Interviewing Congressman Fred Upton

Today Coloma, Edwardsburg, and St. Joseph High School are interviewing our U.S. Representative Fred Upton. Mr. Upton comes here to Berrien RESA annually to talk about issues with local civics and government classes. Here are some of the questions students asked today:

  • What can we do about the federal debt? (Students learned about the line item veto, earmarks, and ethics).
  • How can we increase manufacturing jobs in the U.S.?
  • Do you think the electoral college is still a valid way to elect our president?
  • What is your view of the unemployment rate in the 6th district and do you think it’s getting better or worse?
  • How can we improve green energy in Michigan?
  • How will the healthcare plan affect southwest Michigan?
  • President Obama announced yesterday that he wants offshore drilling. What is your view on this?
  • Can you describe your routine in a regular day?
  • How do you feel about Whirlpool closing down plants and moving to Mexico?
  • What do you think we can do about the Asian carp problem? (Mr. Upton told us about an April Fool’s Joke played on him this morning – someone said they caught an Asian carp in the St. Joe river and threw it back.) For those of you not from the Great Lakes area, read about the Asian carp problem here.
  • You have a great voting record. With technological advances, couldn’t they develop a more efficient way to vote?
  • How is the cap and trade bill going to affect the economy?
  • Social security benefits seem to be a concern for our generation. What do you think can be done to make sure that we have these benefits as we get older?
  • How can we get more money without raising taxes?
  • Is there going to be federal money to help kids go to college?

These videoconferences continue to be a powerful learning experience for our students and a great opportunity to make the issues in civics and government classes come alive!

Installing a New LifeSize Room

Today was an exciting day! New equipment installations are always exciting! We were lucky enough to have a school eligible for a grant through Views On Learning to receive a new LifeSize Room system, plus really cool Ergotron cart and 50 inch display. Rolling the system down the hall in the school created quite a buzz!

This was my first opportunity to really test out a LifeSize unit. I did present from one in Nebraska last year, but didn’t get to really play with it.

Here’s the cart. Isn’t that a great cart – I love how lightweight it looks. Seems like it won’t be too hard to push around either. The display mount has some kind of cool technology that you can easily just move it up or down without any knobs or handles.

Of course we tested it fine to my office Polycom units, my Tandberg bridge. Registered it to our gatekeeper, tried out our dialing plan. Everything worked seamlessly.

I had to have a picture of the remote so I can assist the teachers when they call me on the phone needing help in a panic!

Hooking up the cables. It’s got an S-Video in, so we can use an existing document camera in the school. Here they are connecting the computer.

Testing sharing the computer (Mac login screen) with the other site.

Just like the new Polycom HD units, you can easily swap the layout of your picture in picture etc. on the screen.

H.239

If you’ve been reading this blog very long, you know that I have serious issues with H.239, so I was pretty nervous about how this would work. Of course it worked great to a Polycom HD unit with H.239 turned on. But what about when you connect to a unit that has H.239 turned off? Every other unit I’ve seen just complains and says the far site cannot receive the computer screen. Then you’re out of luck. One of the reasons H.239 really annoys me and I tell my schools never to buy the extras for H.239.

But. Wonder of wonders! I tested sharing the computer to my Polycom VSX 7000 with H.239 turned off. It sent just the computer. No errors or complaints!

I tested sharing the computer through my Tandberg bridge with H.239 turned off. Voila. It still sent just the computer. No errors.

Yay! Yay! I think this is the piece I’m most excited about.

It’s sooooo frustrating to have schools in MysteryQuests and other events where they want to share their computer and they think they can, but then it doesn’t work.

Hollywood Elementary has quite a few videoconferences this spring, so I’ll be looking to see how stable this unit is and how it interacts with other units in all the different types of calls that we’ll be doing.

Thank you to Views On Learning for the incredible opportunity to be part of this grant!

And thank you to Kevin Clark for taking the photos.

Super Early Bird Registration For ISTE Ends Today! Register Now!

Did you notice that the super early bird registration for ISTE (formerly NECC) ends today (March 31)? Hurry and register!

Besides all the great Web 2.0, online learning, and instructional technology topics you can learn about, there is an awesome line up of videoconferencing content. Plus, all morning Wednesday there will be an IVC Playground led by the one and only VC Rox! You don’t want to miss this amazing learning experience!

Are you coming?!

Interviewing Women Business Executives

Three of the executives participated from California.

Last Friday afternoon we had several local classes participate in a Polycom Special Event. Students from business, management, and economics classes interviewed four Polycom women executives as a celebration of Women’s History Month. The students had prepared great questions:

  • Did you know this job existed when you were going to school?
  • Were you always interested in this field?
  • What skills and/or abilities were really helpful to you in this job?
  • Why is following your skills and interests so important in choosing a job?
  • What are the most difficult aspects of your job?
  • Did you need to know a lot about technology?
  • Explain how technology has changed the way you do your job?
  • How will the job outlook and advancement affect your career plans for 5 years from now?

