Virtual Researcher On Call

The national science fair is coming up soon - week of May 14 in fact. During this academic year, VROC has engaged the science community beyond our regular programming like never before. From on-site visits to the SnoLab and the Canada Science & Technology Museum, I have to say that my favourite activity with VROC was our coverage of the Ottawa Regional Science fair for This Week in Science and Education.

Why was it my favourite? Unlike educators that are in the classroom on a daily basis, I seldom have the chance to interact with students personally to help me get a grip on where science and education is at in Canada. The Ottawa Regional Science Fair opened my eyes to the incredible youth that we have in Canada and the fantastic job teachers and parents are doing to help prepare them for their future as scientists. In fact, one of my favourite moments was talking to a students and a parent who worked together on a project. Dad provided guidance and his son put it all together. It's fantastic to think of learning continuing in the home outside of the school walls. I hope they watch our show at home too!

I plan on taking my crew with me to the National Science Fair in Toronto in May to interview students and discuss their science projects. I know I will thoroughly enjoy the day and will be sure the interviews are posted on the VROC websites for everyone to appreciate the wealth of talent Canada can expect to see in years to come.

It’s been an incredible start to this academic year – it seems to be full of firsts. The first episode for This Week in Science and Education, the first student interviewed, the first teacher, the first “on location shoot”, etc. I could go on and on. Suffice it to say that it has definitely been a year of ‘firsts’. This week is no different.

The Christmas season brings hope, good cheer and warm thoughts but also bring…holidays! In other words, Colin, Thomas and I are on holidays this week and have elected not to do a live show (ever try to find someone to agree to be interviewed between Christmas and New Years). Instead we have prepared our very first “Best of” show that highlights some great moments we have had on This Week in Science and Education. From an announcement regarding Alzheimer’s Disease to our trip to the SnoLab, the first four months have been incredibly exciting and educationally rewarding.

The show airs as usual on Tuesday (today) December 28, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. You can watch it “live” here. I hope you enjoy it – I had fun editing and picking our “best” moments.

Happy New Year everyone!

Kevin Cougler, Virtual Researcher On Call

Last Thursday the crew of This Week in Science & Education (T-WiSE) performed a first. We broadcast the show live from a conference AND bridged two conferences together!  If you missed it, all the usual suspects were there.  I hosted the show live from STAO (Science Teachers Association of Ontario), while Thomas Merritt was in his lab at Laurentian University as usual.  Colin Jagoe, however, was able to grab a corner at the ECCO conference across town and connect to the show from there.  Our guest was Mr. Brice Drogosh, Vice-President, Mirial who talked to the live studio audience about using videoconferencing as teachers.  Members of the conference comprised the live studio audience and were on camera and able to pose questions to Brice.

This was a fantastic experience and all ran smoothly.  

As part of the show, the audience was treated to an announcement and demonstration by Brice when he called in using his Android phone to the conference.  The audience went wild as this type of connection brought very real possibilities of how content can be broadcast using videoconferencing.

While the T-WiSE crew will continue to broadcast and record our regular show airing every Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. we are committed to trying an 'on location' show every once in a while. We will announce our next location by the end of this week. 

Episode 2 for the T-WiSE podcast aired August 17, 2010.  I hope you had the chance to watch it but if not you can find it on the website in lots of different places including the front page and under the T-WiSE Podcast link in the Programs area.  Episode 2 focussed on Global Warming and Climate Change which, if you will pardon the pun, is a hot topic these days.  Rene Brunet from Environment Canada's Biosphere was the special guest and did a fantastic job of discussing what the difference is between the two and what we can do in our everyday lives to help sustain our environment.  Some viewers experienced a streaming technical issue which will hopefully not be experienced in the next podcast which will air sometime in the first week of September.  As well a regular date and time will be selected so viewers can adjust their schedules accordingly.

The first two podcasts were "test cases" to get our feet wet.  The idea was to have a couple to iron out technical issues, producing challenges and essentially discover the wonderful world of video/audio podcasting. It was a very valuable experience for us and proved to be a good time of the year for this initiative to start.

On behalf of the VROC staff, I would like to thank everyone who has been so supportive as we move into this new frontier and I am extremely excited to now begin doing regular podcasts. Look for us the first week of September!

Musings regarding the first podcast...

I'm very excited about the next podcast which will air on Tuesday August 17.  Rene Brunet from the Biosphere in Montreal will be our guest and he will be talking about Global Warming  - which continues to be a popular topic in society and our school system.

The Biosphere is part of Environment Canada and has been a part of the VROC family for a few years now.  They provide several speakers who give talks through VROC to partnered schools across Canada on a regular basis on Global Warming and Climate Change.

The first podcast went well.  It was a controlled environment with only a few people being actually 'notified' that it was happening.  We used it as a test case to see how the streaming worked and I was very pleased with the result.  Although we only provided the link to a limited number of people who were invited to watch the stream, there were twice as many who actually did. So, long story short we were very pleased with the result.

For Episode 2 I will be testing a new broadcast location.  I felt my bandwidth was compromised a few times during Episode 1 to the point where I needed to try a more stable network.