Live from the Field: Your Mission

Earthwatch Institute's goal for the Live From The Field program is to promote personalized learning about conservation and field research in an informal and approachable manner. More specifically, by sending teachers to participate in hands-on field research projects and simultaneously enabling them to communicate those experiences with students in the classroom via use of multimedia technology, our objective is that:

• Students gain increased interest and understanding of field research and technology both through their teachers' firsthand experience and direct access to scientists working in the field. These scientists serve as exceptional role models for teachers and students.
• Teachers learn new technology skills, as well as field research methods, and conservation issues within a global context
• Students and teachers from different schools/states and worldwide collaborate as classrooms participate jointly in virtual expeditions and work on online projects together.
• The program can impact many teachers and students within a school community without leaving the classroom.

In order to best achieve these ends, we require our Live From The Field participants to share their learning interactively with classrooms and colleagues "back home" through web posts, photos, video, and live conferencing. This entails, at minimum, the creation of a website (using whatever web development software you choose) with daily journal entry postings and some kind of pictorial depictions, like maps or photos. We purposefully do not provide stricter requirements or a web template for our participants because above all else, we value CREATIVITY, and encourage teachers to tailor their websites to their audience(s). However, there are five essential components to the website you create as a Live From the Field teacher:

• Use of the Earthwatch Institute logo (this will be provided as a downloadable image - soon to come)
• Brief (1-2 sentence) description of the project and the purpose of the website…a standard Who, What, When, Where and Why will suffice
• At least one link back to the Earthwatch Institute website, preferably to the Live From The Field program
• Credit to the funding institutions
• An internet counter (which will allow both the fellow and Earthwatch to monitor how many people visit the site)

For more help in creating a blog, please check out our blog information center. As far as web content beyond these four main components go, here are a few tips:

More is not always better, particularly considering the space and time restraints associated with using technology in the field! Try and build a theme with your media—if your website is about conservation and/or ecology in the area, stick to pictures of plants and animals, whereas if your website is mostly about what it takes to be a researcher, then it might be nice to have photographs/drawings/diagrams of sleeping conditions, bug bites, equipment, and researchers in action. You’ll save time and energy by planning out the types of media you’d like to include ahead of time and taking pictures/movies based on those plans, rather than shooting everything you see then sorting through hundreds of digital photographs/movie clips each night to find the few appropriate for use. The same goes for reporting—knowing your audience and spending time focusing your writing will save you time and make the site easier to navigate and more engaging for your students. You want your website to have a purpose.

• INCLUDE "food for thought" or "challenge" questions for students to discuss in class, especially questions related to social studies, geography and science.
• INCLUDE different types of media, like photos, video clips, drawings, and diagrams in addition to what you write.
• INCLUDE an index with teacher objectives, standards, and lessons—this facilitates navigation of your website.
• BREAK UP your web reporting into sections, such as "daily objective(s)", "events", "data collection tasks" and "daily highlight".
• DO focus on one event/topic in depth rather than gloss over everything.
• DO include variety in your daily reporting to keep students engaged.
• TRY to use all 5 senses in your descriptions.
• TRY to have a forum for Q & A or some other interactive aspect with students.
• CREATE a "spotlights" section with interviews of other participants, local people or researchers to highlight different perspectives.

Be realistic in your expectations—particularly if you are a first-time web designer. Designing and updating a website takes a lot of time, and your time will be limited while on your expedition. The MOST IMPORTANT THING is to relay important information to students back in the classroom. All the bells and whistles are not necessary to create an informative and fun place for students to learn.
If you would like to see examples of effective websites created by past Live From The Field teachers to get an idea on what to include on your own site, try visiting one or more of the following:

• Cindy Cone's Pantanal website: http://www.hcesc.org/earthwatch/
• Emily Thompson's Mojave Desert Tortoise website: http://wps.wiscasset-ps.wiscasset.k12.me.us/3t2002/desert/index.htm
• Denise Frederick’s Florida Manatee website: http://www.ri.net/RIGeo/rigea/earthwatch/manatees/index.htm
• Helen Johnson's Wild Dolphin Societies website: http://www.ri.net/RIGeo/rigea/earthwatch/earthwatch02/dolphinhome.html
• Briana Brown's Florida Sea Turtle website: http://savebay.org/explorethebay/Turtlemania/Index.htm

Putting Together a Tech Team

One of the most important things to do after being accepted into the Live From The Field educator fellowship program is to identify two key people at your school/organization:

1. a technology specialist or other computer-savvy person
2. a teacher/education specialist

The sooner you seek these people out and request their assistance, the smoother the process will be for all of you.

