Weather with Rusty

October 2, 2007

About three weeks ago, Shane made a call to one of our local television stations and left a voice mail for Rusty Garrett, the weather man, and then followed it up with an email. I don’t know exactly what the content of either of these communications was…probably something along the lines of “Hi, I am Shane Howard and I saw that you go to the schools and talk to them about Project Tornado and I can connect you to many schools (57 districts) and you can talk to even more kids.”

So it began with a phone call and an email. The next day, Rusty returned Shane’s call and scheduled a visit with us to explain exactly what we did.

At the first visit, we had three schools connect to say, “Yes, we would LOVE to connect with you via videoconference!” One building coordinator even went and got three real, live students to join in and say, “That would be COOL!” I am not kidding when I say, we finished the call and Rusty started scrolling through his Blackberry and rattling off days when he would videoconference with our students.

Before we knew it, Shane was up to his email inbox size limit with requests and communications about this project. As of today, we have 40 connections scheduled between tomorrow and January 16, 2008. I have great empathy for COSI Columbus when they open registration for Surgical Suite!

That was only part of the project. Rusty happened to stop by during our connection with Baseball Hall of Fame and was amazed that our students in Clifton were connected to Cooperstown, New York. Shane recorded our first Weather with Rusty last week and it went well. Well, it showed what we needed to change in the format to maximize student participation. Today, we have a PowerPoint with about 15 slides that accent key points and we do not show them until it fits with a question asked by the students.

This is a HUGE shift because Rusty presents Project Tornado in person to as many schools as he can and when he goes on site, he generally presents to an entire grade level or campus so it is a PRESENTATION and not an INTERACTION. If you have read this far, you know what happens when you talk for more than a few minutes to students via videoconference

Oh, one more thing, did I mention that we also ship Project Tornado booklets to all classes prior to their connection? Then I had the idea that teachers’ guide would be good so I put those together also and a modified ASK Process document is included.

The funniest thing happened in our connection with a group of second graders today. About 20 minutes into the connection, a student came to the podium, introduced himself and asked, “Can we take our picture with you?” I was a bit confused when I saw the students moving toward the camera.

Then Rusty and I realized that this is what they were doing. At the end of the conference, he tells the students to be sure to watch the weather and he will mention their class on air. Tonight, not only did he do that, but he showed the photo as well. Yes, this is why we do what we do!

P.S. This was the teacher’s first videoconference connection and now she is excited and wants to learn more about what she can use the equipment for! I think the final comment skyped to us by the building coordinator sums it up, “Woo Hoo!”

Posted in Shane, Weather With Rusty