News Story

Schools to FlashMeet ISS Astronaut

Chris Valentine, Tuesday 30 Oct 2007

KMi tool FlashMeeting is shortly to be used by British school pupils to talk to International Space Station Astronaut Dr. Steve MacLean. The East of England Broadband Network have long been ‘customers’ of the FlashMeeting system and this particular instance is just one of a host of exciting and inventive uses UK schools have found for FM. Some of the links below illustrate the large range of FM based experiments that are now being run by-schools-for-schools using our new innovative systems. One of the neatest features of FlashMeeting is that it is good at "best practice sharing" as it facilitates the recording and syndication of these events; thus making it very easy for the wider community to see for themselves what can be done! This means that the innovations bar is being raised all the time!

Some schools are using FM to reach not just over huge space – but also, time itself. For example, in December 2006, seven schools from Ashford, Canterbury and Shepway used FM to timeslip back over a hundred years and interview Charles Dickens (with a helpful urchin) about what happened on the 02:38 train from Folkestone on June 9th 1865.

Other schools are sharing normally very inaccessible places. For instance, Whitehill Junior School in Hitchin (should be hatchin’?) used FM to broadcast live video of young chicks, recently hatched in an incubator, to different screens around the school, and beyond.

FM is also now being used as a cost effective way of bringing an international partnership of eTwinning to life, relying on a basic webcam rather than expensive, purpose-built video conference equipment.