Two local teachers have been internationally honored by the U.S. Distance Learning Association for pioneering the use of videoconferencing technologies in high school classrooms.
District Spokeswoman Pegge Erkeneff says Soldotna Prep’s Rob Sparks and Kenai Central High School’s Greg Zorbas have been working and evolving the use of the Polycom technology with students for years.
Erkeneff: “So they connect with students in Palestine and create relationships and work on projects collaboratively in Ghana, in New York, all over the world. It’s so cool to watch these kids connecting with other students their age in these different countries and then they work together offline on different projects.”
The two teachers were honored with the USDLA award of Best Practices Gold Level for excellence in distance learning teaching, for their innovation and excellence in “Videoconferencing Technology – K-12 education.”
Zorbas and Sparks’ classes were involved in a conference Friday morning where Polycom developers and education providers were able to ask the students who have been in the classes all year.
When asked how it improves the students lives, multiple pupils answered that it has the ability to bring what they are studying in the classroom to life, which is exactly what happened in Mrs. Maria Calvert’s Junior AP History class.
On Friday the students were able to conference with the retired NYPD Chief General Surgeon Gregory Fried who oversaw response efforts to the World Trade Towers on September 11.
After Fried detailed his harrowing story of rushing to the Towers after the initial plane struck and being buried by the collapse of Tower 2 while he tried to assist a fallen firefighter, he asked the students to contemplate the effects of the event.
Fried: “The first question I have for you is, in 20o1 the guidelines were, if there was a plane being hijacked, to just do what the hijackers said. And that’s what they did on 9/11, they listened to the hijackers who kept saying stay calm, stay calm, until it was clear that they were going to go after the building. The stewardess on the plane, the flight attendant, radioed ‘We’re being hijacked and they’re going to hit the world trade center, and within two minutes they were into the building. If you were on the plane, would you have attacked those hijackers, there were at least five of them, they had knives, they didn’t have guns… (Listen to the audio for a longer exchange between Mr. Fried and the class).
