Monthly Archives: July 2006

HyperMirror Pictures

Thank you to Akio Yamanaka for taking pictures at the HyperMirror session at NECC and sending them to me. After the session, they opened the floor for attendees to come on camera and see what it is like. I wanted to try out the hand-clapping pattern for See See My Playmate.


First we demonstrated the pattern, as they girls in Japan hadn’t seen it before.

Here we are trying to line up our hands to “clap.”


Trying to get the timing right!

Almost have it! We only had a couple minutes. I think if we had more time to practice we could have done it.

Here is what it looked like from this end. I am facing the projector screen where I was seeing the same view as the pictures above.

See the big smiles on everyone’s faces. Clearly this technology helps us feel closer together!

Very cool. Thank you Akio for these pictures! I look forward to hearing about future projects with HyperMirror videoconferencing.

Conference Tags: necc necc06

Learning more about my Tandberg MPS

I have expressed my frustration earlier that I could only use conference 1 for IP address dialing on my Tandberg MPS 32+32 MCU. I’ve also blogged previously about how we do VCs with everybody under the sun and usually they don’t want to/can’t register with my gatekeeper.

In March 2006, with the new Tandberg J3.0 (now J3.1) MPS upgrade, several other dialing schemes became available. I hadn’t tested these since they came out because I didn’t have time and didn’t want to mess up my currently scheduled programs. But now I’ve had time to explore and these are the results. Over two days, I’ve spent several hours with Arnie Comer, Macomb ISD, testing the various conference configurations on my Tandberg MPS version J3.1. I wanted to know how these different types of conferences work with old & new Tandberg endpoints, old & new Polycom endpoints, and the Polycom MGC MCU.

Regular Conferences
The following tests were done using the IP address of the bridge and the 4 digit extension of conference 2. On the Tandberg MPS, only one conference can receive IP address dial-ins. The rest of them use extensions. I’m working and testing with the assumption/experience that when I run projects with videoconference units anywhere in the world, they may not want to or be able to register to my gatekeeper. So I want this to work without gatekeeper registration where possible.

Endpoints are not registered to any gatekeeper.

  • Polycom VSX 7000 v. 8.0.3 can dial the IP address of the bridge, put the extension in the extension box and connect successfully without being registered to the gatekeeper.
  • Polycom Viewstation v. 7.5.4 can’t dial the IP address of the bridge plus extension. I tried it with the ##, two commas, and the @ sign. None of them worked.
  • Polycom MGC 100 v. 6.0.2 can dial the IP address of the bridge, put the extension in the alias type/party number box, and connect successfully without being registered to the gatekeeper.
  • Tandberg 800 v B10.0 can’t connect without being registered to the gatekeeper. When registered to the gatekeeper, it connects successfully with the conference 4 digit number.
  • Tandberg MXP 880 vF3.0 can’t connect without being registered to the gatekeeper. When registered to the gatekeeper, it connects successfully with the conference 4 digit number.

Endpoints are registered to a different gatekeeper (not mine). I’m trying this because this is a common scenario of other schools “out there” connecting in to me.

  • Polycom VSX 7000 v. 8.0.3 can’t dial the IP##extension when registered to a different gatekeeper.
  • I didn’t try the other ones because they can’t call without being registered, so I can’t see them working this way either. And no one is going to register their MGC to my gatekeeper. Not a chance.

Endpoints are registered to my gatekeeper. Of course this all works because that’s the way Tandberg expects me to use it!

Personal Conferences
The Tandberg MPS has a feature to allow personal conferences to be set up ad-hoc based on an e.164 or H323ID number. So these tests are with a 4 digit e.164 number. The interesting thing is, the personal conference e.164 number doesn’t match the “conference e.164 number”. It seems the personal conference number somehow “calls” the conference that is available.

Endpoints not registered to any gatekeeper.

  • Polycom VSX 7000 v8.0.3 can call the IP address##personalconferenceID.
  • The Polycom Viewstation v7.5.4 can’t call without being registered to the gatekeeper.
  • Polycom MGC 100 v. 6.0.2 can dial the IP address of the bridge, put the personal conference ID in the alias type/party number box, and connect successfully without being registered to the gatekeeper.
  • The Tandberg 800 v B10.0 can’t call without being registered to the gatekeeper.
  • The Tandberg 880 F3.0 can’t call without being registered to the gatekeeper.