Students appreciated the opportunity to talk to women in the work force to hear about their experiences and their advice for high school students.

Thank you, Polycom, for offering these special events to our students!

Time to Register for Spring Quests

Registration is open for the spring “quest” events. You’ll need verified equipment in CAPspace to register. I can walk you through it quickly if needed. Just email me.

Click the project links to visit the wiki with all the preparation materials.

MysteryQuest USA

This project is designed for 4th or 5th grade students studying US geography. Through video conference technology, students are able to meet other students while learning about cities and states in the United States. Prior to the video conference each classroom will create a presentation with clues about their state and city. The other classrooms, using maps, the Internet, textbooks, and other resources, will try to discover the mystery location presented by each participating classrooms.

Dates: April 21 through May 13; lots of times open right now.

Cost: $35.

HistoryQuest5: Beginnings to 1800

This project is designed for 5th grade students studying US History. Through video conference technology, students are able to meet other students while learning about United States history.

Prior to the video conference each classroom will create a presentation with clues about a mystery person, event, invention, issue/problem or section from a document. The other classrooms, using maps, the Internet, textbooks, and other resources, will try to discover the history mystery presented by each participating classroom.

Cost: $35.

Dates: May 17-21. Lots of times available right now.

HistoryQuest8: Civil War

This project is designed for 8th grade students studying US History: Civil War. Through video conference technology, students are able to meet other students while learning about United States history.

Prior to the video conference each classroom will create a presentation with clues about a mystery person, event, invention, issue/problem or section from a document. The other classrooms, using maps, the Internet, textbooks, and other resources, will try to discover the history mystery presented by each participating classroom.

This one is FREE!

Dates: April 22-23. Only 5 slots left!

Student Comments:

Here’s a kid comment from April 2009 MysteryQuests.

It was great!  Problem solving at its best!  Really fun.  One student comment after I explained we would miss recess:  “That’s ok, this is a lot more fun than recess.”  Quite the compliment!  Thanks for making it possible. -Linda Cokley in Missouri

Hope you can join us this year! Let me know if you have any questions or difficulties.

International VCs and Service Learning

Today we have several amazing videoconferences for our rural students in Berrien County.

EcoConversations

Reed Middle School, in Bridgman, is connecting to a class in the UK to discuss environmental issues. The class in the UK shared with us information about carbon emissions, including some great posters and a RAP that started with:

hey hey, we’re here today, to tell our friends in the USA about CO2

Our students shared the issues around bottled water including health, media advertising, costs, public water supplies and more. After the thorough presentations, students asked each other questions about the weather, their school systems, uniforms. The students clearly enjoyed the interaction and learned from the other class.

Stand Up, Speak Out with MAGPI

Lakeshore Middle School has been participating in a unique serving learning program with MAGPI. In the kick-off conference, students interviewed holocaust survivor, Gerda Weissmann Klein. As a follow-up, they participated in service learning projects and reported on the results on the project wiki. In today’s session the schools at each site are reflecting on their experiences with service learning and the impact of the program on their understanding.

Talking to Students in Haiti with Global Nomads Group

Upton Middle School and St. Joseph High School are participating in the Global Nomads Group program with students in Haiti. You can read more about it here. The program was a two part connection, starting the conversation with the students in Haiti on Monday and continuing today. The participating classes are also raising money for Haiti through StudentsRebuild.org. You can see part of the action: watch the live webcast on Friday, March 26 at 12:00 Eastern. More details on the GNG home page. These are incredibly powerful experiences, as students hear the stories of the students in Haiti, building empathy and understanding. We also were moved by the interaction of between Haitian students in Florida and the students in Haiti. GNG’s programs are always incredible!

Seems like these VCs are a great way to celebrate this blog’s 5th anniversary! 5 Years since that first post!

Additional Reading on Desktop VC

If you’ve been following the discussion/investigation on here about desktop videoconferencing, you might be interested in some additional reading:

  • “Desktop Videoconferencing Will Challenge the Network“. Note that this is from 2008. Still interesting reading. Be sure to read the comments. What I found most interesting was the comment from Stefan Karapetkov that normal use is about 10% of the users/devices. Even though sometimes I feel like my schools are keeping me too busy, when I think about a really busy hour with 4-7 VCs at the same time; that is still about 10% of our 70 units. This number is useful in planning for capacity with server based desktop videoconferencing.
  • Get Out of the Videoconferencing Rooms Already! This article is from just over a week ago; and argues that we shouldn’t have to go to a “room” to communicate. It should be available where we are. It fits in nicely with the concept that instructional tools are most easily used by the teacher when they are available IN the classroom (i.e. computers, videoconferencing, etc.).

Videoconference Food Shows!

One of our local culinary arts classes is participating in a collaboration today with a school in Pennsylvania. Both classes are culinary arts classes and each class prepared a food demonstration. Teachers negotiated ahead of time what all would be included in the videoconference.

