By Jim Gerard, INSPIRE Education Specialist, KSC, FL
It has been awhile since the last LiveChat Round Up, mostly because I have had many Friday's off due to illness, flexible scheduling and personal leave for visiting family. I do want to share with you some important news about this summer's LiveChat schedule. But first, a brief update on last night's chat!
Once again we hosted the Georgia Tech team visiting the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, whose six member team had two INSPIRE alumni, Commander Christine Redmond and Communications Officer Shelby Bottoms. Unlike in the past when we had a reular style chat where the whole crew participated, this year it was during the middle of their scheduled comm window with Mission Control so bandwidth was very limited. To get around this, Shelby sent their Power Point with an imbedded audio narration. This way they would not have to use audio and can preserve bandwidth. Unfortunately, the Blackboard Collaborate program does not allow extra files when you upload a presentation, so I needed another way to share that with you.
My solution was to hookup my laptop audio out to my desktop audio in, and while I changed the slides in the chat room I could follow along with my laptop Power Point and click and play the recording. But I found in doing so my speakers cut off and I could not hear the narration, and if I wanted to speak I have tor go into tools and reset the microphone. I solved this problem by using my iPad and entering in as a student, which allowed me to hear and talk. It worked pretty well (after I remembered to press my talk button on the desktop!) we were eventually joined by Shelby to answer questions. Remember, where there is a will, there is a way!
Now our LiveChat news: Next week is our annual end-of-school chat NASA @ The Movies which I will host. It should be a lot of fun so make sure to tune in! But it is not the end of the LiveChat, as we will continue through the summer! every Thursday night at 8pm CT will be new chat. Some of these will be host to subject matter experts for our Virtual STEM Experiences (sign up now!) but we wanted to share them with a larger audience and free up time for more instruction so we moved them to the LiveChat.
We are also having a very special chat just for students who reach Level 10 on the Leaderboard. It will be Tuesday, July 23 at 11am CT (that is during the day!) and will give an opportunity to have a more intimate conversation with a returning LiveChat guest. Just a teaser for now, but more details will be coming soon! Until then, continue to work to build up your points to reach the top of the Leaderboard!
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