Endpoints registered to my gatekeeper. Of course this all works because that’s the way Tandberg expects me to use it!

Single Dial In Conferences
The Tandberg MPS also has the ability to have a single dial in number “waiting room” where users then use DTMF tones to move to the conference room they are suppposed to be in. This feature is designed for ad-hoc conferences, so conferences with this feature can’t be scheduled ahead of time with the Tandberg Management Suite.

Endpoints not registered to any gatekeeper.

  • The Polycom VSX 7000 v 8.0.3 can call and create a conference and can join a conference.
  • The Polycom Viewstation v 7.5.4 just rings & rings dialing the IP address of the MCU.
  • The Polycom MGC 100 v. 6.0.2 can’t call in with DTMF tones (at least that we can figure out).
  • The Tandberg 800 v B10.0 can call and create a conference and can join a conference.
  • The Tandberg 880 F3.0 can call and create a conference and can join a conference.

Conclusions & Questions

  • There isn’t a standard for extension dialing without a gatekeeper. There should be!
  • What’s the difference between e.164 dialing with a gatekeeper and e.164 dialing without a gatekeeper?
  • Clearly IP address dialing works fairly consistently connecting across networks and to rogue units. This other dialing has a long ways to go to become consistent and useful.
  • These designs are clearly made for closed networks. If we all have closed networks, and we can only place outgoing calls, then how do we connect to each other? There are two options. Neighboring our gatekeepers together. I still think there’s too many of us to make this work. The other solution is to use an MCU so both dial outs can meet in a conference. In this scenario the MCU needs to be able to accept incoming IP address calls to more than one conference, which at this moment the Tandberg MPS can’t do.

Please comment if you have other thoughts or comments! Vendors, you’re welcome to comment too!

Update: I wrote this July 14, 2006. Since then, a new version of the Tandberg Gatekeeper has come out. It has some new features related to Single Dial In Conferences that may change things. When I have time to learn about them I’ll write more.

May 21, 2007 Update:  See the latest comments on my bridge here.

E.164 Dialing

For the last 6 months I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around how e.164 dialing could/should/is working connecting outside of our own networks.

Here are some of the things I’ve discovered.

  • E.164 dialing is a specific kind of H323 dialing your endpoint could do, usually in conjunction with a gatekeeper.
  • There is an educational Global Dialing Scheme in the works. You can read about it on the Internet2 website.
  • Megaconference and Megaconference Jr. use the E.164 Global Dialing Scheme dialing. This requires registering to a gatekeeper that participates in the Global Dialing Scheme (GDS). Gatekeepers can be neighbored together to join this scheme and there is a specific procedure for participating in this. Megaconference Jr. did have to allow some sites to dial the IP address instead of the GDS e.164 number because some units could not connect. It would be interesting to know more about that.
  • The United Kindgom has a service called JVCS that is using the GDS. Yesterday I did a test call with a location in the UK. They gave me their long e.164 number. It looked like the long ones used for the Megaconference dialing, so I registered with the Internet2 Commons gatekeeper to see if it would work. They were able to call my e.164 number on the Internet2 Commons gatekeeper, but I couldn’t call them the same way. We are still investigating why. They were also able to use the JVCS MCU to call me via IP address. (I’ve done a few connections now with JVCS’s MCU and the calls work great.)

Questions I Still Have

  • How do organizations get their gatekeepers registered and organized to participate in GDS? Who organizes that? Is it different for each country? What does it cost to participate? Some of the answers are here, but not enough for me to know how my 70 endpoints could participate.
  • If the vendors are pushing us towards gatekeeper registration as “best practice”, then in K12 we have to get something working so we can keep dialing each other. Is that even possible/feasible?
  • On the other hand, I’ve been thinking about this review of my projects session at NECC.

“Towards the end of the session the presenters had participants talk about implementation ideas in our respective school districts. The two people I spoke with agreed that there are a number of challenges to successful video conferences including cost, the technology and developing the programs. One person from a university said that she had never been part of a video conference yet that didn’t need a technician present to make sure it all worked, that it took time before the video conference to make sure all equipment was working prior to the event, and that often, there were interruptions in the connections. In our small group conversation, we wondered what place video conferencing may continue to play in education with the advent of lower costs communication solutions such as podcasts and web based interactive software such as Elluminate or Tegrity. Only time will tell.”

