Category Archives: Technology

H.261, H.263, H.264 La La Land

Is anyone other than me have a weird year with video protocols? It used to be that you just had to think about… is this call H.323 (IP) or H.320 (ISDN)? and connect accordingly. Now sometimes two video protocols (H.261, 263, 264) get in a call and have a fight with each other!

This year so far I’ve several strange things happening with calls with both Polycom and Tandberg units that can do H.261, H.263 and/or H.264. This morning I was troubleshooting a call with Andrea Israeli, NY and a ClicktoMeet site for Read Across America. Andrea and I have identical Polycom VSX7000’s on the same software rev and the ClicktoMeet site could call me but they couldn’t call her. Very strange. On a hunch, I suggested forcing the call down to H.261. Voila! It worked.

I feel like I’ve been sucked into 261/263/264 la la land. It’s a land where you never know if your calls will work. But it seems that forcing the call down to H.261 makes it work. Why is that???

I love the idea of H.264 working on low bandwidth sites with better quality. Another of my Read Across America connections is with a class in Alberta who called us at 128K. The quality was beautiful! Polycom People Plus Content came across great as well. I’d really like to see this work on a consistent basis. I guess we just have to weather this bump as the vendors work it out.

Crossing my fingers for 32 mostly Read Across America connections this week….

Keeping Organized

Organizational skills are probably the most essential skills needed for a distance learning coordinator at any level. Do you agree?

There are so many details to keep track of! Program requests from the teachers, scheduling procedures for each place you want to connect with, IP addresses or ISDN numbers, trouble numbers, dates & times, etc.

I’d like to share some of my tips & tricks for keeping organized. How do you keep track of your distance learning connections? Please comment and share!

Scheduling & Program Requests
The first area to organize is the requests from teachers. I started using FileMaker Pro very early on in our distance learning program to take teacher requests. Every request is a record in our database. Mostly I require the teachers to fill it out, but sometimes under special circumstances I do it for them. There are two forms that enter requests into the same database: Scheduling Request and Mini-Grant Request. I’m linking so you can see how they work.

This way, when a request comes in, I get all the information up front needed to schedule with a content provider or for a project or special event.

Then we have a back end entry (which I won’t give you access to! :>) where my scheduler and I keep track of our communications in scheduling the event. We record when we fill out the online form, summaries of emails/calls between us and the provider and/or the teacher, etc. This way we can quickly see the status of any request.
When the program is all scheduled, then a confirmation email goes to the teacher, the distance learning contacts in the building/district, and the principal.
Right now we are doing scheduling for all our districts. Originally with our V.35 network, they couldn’t connect on their own so they had to schedule through me. Now there is the possibility of them scheduling on their own, but usually I am funding part or all of the program, so I still need the records. So at this point, scheduling still all goes through me. As we expand, we may need to rethink this procedure. We have been doing about 200 or so programs a year. I’m already over that number this year, and next year we’re installing 35 new units (above the 24 we support right now).

Projects & Special Events
Another area that really takes organizational skills is running projects and special events such as ASK, MysteryQuest, Lest We Forget, and Read Across America. I use a trick I learned from Arnie Comer at Macomb ISD: Word tables. For example, the picture shows my Word file for my 38 Read Across America connections. Orange boxes are ISDN; light green are test calls scheduled; and darker green are completed test calls. Each row is a connection; each box is the contact information from the match email for both partners.

I keep Word files like this for the other events we run as well. That way I can easily pull up whatever contact information I need. Thanks Arnie for teaching me this trick!

RSS Calendar
I keep all the events on my own calendar (Palm Desktop), but this year I’ve tried, with imperfect success, to keep the events listed on our website as well using RSS Calendar. I learned about this tool from Dan Gross, SWING, Wisconsin. I haven’t done too well with keeping it current & accurate, but it has been better than how I used to manually enter our events on our website! I would like to do this better, because as we increase use in districts, my local distance learning coordinators will also need to make sure we don’t double book events within a district.

