The “A” in KEA stands for Adventures! For the most part, that refers to adventures in learning, but at KEA we have always felt life is learning. And this summer we're stretching our wings a bit. We are traveling away from our comfort zone (i.e. a small cabin in the woods) and venturing into the big city!

Yep, we're coming out of the backwoods of Alaska to take a grand tour down the Atlantic coast from New York city to Washington DC by bicycle. Yikes!

To say this is WAY out of our comfort zone is just a slight (wink, wink, snicker) understatement! But life is learning and experiencing new things! So away we go.

The really fun part is going to be actually seeing many of the places (or general regions, at least) that we conference with throughout the year. Our plan is to start out in New York city then head down through New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia before looping back up to DC.

We'll be posting trip updates and thoughts, along with route information, as we go. We are completely excited about this opportunity to explore different lifestyles first hand and would love to visit any interested schools along the way! You can follow our progress on the Teaching Wow blog and KEA Facebook page, as well as both Christina and Rich's Twitter feeds. Feel free to contact us if your school is along the way and would like to visit.

Why Videoconference? Well this is the exact question my partner and I asked ourselves when we began Kigluait and Teaching WOW.

We trully believed it was and is a phenomenal means of learning, sharing and using knowledge and culture from all over the world. 

CILC's monthly newsletter posted a brilliant article for the use of Videoconference and using it in the right way. Now one can argue much about what the right way of using videoconference is, but one cannot argue the positive effects it has on audiences. And what is further, one cannot argue Tammy Griffis eloquently stated point of increased acheivement connected with virtual field trips. Furthermore her connection to the idea that the more focused our learning environment is (connected to learning standards) the more useful videoconferencing becomes, thus increasing higher orders of learning.

However, my partner pointed out an excellent point about one of the ideas in the article. Ms. Griffis, as well as many, often state that videoconferencing provides "other opportunities are available to them, other than those in our small community." This is very much so true. However, so often this statement implies that students need to move away from their communities to find a better life- which is a very troubling ideology when looked at from a perspective of the overall health of the country's, or world's, social fabric.

Our background is teaching in small, very rural, Alaskan Bush villages.  These are the type of places that you have to take small, 4-6 seater, prop planes to get into.  Very economically and socially challenged!  A perfect place to expand horizons through distance education!  But it is a shame if in doing so we promote the students leaving the community.  That is exactly the wrong use.  And ultimately, as has been proven time and time again in Alaskan villages, leads to the further degeneration of the community.

Instead, it is such a better use of distance communication technology to open up a new world to students that exposes them  to what they can do in their own communities to make them better places- exposes them to what they can learn and create with these tools to make their own fresh opportunities in their own home towns.

So thanks to Ms Griffis for extending the conceptualization of videoconferencing one step further than a "talking-head show" to using it as a specific tool to meet student learning goals. But let us push further still and see the even larger learning picture of our communities, states, continents and world by sharing with one another our environments or sense of place. Learning is authentic, sharing, communicating and building on ideas to solve problems, explore, acheive etc. Why not have a live, interactive audience beyond the classroom walls?