While I don’t agree totally with the tech support issues raised (I have several media specialists who are now able to do calls on their own with minimal problems), it certainly is a valid point. I’ve already blogged about how teachers can’t be expected to do this on their own.

If the technology is getting more complicated (all this weird dialing) instead of easier to use (I’m thinking specifically of K12 schools with limited tech support who want to connect to any other K12 school out there), what then???

I’m still mulling this over. Please comment if you have any thoughts on this!

In the meantime though, I’m going to keep doing creative curriculum based VCs for my schools!! I still do believe in the power of whole group based quality audio videoconferencing for communication & curriculum reasons!

Collaborative VC Projects are the "Third Wave"

On the plane home from NECC, I read the latest Wainhouse Research study, Taking the Wraps off Videoconferencing in the U.S. Classroom: A State-by-State Analysis. (The paper is on the Tandberg site right now because they sponsored it, but it will be on the Wainhouse site soon.)

I was most interested in the section titled, The Coming Third Wave for Videoconferencing in the Classroom.

Wave 3 will consist of increased student-to-student collaborative projects and even student creation and delivery of content. Connecting groups of students to participate in real-world, real-time learning engagements is a very powerful use of this technology and educators are just beginning to explore this application.

And we in Michigan having been leading this application of videoconferencing for almost 10 years!

  • Michigan Collaborative, now Michigan Week Exchange Projects, started in the 1997-1998 school year! This project, consisting of matching 4th grade classrooms to present to each other about their community (4th grade studies Michigan), has been a consistent success throughout the years. The model of ISDs (educational service agencies) gathering together to pool resources to provide such learning experiences served as an early precursor to TWICE, Michigan’s K12 videoconferencing organization. The model of matching classrooms for a 45 minute exchange (you present 15 min.; we present 15 min.; and 15 min. of Q&A) has proved to be a model for many other similar projects designed by teachers and curriculum people.
  • Michigan Collaborative was the model for Read Across America, started in March 2002 with 200 classrooms, expanded to 1042 classrooms in 2006, and growing to Read Around the Planet for 2007.
  • Then there are the projects like MysteryQuest: World Geography, MysteryQuest USA, RegionQuest, LAPS, and other classroom to classroom events that model the value of classroom to classroom or Kid2Kid videoconferences. These projects are being replicated in other states as well (see Wisconsin History Mystery).

So, if you haven’t already, catch the third wave of collaborative projects!

If you need some help along the way, try one of these resources:

NECC Exhibitor Visit #2

Today I talked to Polycom, Tandberg, and directPacket Research about their firewall traversal units. My main question is, how does it accept incoming calls?

Tandberg and directPacket Research require the “rogue” or “unknown” endpoint on the public side to register with the embedded gatekeeper to allow calls.

Polycom allows incoming calls with extension dialing, however it’s a bit of a trick to make a Tandberg endpoint dial in. I’m waiting for an email with a solution for that. I talked to someone who knows how it can be done and will send me the trick.

Why should I want incoming calls from public IPs?
Read Around the World 2007. How can I match a ton of sites if almost all of them can only dial out?????

“Best Practice”
Here’s the interesting thing. The rationale behind requiring sites to register to the gatekeeper is (in Tandberg’s point of view) best practice videoconferencing. I’m thinking maybe it’s really about security. Is it really secure to punch holes in your firewall for videoconferencing? I’m not a security expert for sure, but there’s a whole bunch of us doing VC this way (with VC holes in our firewalls) and I haven’t heard yet of someone hijacking an endpoint to hack the network.

Here’s my question really. If the industry thinks (or at least some in the industry think) that best practice is not allowing “rogue” or “unknown” units to dial in…. then…. how do we call each other? That term cracks me up! If you want to do a project with me, you’re a rogue endpoint! How does that make you feel?!!! LOL.

The answer is supposed to be gatekeepers. I still chuckle at that. Or at least I try to chuckle at it so I won’t cry! LOL. I did 400 VCs last year with almost 400 different places. Am I going to register with them all? Are we all going to neighbor our gatekeepers together? There’s so many ad hoc installations out there with very little technical support that I really think it’s a pipedream. Wainhouse Research just did a survey of VC in the U.S. and it was announced in the SIG IVC session this evening. The paper is on the Tandberg site right now because they sponsored it, but it will be on the Wainhouse site as well next week. Bottom line. There are 23,000 VC rooms in the US. Now, tell me, how are we going to connect to each other if we have to use gatekeepers?? Can we really get organized enough to neighbor 23,000 endpoints and their respective gatekeepers together? I have me doubts.