The Technology Specialist should:

• Help you set up or manage your existing web page
• Transfer your field entries to the web page while you are on Expedition
• Help you establish a free web-based e-mail account (i.e. Yahoo, Hotmail) that you can access from anywhere in the world
• Acquaint you with a laptop, digital camera, file transfer protocols and any other technology that you will be using in the field.
• Make sure you have Internet Service Provider information, including local access numbers, for the field
• Have a copy of your internet / e-mail account passwords

The Teacher / Education Specialist should:

• Facilitate your communication with students while you are on Expedition by making sure your information from the field is reaching the students and that student questions are reaching you.
• Have a copy of your internet / e-mail account passwords
• Be someone you TRUST—they can make or break the experience, because without their guidance, the students will not utilize the website as you had intended

Another important person to contact, particularly if you feel you need additional support above and beyond what Earthwatch and two people discussed above can provide, would be a past Live From The Field educator fellow. We have a list of these participants who are willing to serve as mentors. Mentors can provide you with insight that can only come from someone who has been through this experience first-hand. If you would like to get connected with a mentor, please contact us at Earthwatch. This is not required, but is highly recommended.

Make sure your point people at home have ALL YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION, including USPS mail, email, cell phone and local phone numbers. If one form of communication breaks down, they need another way to get in touch with you.

IF YOU ARE WORKING AS PART OF A TEACHER TEAM, you will need to do a little additional coalition building:

• Schedule time on your first day together on the expedition to sit down and discuss collaborative work, including who will do what and when, and how you will keep in touch and do your web reporting as the expedition progresses
• You will find it helpful to structure small groups for daily tasks. These tasks (including daily write-ups of themes, photo downloads/selection, answering questions from students/colleagues back home, and monitoring other communications) ideally would be rotated between team members (so everyone gets a chance to do something new) and could be arranged with sign-up sheets ahead of time.
• Coordinate what everyone is bringing, so you don’t end up with nine digital cameras and not a single laptop or camcorder
• Consider creating a group website rather than several individual websites

Learning Essential Tech Skills

It is IMPERATIVE you make yourself familiar with all equipment before leaving for your expedition!

• Practice web design by setting up the framework for your site
• Practice web updates - you can't rely on your tech point person back home to do this all the time
• learn how to troubleshoot basic computer problems (either on the actual computer you are bringing or TYPE of computer, if you’re using one already on-site)
• review use of the satellite phone (if you’re using one)
• practice taking digital photos/movie clips and transferring them to your computer
• practice compressing and resizing jpg (a.k.a. picture) files so that they can be sent by email (should be small in size but saved in high resolution)
• practice sending emails with attachments (both text and picture files) using a dial-up internet connection (so you know how much time it will require)

Each field site has different resources (ranging from full videoconference capabilities to no access at all), so you will need to tailor your preparation and equipment to your location. This includes knowing what voltage/outlets are at the site, and whether you’ll need adapters. Once you have decided what equipment to take, make sure you do an Equipment Pre-check, including the following:

• Make sure your equipment is compatible to your Expedition field conditions (don’t expect WiFi in a remote site…you’ll be lucky to have dial-up.)
• Test that all equipment is in working order
• Test yourself – you should be comfortable with all technology skills that you will be using in the field: digital photography, uploads, downloads, internet connections (satellite phone, dial-up, cable, WiFi) & e-mail accounts (don’t forget your passwords!), file sharing, resizing, and compressing.
• Purchase extra batteries and tech supplies (like blank CDs, floppy disks and thumb drives) that you will not be able to get once you are in the field.

In the Field - Tech Use

While in the field, you will need to:

• update your webpage on a daily basis with field notes on what you are doing, what you’ve learned, etc.
• answer questions from students/colleagues back home either on the website or through email
• download photos or video clips from your digital camera/camcorder to your computer, then upload those pictures/clips onto the website or send them via satellite phone
• ask permission before posting someone’s picture online (everyone has the right to privacy), particularly for non-team members (i.e. locals)
• periodically check in with your in-classroom coordinator to make sure communications are running smoothly

Data management is a very important component to all these steps. It would be helpful to do the following:

1. Set up a filter within your email account that compiles field communication for easy revie
2. Give files names (such as the date they were created or the content of the photo) that make it easy for you to retrieve them.
3. Try to save all text documents as "rtf" or "txt" rather than as word-processing files, as this will allow them to be viewed and used on any computer anywhere.
4. Back up your data frequently.
5. Monitor the file sizes of digital images/movie clips. Pictures over 50k cannot be sent by satellite phone, nor can dial-up internet service handle large picture files, particularly when there are many of them. A general guideline for digital media is:
• Email "jpg" photos as separate attachments (i.e. one per email) each day; don't embed pictures in text
• Keep original photos in “tif” format to maintain clarity
• Each resized/compressed photo you email should be no more than 100k, or 400x600 pixels
• Identify date/photo number on file name of photo (feb14photo1.jpg) or on folder where photo is saved
• Provide a separate text document (rtf or txt format) with brief captions for each photo

Finally, please remember that the Principal Investigator and other teachers/volunteers on site are not necessarily well-versed in technology and also very busy with their own projects—if you need tech support, please try and contact your mentor or your school’s technology specialist back home. Also, remember that though you require use of technology resources on site as part of your fellowship obligation, other volunteers/participants in the project will also want to use those resources. Please be courteous and flexible, and try to work with them to share whatever technology is available.