Our class made pretzels:

Their class made doughnuts:

Afterwards, the students asked each other questions about what they are learning in class; their school life; etc.

A simple collaboration; but another great way to apply the videoconference exchange format to a career tech class!

Thinking About Mirial Softphone

As you know, I’ve been on a journey to figure out how to get videoconferencing in the 21st century classrooms in our county. Last fall, on a recommendation from a blog commenter, I started experimenting with Mirial Softphone; a desktop VC tool.

Pros

I was initially interested in Mirial over Polycom PVX as a desktop stand alone tool for these reasons:

  • I didn’t have to make any network or firewall changes and it worked. So easy!!
  • It works on the Mac (Polycom PVX is PC only).

In addition,

  • It registered to my GK, and can do H.239.
  • It connected fine to my Polycom endpoints and Tandberg bridge.

Cons / Issues

  • One of the first issues I ran into was how to buy Mirial. With a school account it would be hard to buy something online from Europe that was in euros! I did, however, find a reseller in Michigan. I also found out that you have to buy it in packs of 3; and that it would be 3 Mac licenses or 3 PC licenses; but not a mix. This complicates things a bit.
  • I tried this out on three of our school networks. On two of them it worked great; no configuration needed for the firewall. On the third network we were stuck. Could not get it to work on the network without going through the hoops that we’d do for a full videoconference system (NAT, etc.).

Conclusions

I like Mirial for schools that are Mac based and are “on their own” – i.e. no regional videoconference support. I have connected to several schools who have a Polycom PVX “cart” with a laptop and projector, varying qualitys of web cam/PTZ camera, and a microphone. Mirial seems to be the best way that I’ve seen for doing this type of installation with a Mac.

Server Based Desktop VC

I’m just starting to learn about the advantages of server based desktop videoconferencing. The more I read; the more I realize that the cost is a huge factor. If we were to install standalone desktop VC (Polycom PVX or Mirial) in all the 21st century classrooms, the cost would climb very quickly. However, with server based desktop videoconferencing, many of the cost models are set up by concurrent videoconferences; NOT by the number of computers with the software installed. In places with regional videoconference support (like my area and my schools), it seems much more cost effective to go the server route. More on additional options (i.e. Vidyo and Polycom CMA Desktop) in future posts.

For now, though, one last tidbit from my email today: a Wainhouse Research Bulletin quote:

Milan-based Mirial released ClearSea, a new client-server desktop videoconferencing solution supporting both PC and Mac users as well as H.323 room systems. Features include a centralized directory, user group management, integration with Active Directory/LDAP, full remote configuration and upgrade of desktop clients. The port-based licensing and the possibility to download unlimited copies of the client makes the product extremely scalable without the need to worry about unused accounts. ClearSea provides the ability to connect the local (on-LAN) and remote (off-LAN) desktop users across their firewalls and to their SIP or H.323 legacy conferencing room systems, without the need of any external gateway or bridge. The product also embeds a video IVR to call users by extensions and an “autoscan” feature for finding existing room systems.

So, it seems clear that there are very interesting and promising developments in H323 desktop videoconferencing. Stay tuned for more reflections in future posts.

Videoconferencing in the 21st Century Classroom

Last week I compared using Skype in the classroom to using H323 videoconferencing carts in schools.

Are those our only choices? What if there was something in between?

  • Something affordable.
  • Something that any district could include when installing 21st Century Classrooms / Classrooms of Today / etc. (You know, classrooms with interactive whiteboards, short throw projectors, sound systems etc.).
  • Something that schools could get without a grant. How many VC units do YOU know of that were installed without a grant? Not many.

VC in Every Classroom

It’s been two years since one of our superintendents asked me how they could get videoconferencing in every classroom along with their interactive whiteboards. Since then I have not been able to stop thinking about this idea.

Why can’t we have videoconferencing in all these 21st century classrooms? If we don’t think of a solution soon; they will all switch over to Skype and miss out on all the great H323 content out there.

This year has been my year to investigate this seriously. Soon I’ll blog results of experimenting and thinking about:

  • Mirial
  • Vidyo
  • Polycom CMA
  • (I realize there are others; Tandberg Movi for example; but haven’t had an opportunity yet to learn about it/try it)

I Have a Dream

My dream is that all of the interactive classrooms in my service area will be videoconferencing-enabled!

  • A high quality web cam
  • Skype (for connections with people who don’t have H323; i.e. international ones)
  • H323 desktop software
  • Echo-cancellation that works with both Skype and H323

When this is possible and affordable; I think H323 videoconferencing will have a chance to become mainstream in schools – instead of just 30% penetration.

As I look back at my required components from two years ago; I think we’re getting really close to meeting those. Stay tuned for further discussion as I share the results of my experimentation this year.

What do YOU think? Is this an achievable goal? Is it a realistic goal? Do you see it as important or not? Why? Please comment!