Still Thinking about VC in the Classroom, Skype etc.

The saga/conversation/thinking continues…..

Mirial: Desktop H323 VC from Italy

This morning I downloaded Mirial, a 30 day trial version, (recommended on a comment yesterday) and got excited about the possibilities of getting VC in our “21st century classrooms” around the county. We have several teachers with “tricked out classrooms” who also love VC but want it in their classroom. I haven’t tested too much yet, but so far:

  • The download and install was easy.
  • I didn’t have to make any network or firewall changes and it worked. But I can only dial out (so far).
  • It’s 165 euros which seems to be about $250 US. Now how to buy it?
  • It registered to my GK, and can do H.239.
  • It connected fine to my Polycom endpoints and my Tandberg bridge.
  • It doesn’t work with a firewire camcorder on the Mac yet (bummer).

I’m seriously thinking of getting a classroom to try this out for a year….

Teacher: H323 is better than Skype

Then this afternoon, in a collaborations workshop for Tech Camp, I had a teacher who has Skype and has connected to Mexico. But she says “this is way better” pointing to our VSX7000 set up. She doesn’t have access in her building, but plans to bus the kids here to participate in VCs!!!

So there’s another perspective to compare to yesterday’s.

Bottom line as a VC coordinator for my schools, I need to be able to have a variety of solutions to meet their needs!

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