Tech Terms

Compression
Compression is what you do to files to make them smaller. Sometimes this is as simple as choosing "save as" and selecting a different file type. Sometimes this involves using software like ZipIt or StuffitDeluxe that shrinks files for you. The purpose of compression is to allow you to transmit files faster, which is essential particularly when you’re emailing files with dial-up service.

Dial-Up
Dial-up internet service means you are connecting through a regular phone line. It is very slow, and prone to connection failures. Transmitting large files through dial-up can be very time consuming, if it works at all.

Download
Downloading means getting information from another source, like the internet or a CD, and transferring it to your computer or to another form of storage media for later use.

Filter
“Filtering” email means you set your email program to scan incoming messages for particular information, such as who it is from or what is in the subject line, and that email program can then automatically move that message to a specific place (such as a “important mail” folder) or mark (a.k.a. ‘red flag’) that message in a way that makes it stand out from others in a potentially long list of emails in your inbox.

FTP
FTP stands for “File Transfer Protocol”. It is an easy and efficient way to move files from one place to another. It is an essential tool if you will be using a satellite phone to transmit information from the field. You will require access to a server in order to do FTP. Talk to your technology supervisor if you would like more information.

Internet Counter
An internet counter is software that tracks how many people visit your website. Depending on the sophistication of the software, other visitor statistics can be viewed as well, such as where the visits were from, whether pages within the site were viewed, etc. Most counters can be obtained for free online. Take a look at the suggestions on our Blog Information Center.
(Note—If you don’t see a counter style you like on any of the suggested sites, keep searching. There are thousands of free counters out there!)

JPG
A “jpg” is a type of file. You see it at the end of the filename, after a period, like “picture_of_mom.jpg”. It is often a photograph, graphic, or a map. You may also see picture files followed by GIF…this is simply another kind of picture file; generally both work the same way and should all be easily uploaded onto a website.

Pixels
A pixel is a little dot of color/information. Just like a television (pre-HD) is made of thousands of little red, green and blue squares which form a big picture, all photographs are made up of thousands or millions of little pixels. The more pixels, the clearer and crisper the image, but also the larger the file size and the more space it takes up.

RTF
RTF stands for “rich text format”. When you save a file, say a Microsoft Word document, in RTF, it allows you to open that file up on almost any computer with almost any software, and be able to read it without funny characters or weird formatting. To save this way, choose “save as” from the file menu and in the “save as type” box, choose “RTF”.

TIF
A “tif” (sometimes seen as ‘tiff’) is another type of picture file. It is generally a larger sized file, with higher dpi/photo clarity. By resizing a TIF file and saving it as a JPG, you maintain the sharpness of the image while still making the photo small enough for using on the web or for emailing.

TXT
TXT is another way you can save files and be certain you can open and read them again on any other computer. It often shows up as “plain text” in the “save as type” box. The difference between RFT and TXT is that TXT files loose all formatting. So, if you had your document set up with nice paragraphs and bullet points, TXT is not for you! On the other hand, if you had just a sentence or two, TXT is a good way to save your file.

Upload
Uploading means taking information from your computer or from a storage device and moving it to another, often a public, location—like the internet.

Web Development Software
When you are ready to start creating your website, you have many choices for software to use. Some software is costly, like Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver, but if your school/institution already has licenses for this software, it is certainly a powerful web creation tool. You also have the option of using free web page creation software (which has less options but is still functional) like Mozilla Composer, which can be downloaded at http://www.mozilla.org/ or Trellian WebPage, which can be downloaded at http://www.trellian.com/webpage/

WiFi
WiFi is wireless internet access, allowing you to connect to the internet without any cords connected to your computer. It is a very fast and generally reliable and efficient way to connect, but it uncommon at most field sites.

NG ED-NET Forum Comments on Teleconferencing

Suzanne Smith - on 01/24/2006
In regards to setting up the teleconference for your students- I can't remember everything I said at the meeting but here is a list of some things that might be helpful:

1. Have the students be familiar with where you are going and what you are doing in the field so that they already have an idea of what to be asking about.
   