Email
As some of you razz me about, I tend to generate a lot of email. And of course, the more you send, the more you get! So I have lots of folders, organized within folders. I have a main level folder for content providers, with a folder for each provider within. I have a main level folder for state, province, and country folders of people I know doing VC in different areas. Very handy when planning a project! I also have a folder for each ASK program within an ASK folder, and a folder for projects with a separate folder. This way I can quickly find whatever contact/history I need.

Checklists
Finally, there are some great checklists out there for making a videoconference happen. This one, from Athena, UK, is detailed and easy to understand. See especially the checklist on the last page. Participants in my Kid2Kid online class love this list. Do you know of any other good checklists? Please share!

Please share
These are just a few of my strategies. I’m sure there are many other good ones. Please leave a comment so we can learn from your strategies!

January 19, 2007 Update. I’m no longer using the RSS Calendar. Now I have a way for my districts to enter programs they’ve scheduled onto the calendar, and a way for them to look up what’s scheduled on the calendar. These are all different entry points to the same Filemaker Pro database mentioned above.

Our Internet is Down!

I know a bunch of you fellow distance learning colleagues are trying to get a hold of me for Read Across America, MysteryQuest and other distance learning events. The TWICE website and of course my Distance Learning website are hosted on the BCISD webserver, and our web & email is down. Both my read@remc11.k12.mi.us for Read Across America and my jlim@remc11.k12.mi.us account is down too.

For those of you trying to finish up your Read Across America registration by Jan. 11. Please don’t worry. I’ll give you through the end of January 12 if it’s back up tomorrow; and if not, then through January 17. I’ll be offline anyway the 13th through the 16th. Good time for a long weekend! 🙂

Time to take a break, rest, and consider what’s most important in your life. We can live without the Internet. Right?!

VC Islands 2.0

It used to be in the “old days” with videoconferencing that educational organizations, consortia, states, etc. put in videoconferencing islands for shared classes. The main use of videoconferencing then was sharing high school and college level classes and usually an organization just shared classes within their network.

We’ve made great progress in moving away from these VC islands and doing more collaborative, creative activities with videoconferencing. Now we participate in events like Megaconference, Megaconference Jr., connect to content providers, and create collaborative videoconferences.

But with these new activities, we’re running into VC Islands 2.0: The next generation of videoconferencing islands, if you will. These new islands are created by special dialing schemes and the never-ending challenges with firewalls.

Lately I’ve been working on test calls for Read Across America, along with our wonderful Verification Partners. I also just began serious work on the implementation of the 2005 USDA RUS DLT Grant we were awarded last week.

It’s amazing to me that many vendors still don’t get it! We really do want to connect easily to ANYONE! And that generally just means a plain old simple IP address or ISDN number. None of this alias stuff or dialing extensions (which I’ve seen for both IP & ISDN connections). Very annoying! Not all units can connect. Not all bridges can connect to these extensions. Why they even recommend this type of dialing scheme to K12 education is beyond me!

Admittedly I’m not a network technician, though I’ve learned more about the network than I ever thought I could. So I don’t know everything about how these things could work. I just know that I want to connect to my VC colleagues around the world as easily as possible! No extensions!

Enough ranting. Get to work! As my colleague Kevin says.

The Polycom Ghost

Last night I spent a couple hours at E. P. Clarke Elementary setting up for our ASK: Author Interview with Janie Panagopoulos today.

We had a funny experience with their Polycom VSX 7000. We had set everything up easily for the classroom layout. You can see in the picture we have the students facing the author (off screen to the left) and the microphone is in between the author & the student asking her a question.

We set the presets and then discovered the alert about the remote battery being low. (Isn’t it great that the new Polycoms report this! Someone was thinking when they invented that feature!) As we were finishing changing the batteries, we were talking and joking, and someone set the remote down and we heard a weird voice from the Polycom. We looked at each other and we all thought the other person had said something. It was very funny, as such things can be late at night when we should be sleeping instead of working!