Then there was the conversation with vendors about gatekeepers getting in the way of calls. It makes me laugh to see the puzzled looks. I got this at the H323 workshop I went to in May too. Gatekeepers aren’t supposed to get in the way of calls. Unregistering from the GK isn’t supposed to be a solution to make the call work. But just about everyone I know who does lots of VCs  with “rogue units” (i.e. other schools) has run into this little quirk. One of these days several of us need to open trouble tickets so the gurus can trace the packets to see what’s really happening.

What we really need is an option on the front screen to unregister from gatekeepers, or to have a list of “favorite gatekeepers” so the end user can jump between the places (read: school districts around the world) that they like to connect to. I know this isn’t a corporate VC need for sure, but it’s driving some of us in K12 crazy.

I also learned that there is a new standard for firewall traversal called H.460 version 18 & 19. I’m sure we’ll hear more about this in the future. I didn’t get very far in googling it.

Well, I’ll keep learning and investigating this and sharing what I’ve learned. If you know more, or have comments (even vendors!), please comment.

Conference Tags: necc necc06

Hyper-Mirror Videoconferencing

Experience HyperMirror Videoconferencing! Japan-LA-NJ Collaboration! Energize Hands-On Learning!
Agnes Zaorski, Eatontown Public Schools with Takanori Maesako, Osamu Morikawa and Cathy Timpone

I’m in a really cool session about HyperMirror….

Right now during introductions I’m amazed by the blue tarp on the wall and the presenters are in the screen with the remote site! You have to see this! I’ve linked to a picture – but look at the images on this page.

The curriculum focus is on using probes and doing water testing between NJ & Japan.

She’s using phrases like, “we’re sharing data in a HyperMirror with Japan…”

They started with a New Jersey pond study and sometimes an ocean study. In Japan they did a river study.

Hands-on is the best way for students to learn. Students took probes to the water, recorded the data, and brought it back to the classroom for analysis. Two scientists were available in the classroom and via online for the students to ask additional questions.

Any international project includes culture as part of the learning, even in this science collaboration.

HyperMirror makes magic so they look like they in the same room.

How did they solve the time zone! US EST classes came back to school at 6:30 p.m. The Japan kids started at 7:30 a.m. There was a 13 hour difference. Both sites were willing to adjust their learning time. This is THE MOST important part of doing international connections. Being flexible and both sides giving are really important.

They used Moodle as their online community for asynchronous discussion forums to bypass the email issues. They had forums for troubleshooting, ask the expert, general discussions, discussing the latest results, assessment and more. They also use the glossary tool in Moodle.

They went to their water sources and tested various places using litmus paper, probes and computers. “Technology was perceived as process, product and tool.”

The findings were recorded in Excel and DataStudio. Students generated questions about their data.

This is a great example of a higher level thinking project that I’ve been thinking about all week.

So, next, how does HyperMirror work?

Problems with current VC – participants in different spaces and display splits them into 2 worlds.

The development concept is that we can be in a new conversation space that is on screen in a new space together. Digital Mirror World or HyperWorld.

The inventor showed a real mirror in the PowerPoint, and then a HyperMirror. Electronic Mirror. He had a create set of short movies to explain the concept. We are in the same room. What I see is What You See. WISIWYS.

There’s a mixer in between that mixes the two together. You get a live feed where everyone is in the same room using chromakey mixing. Here’s the graphic from the page on how to make it that was in his PowerPoint.


The emergence of etiquette as if you were in the same room. People start to act as if they were in the same room.

This is just wild!!! Amazing!

They started in 2001 and have connected with China, Korea, Afghanistan, Kenya, Mongolia since then.

So now they are going to do water tests on from both sides of the Pacific Ocean. The students are doing the water tests side by side in HyperMirror.
I really wish I’d had a digital camera! Next year I’ll have to come to NECC (if I can come) with a digital camera!

Now we’re doing an origami lesson together. Everyone is folding to make a crab.

This was a really cool session. I see Dale Hilton from the Cleveland Museum of Art here in this session. They already have the chromakey, so it seems it wouldn’t take much for them to implement this. Maybe soon we’ll be “hypermirroring” with the Cleveland Museum of Art!!

