Category Archives: Technology

That Newbie Feeling

I’ve been doing VCs since 1999 and it’s gotten to be a comfy easy thing to do! Well, now we are getting a new Tandberg MCU installed and I’m back to that newbie feeling. Realizing again how complex this technology really is! Waiting with baited breath to see if it works. What a celebration and elated feeling when it connects!

I think it’s good to be reminded of this now & again. I’m teaching an online class on using VC and there are several people new to VC in the class. There really is quite a leap of understanding and experience to jump into the VC world. It’s a scary thing when you haven’t done it before. When things don’t work the first time, it takes a courageous, persistent soul to try again! But if those of us that make the connections work can manage to give teachers a successful experience, then just watch the learning potential unleashed!

Learning about IP VC

Today I’m thinking about the challenges of switching to IP videoconferencing as one of my districts is working on that today. Coming into this job with an education background, I’ve learned a lot from experience, talking to people, and reading on the net.

Some resources that I’ve used in learning are:

  • Firewalls are our Friends This site has step by step instructions for making a Polycom work with the Cisco Pix or Novell BorderManager firewalls. Very helpful to share with techs!
  • VCTTalk.com Videoconferencing Professionals Online This community has lots of people with high level technical knowledge. I’ve learned some of the words I need to use as well as the issues that we are running into and how to solve them.
  • OARnet has this site – How to Become a Videoconference Hero in 7 Easy Steps. I wonder about this one though. Is it possible (realistic?) for K12 to have a network as strong as they recommend here? Maybe in k12 we’re just more tolerant of pixelation? I feel quite happy with what we’ve been able to do with our IP videoconferences, but we don’t meet the high standards listed here.

There are many more good links about IP vc on the TWICE website. Also the University of Wisconsin has great information to get started with understanding IP videoconferencing.