Then I looked at the Polycom and it was on the dialing screen and with three extra nines at the end of the IP address we had just tested with. So I hit the 9 and it was exactly the sound we had heard. Nine. In that “Polycom voice.” We all laughed hysterically.

Do YOU have a funny Polycom story?!

Can Teachers Do This Alone?

This morning I gave a 5 minute overview of our distance learning programming to the curriculum directors from the 16 school districts in Berrien County. Then I stayed and listened to the rest of the meeting. It was a vivid reminder on the curriculum and assessment pressures on schools. Teachers have so many things to worry about these days! New 8th grade assessment, 300+ benchmarks for math teachers to cover, updates on professional development opportunities we offer to our districts, etc. etc.

There’s so much to think about… so much pressing in… so many things to do.

Yesterday I started reading Doug Johnson’s blog, a presenter I enjoy hearing at the annual MACUL conference. This question has simmered in my brain since. What drives your technology initiatives? He asks:

How much is it the technology department’s job to promote technology use? How much is the technology department’s job to support the technology initiatives of the pedagogical experts?

You can apply this question to videoconferencing as well. I talked to another colleague yesterday who expressed concern that someone always has to coordinate and drive the use of videoconferencing. “When will the teachers be able to do it on their own,” he wondered.

However, after hearing what our curriculum directors are dealing with, and in turn passing on to their teachers, I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect teachers to do this on their own. I’m doing verification tests for Read Across America today too. Think of the work it takes to make a connection work.

  • You have to be trained on the equipment and able to troubleshoot.
  • You have to be able to navigate all the different ways to schedule and test with content providers. I did a test call yesterday that would have been quite confusing even for my building level distance learning coordinators, let alone a teacher on their own.
  • You have to understand the technology well enough to imagine the curriculum possibilities.
  • You also need a firm grounding in curriculum and pedagogy so you can imagine the curriculum possibilities!
  • If you want to use it a lot and creatively, you have to be able to keep up on all the creative ways other people are using VC. Reading and finding articles, paying attention to the listservs, etc. This activity informs your ability to imagine the curriculum possibilities.

I think that takes a coordinator at some level! Even if media specialists are responsible for all this, they seriously need support as well!

When you know the possibilities, you can dream up some really great VCs that tightly match the curriculum. Like the Invasive Species project I’m running next week for a biology class at Lakeshore High School [Feel free to copy this idea!]. Or the wild ideas I’m dreamed up with our fine arts consultant this morning for drama, theater, and dance classes.

It’s not just that the technology is still not as simple as a phone call. It’s also that teachers need assistance imagining how videoconferencing could enhance their curriculum and knowing who they could connect to!

So for now at least, distance learning coordinators at all levels are essential people!

What Tree Am I?

Ok here’s the coolest idea I’ve run across in a while….

Bill Johnson from OneNet in Oklahoma just sent this email to the Megaconference listserv:

My H.323 IP address is below, my system is always in “auto-answer” mode
and my remote camera control is enabled. Simply dial my IP with your
system, select remote camera control and pan hard left. You should be
able to see a lite-green tree out side my window. So far, no one has
been able to tell me what kind of tree it is. Can you tell? If so,
please email me. Only a few weeks left to figure this out as the “Fall”
season is upon us and the tree will be bare soon.

Bill Johnson
Director of Network Operations – OneNet
Director – Netrad Infrastructure for CASA
President – Oklahoma Distance Learning Association
Video 164.58.250.185

What a cool idea! Imagine kids making a problem like this & sending it out to many schools to dial in & try to solve! Imagine putting several clues around your classroom & setting a time when other school could dial in and pan the camera remotely around the room….

What curriculum based ideas can you think of???

