lesson plans like these that help teachers focus on managing the classroom experience, picking the right virtual field trip, and allow the technology fade into the background
  • Bonus! Get parents on board by inviting them to a virtual field trip on parents’ night, so they see the value too!