Every year at NECC I see a “WOW” connection. This was it for this year!!

Oops. Nope. We might not be doing this. The unit that mixes is research at the Osaka University and isn’t a commerical product. So maybe we won’t be doing it soon.

Hmmm. this works with iChat too.

Other things: virtual dressups with other cultures. Very cool. Very fun. Bringing people together into the same room virtually. Awesome.

Ok one more thing. The switch only needs to be at one site. The blue screen is only at the room that has the mixer. Cool. So we can do this with them!!!

Conference Tags: necc necc06

IVC Showcases

I didn’t get to see as many of the IVC showcase sessions as I wanted to. But there were two that I wanted to mention.

I totally missed the Indianapolis Zoo session – but I heard that they have installed the chromakey or green screen technology. Very cool. Gotta go to the Indy Zoo again this year for sure!

I saw about 5 minutes about the Grossology session. It was highly interactive and the teachers were jammed in. They were laughing and chuckling… good signs of engagement in the learning. I haven’t connected to the Adventure Science Center, but it’s certainly on my list for next year!

Conference Tags: necc necc06

Online Class Networking

Here’s another neat NECC story from talking to people.

At the fireworks party on the 4th of July I ran into Donna Farren, NY and Carol Scott, OK, who took my online class together a year or so ago – Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections. It was great to hear how they had kept in touch with each other and done projects between their classes.

I knew in my head at least that the networking in the class was a huge value to the participants, but it was wonderful to hear much later how that networking was impacting students with quality projects. Go Donna & Carol!

Conference Tags: necc necc06

Designing Quality Projects… Round Two

Just finished the one hour version of my 4th of July all day workshop – Designing Quality Interactive Projects for Videoconferencing. The room was packed again – standing room only. It was interesting to see the high level of interest! We connected to Jenny Homer (through Global Leap and JVCS) in the United Kingdom and she shared her experiences participating in the pilot international Read Across America (in this case, Read Across the Atlantic).

Then we talked about what VC is – the continuum of VC and shared lots of project stories. I did add three slides to my PowerPoint, so if you’ve downloaded it already you might want to get it again. I added them based on some of the questions people asked in the workshop on Tuesday.

I added these questions to ask before you start designing a project:

  • What is my required curriculum?
  • What can my students learn from connecting to another class?
  • How does it add value to the lesson?
  • What benefit is gained in greater curriculum understanding because the students collaborated with another class?

I added a reminder about ISTE NETS for Students Standard #4:

  • Students use telecommunications to collaborate, publish, and interact with peers, experts, and other audiences.
  • Students use a variety of media and formats to communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences.

And I added Bernie Dodge’s “Five Words” that intrigued me so much yesterday. I had everyone pair-share really quickly some ideas on those 5 words, but didn’t give them enough time. But I encouraged everyone (and I encourage you too!) to keep thinking about these five words!

  • Design
  • Decide
  • Create
  • Predict
  • Analyze

We had a great time! Lots of people wanted to talk afterwards and I have a badge holder bulging with business cards. People were networking with each other too. Yeah! That’s what it’s all about!!!

Conference Tags: necc necc06

Authors, Guest Speakers, and International Connections: Videoconferencing for Learning

Yesterday Elaine Shuck, Polycom, and I had a packed IVC showcase session. About 70 people attended. You can access the PowerPoint and links here.

We connected to Jim Stovall, blind author of the book, The Ultimate Gift. In just 10 minutes of interaction with Jim, the audience was hooked and enthralled with the interaction. We were able to take several questions from the audience.

One of the coolest moments occurred at the end. I’ll quote here my supervisor, Dennis’ comment on one of my blog entries yesterday:

Educators live for those “Aha!” moments. It is no less exciting to see that in educators. Such was the case in a session with Elaine, Jim and Janine presenting about the ASK program with author, Jim Stovall. At then end of that part of the session a teacher, in her Aha! monent, said “I really want to do this with my students – but what’s a Polycom?” – a wonderful, heartfelt Aha! moment. We do indeed touch people’s personal and professional hearts when we share the good thing we are doing with teachers and kids. Janine, Jim and Elaine are demonstrating visionary leadership.

Cool. It’s as awesome to impact teachers as impacting kids with great VCs!

Conference Tags: necc necc06