New Middle Schools Online

Yesterday I tested with the three Benton Harbor middle schools who just installed used Polycom 512s. I’m so excited that they now have access! A huge barrier to using videoconferencing in my middle schools is the transportation to the high school to access the technology. It’s easier for one or two elementary classes to come over and use it, but for 6 sections of a middle school subject area, it’s pretty much not worth the hassle. So now that these middle schools have the technology in the building, I know they will be using it much more this year!

A few other factors will make them successful this year, I’m sure. Each building has an assigned distance learning coordinator, mostly media specialists, who are in charge of the equipment. They are excited about the possibilities and find the Polycom remote easy to use. Having an enthusiastic “advocate” is what makes the difference in usage among the schools in our two counties.

In addition, most of the teachers already know what videoconferencing is. So instead of doing “awareness” sessions, we’re doing “pick your program” sessions. We’re trying out a new format for this professional development. The school will connect to me in my office for the whole day. Then as teachers have their conference hour, they will stop by the library to talk about what program(s) would be appropriate for their curriculum. They will be able to see the technology in action, experience how their videoconference setup works, and talk to me about possible programs or projects. I’m hoping that this will help teachers feel comfortable with their selections. I will help them fill out our mini-grant/scheduling request forms as well.

To my local principals & distance learning coordinators, if you want to schedule this type of professional development for your teachers, just contact me!

Going Mobile!

This morning I’m so excited about the possibilities now that some of our districts are “going mobile” with their Polycoms. Up until April we were using V.35 to connect fixed distance learning rooms at the high schools in our two counties. Now that we have new IP infrastructure installed here at the ISD, we’re converting all of our districts to IP. So far, that has mainly meant the high school distance learning room is now connecting via IP.

But two districts, Bridgman and Lakeshore, have taken the leap to converting their Polycom to a mobile unit. Pack up the Polycom, take it to the middle or elementary school, plug in power, network cable and an existing TV or data projector in the building, and voila! They are up & running with IP VC in this building! (Ok, there’s a few little IP address settings to fix too.)

I’m just delighted with the possibilities. Lakeshore has already tried their first connection truly classroom-to-classroom with the Worm Farm VC I blogged about earlier. Bridgman is taking 3 middle school classes to COSI for Gadget Works on June 2.

Getting transportation over to the high school has been a major barrier in both of these districts for using VC in the curriculum. It’s a pain to schedule a bus and deal with the cost of the bus (even if it is small). Then there’s the lost instructional time in getting to the HS. It’s just tons better to have the equipment in the building. Or even better in the classroom! And the middle school issues of being able to schedule the program during the class period and for several sections of the class are now reduced to just the cost of repeating the program. If we can select/create good free programs, we can now have great VC experiences for all sections of a middle school class!!!

One big step forward for using VC in Berrien and Cass counties! I’m excited about the increased use I KNOW will happen next year!

So… note to Polycom & Tandberg. How about a feature where you can select the IP settings for the unit from a location list and it automatically changes it?

The Kids Can Handle It!

Today we had the last MysteryQuest USA of this year. I am always struck by the patience and flexibility of the students in participating in this event! We had some interesting challenges this time – the class in Wales, Alaska had a power outage and were connected for a while via their generator; another class had a problem with their PowerPoint and had to finish their presentation later in the program; and we had a few connection issues with some of the sites (as usual it seems!). Try to connect 8 different sites all with different equipment and it gets interesting!

But while the adults participating in (and running) the videoconference may be stressing out about the technology – the kids are totally engaged in the task – finding out where everyone is located! They are patient with each other. Patient with the technology. They get great practice with their communication skills – speaking clearly and slowly. They are willing to do their part again without complaining when something happens so that we can’t hear them. The kids just roll with it! And what do they remember when it’s over? The fun they had… where the other classes were located… how neat it was to see the kids in Alaska…

And now the question is, who else can we connect with? The world is entering into the classroom in amazing instructional experiences!