My Random Keys

Kids are with their mom this weekend, so I will get to play with teachers from across the great state of Texas tomorrow. As a member of the Texas Leadership Council for the Discovery Educator Network, I got to set up a PhotoWalk for Austin area teachers. We'll be doing our walk while teachers in Houston and Dallas will do theirs at the same time. Later, we will all share the same guest speaker... who is in Chicago. It's going to be a good time!

This event will be mostly social fun centered around the joy of photography, while it also has a strong basis in classroom integration. For some of the classroom discussion, we are glad to share Joe Brennan from Discovery. Problem is, he's in Chicago. The other problem is that Houston and Dallas are also sharing him at the same time. So how do we solve this problem?

I've been a fan of Skype for some time. It's pretty powerful and works on multiple platforms. Apple's iChat is beautiful and has great features, IF you are on a Mac. But both of those are installed applications. At work, we started using TokBox some time ago. It works inside and outside of the firewall at work. There is nothing to install.  The sign up is free and very quick! And best of all, I've had up to 6 people video chatting all at the same time!

So, tomorrow, we will have Austin, Houston, Dallas, and Chicago all video chatting together to provide professional development from inside restaurants and a lake house. Check out TokBox for your own multi-location meeting needs.

So, rain or shine tomorrow, there are going to be a lot of teachers around the state having fun with photography! Wish us luck!

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." -George Bernard Shaw