2. I had my students read the case study last year on Cuba and they had questions to go along with it. I have templates for all of this stuff including my Cuba prep worksheets that might be helpful if you want to look at them and revise them. I need to start working on that myself.
   


3. Part of their assignment was to create 3 questions they had about the area/research. I had them write them down on a paper I had created (see sample) and which also asked them if they would be interested in doing the call. From those who said yes, I created my list of teleconfrencers. I told them beforehand that it is a little extra work for those chosen so that weeded out a few people :) I ran the conference last year with 22 kids in a room that wasnt so big. It really helped that I practiced with the kids several times before hand and then showed them the room. You need to make sure you tell them that they must be patient and quiet - technology isnt always the greatest thing!
   
4. Once the kids were chosen I made a list of their questions along with the names of those who asked them and tried to make a lineup of kids and questions in order. This was done so the kids were able to ask their own questions.
   
5. I then made copies and highlighted the questions the kids would ask so they could follow along - kind of like a script. It made it a lot easier for them and they began to know who they stood next to so there wasn't an issue when it came time to do it.
   

I am hoping to have some of my students from last year, help me this year while I am away! There is so much to explain I can't seem to do it all in one post so if anyone has specific questions please email me and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

Cynthia Ripley - on 01/24/2006
Hi ! I was a "non believer" when teleconferencing was first mentioned, but now can't even explain what a great experience it was! I worked on the EB3 project, too, when they were in Sri Lanka. My assumption was that all the email and higher tech would be most appealing to the kids. The email and background info provided through our web communication was invaluable, but the teleconferences brought it all to a more human level. I guess it's the power of the human voice! I had the students prepare questions based on what they had learned. We decided as a class which questions could not be answered without "consulting" with people in the field. Once the questions were narrowed down I asked for volunteers - surprised that some were nervous about talking on the phone to someone they didn't know. We then took the questions and distributed them to either the author or others who were interested. I printed all the questions out for all the participating students (50 each time), and had them highlight the question that they were going to ask. I also printed them out on numbered cards to avoid any confusion about the order. One student was the "recorder" and videotaped it so we could review it together later. What a GREAT experience for ALL of us!! Best wishes!!

Jeffrey Wilford - on 01/24/2006
I agree with Cindy that teleconferencing engages the kids. Suzanne is also right, preteaching is very important but I am not quite sure how much. We want to be careful not to take away too much of the discovery of the experience. Perhaps basic introductory material can be shared - just enough to begin to generate questions. When I went I think many of my kids were "taught out" and already knew quite a bit about what we were doing. I will be going to Brazil in April bringing 6 high school seniors. They will be connecting live with my middle school students. I will have my sub do a couple of activities with them before hand just to get their minds thinking. Each student will submit a question to the teacher and the teacher will go through and pick questions that will be asked. This will help weed out the 13 questions asking "what is the worst thing that's bitten you so far?" The kids will not be told if their question is one of those chosen (this may help keep their attention). When we connect each student will be responsible for bringing their question on the chance it is to be used. The teacher will always make sure their are two questioners ready to ask at all times in order to prevent gaps in questioning. I use my digital recorder to tape the conversations. Also, the tech person in our school will put together a P/P presentation based on our uploaded materials and each student will have this running on their laptop during the connect. This can also be done with just one computer, a screen and an LCD. It makes it so much more engaging for the peripheral kids. Best of luck! Please check out expeditionpantanal.org to find out what we have been up to!

Jeffrey Wilford - on 01/24/2006
An addition I forgot. The six high school students will develop and present lessons to my middle school kids upon thier return.

Bonita Coleman - on 01/25/2006
When we did our teleconference last year (to Mongolia) we also had the students think of three questions, and we did approvals for the ones we wanted them to ask. Those that had been approved had been marked on their paper, and arranged by the teacher ahead of time. Students had been given the order, so there was minimal time in between each one. They were instructed to queue quickly - as soon as one student moved forward to read their question, the next person was to get behind them in line. We did actually allow our students to ask the questions to the team - it made them own the project more fully. We recorded the entire conversation on a small hand-held recorder (and video taped one of the sessions, too). The audio was extracted for later reveiw by students, each question was separated, typed out and placed on the project website for anyone to read and listen to, whichever they liked. Overall, the most important thing we learned was that stages work best. We started the intro about a week before and gave them incremental amounts of information to review. We made them responsible for a small portion of the info that they would share with the rest of the class, and the class had a worksheet on which they would collect information as they heard it. Students were responsible for introducing the team and their work, while the teacher did an overview of the country and geographic area. In the end it was a great success, most students said that was because they were the ones who were held accountable to learn and share about the upcoming interaction and the work the research team was doing - and we decided on those topics solely from the EW Briefing.