Home > Big Picture Schools > Videoconferencing

Big Picture Live!!! Videoconferencing
and
"The Advisory"

As our new schools open, Co-directors Elliot Washor and Dennis Littky look for ways to keep the community close and connected. One answer is Big Picture Live!!!, a private videoconferencing network which links all Big Picture Schools. Now, students and staff can erase the miles and sit down face-to-face with their counterparts across the country.

• Big Picture staff have joined in on exhibition panels for students a thousand miles away in Indianapolis.

• Upperclassmen on the East Coast, have mentored new students on the West Coast.

• Providence Met Center alumni videoconferenced in from their colleges in North Carolina to advise Met seniors on how to interview for college.

• A student book group met with the author of their current selection.

Rolled out in the spring of 2004, Big Picture Live!!! brings all of our schools together several times a year for a shared day of professional development. At the core of this is "The Advisory."

"The Advisory" is an episodic documentary which follows the life of one advisory. They call themselves “The Usual Suspects” and at the helm is their leader/mentor/advisor Carlos Moreno. "The Advisory" is an uncensored look at the students as they prepare for exhibitions, travel out into the real world, go to work at their internships…and learn alongside their peers and mentors. It captures the low points along with the high; the best practices, but, more often, the dilemmas. It is the catalyst for group discussions of the shared challenges facing all Big Picture Schools.

Click here to watch a short video of how a student's exhibition filmed for the very first episode of "The Advisory" was discussed by Big Picture School staff and students from around the country via videoconferencing! (Windows Media Player, 3 minutes and 36 seconds)

Big Picture Live!!! is just getting its legs and still working on the technical challenges, but plans are already underway for regular conversations with Big Picture’s co-directors, and workshops with social workers and Quantitative Reasoning Specialists. There will be many opportunities for students from across the country to visit with one another and to participate in the exciting world of long distance learning.

We are interested in hearing from those of you who may have something to offer our students via videoconferencing.

Please feel free to contact us at:
jbattaglia@bigpicture.org