Tag Archives: VC Community

A Shared Professional Development Session: Canada and United States

ISTE IVC Showcase: Monica Cougan, CILC with Janet Barnes and Lance Ford

In this section, they described, 22 sites across the U.S. and Canada to a district that has sites across the two countries.

In the PD, the teachers were learning how to be interactive in teaching full courses over videoconferencing. Doug’s emphasis was to take the same things you do well in a face to face class and to figure out how to do that the same way with students who are learning in a full length videoconferencing class. They split the groups into two sessions – Tonia Carriger teaching one group; and Doug teaching another group. Then the groups split apart into small groups to have discussions. The presenters would pop in and out of the different rooms. This was done with Lance Ford’s Tandberg bridge. The teacher participants wrote lessons together in the small groups and presented them at the end of the week.

Cool VC Strategy Tip

  • Doug Meyer, CILC, described how he had the participants “huddle up” i.e. zoom really close in on the faces. It brought the group together and helped people feel closer to each other. After the huddle, they introduced themselves to learn more.

Building Community

Monica Cougan described how the format of the videoconference and the multiple sessions allowed a community to be created.

Lance Ford described how teachers have great strategies and lessons, and all that needs to be done is to wrap the technology around that. Teachers don’t have to change how they are teaching to teach over videoconference.

What is an MCU/Bridge?

Lance talked a bit about how each site can change their layout on the screen (Tandberg Codian MCU). Lance says: “an MCU is just a schoolhouse with a bunch of rooms” – and each site in the participants dialed in to the other rooms to do small groups or other activities.

CILC PD Marketplace

Monica explained the CILC Professional Development Marketplace and featured some of the various sessions that are listed there.

Learning Beyond the Horizon: Global Learning through Videoconferencing

Sunday ISTE Global Poster Session: Presenter: Carol Scott, Mustang Public Schools with Lynn Tilley
Videoconference ideas, examples, and success that empower students to become integrated 21st-century learners with global travel and collaborative projects.

Carol Scott had a sweet poster session last night with lots of interested people attending. Her online resources and links should be online here soon (but isn’t there yet).

Note all the cool VCs represented by Carol’s poster:

The poster session was well attended. See the crowd gathered around:

A few pics of Carol enthusiastically sharing with the attendees:

This was a great poster session, and I was so happy to see videoconferencing represented so well!

VC Sessions at ISTE

I’m at ISTE now and here’s a list of interesting sessions related to videoconferencing (posted earlier). Some are SIG IVC sponsored / promoted and others are additional videoconferencing sessions.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

Monday, June 28, 2010

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Are there any that I missed? Hope to see you at a VC session at ISTE! (or stay tuned for blog reports here!)

Looking back to Jazz; Looking forward to ISTE

June has been crazy for me – hence the quietness on this blog! I sure have a list of things to post though. Maybe in July you’ll get to hear about them!

June 123 VC: Jazzing Up Your Curriculum with Videoconferencing.

Shane Howard, of Whirlidurb, gives VC etiquette tips in a very entertaining format!

The June session of Jazz was again an amazingly stellar experience! Take a few moments to browse some of the resources used and generated during the workshop:

TWICE Retreat
The rest of this week I’m off to the TWICE retreat – watch for an announcement of Read Around the Planet dates for next year. (The calendar is a little weird. Not sure how it’s going to shake out yet!)

ISTE SIG IVC Playground

Next week I’ll be at ISTE – hanging out in the showcases on Monday (look for the brunette pirate); presenting a cool new CAPspace feature in the Polycom booth on Tuesday, and helping with the SIG IVC Pirate playground on Wednesday. If you’re going to be at ISTE, don’t miss the playground! We’re giving away $4000 worth of free programs from content providers, plus other cool pirate treasure.

Also, be sure to review this list of ISTE videoconferencing happenings.

I’ll be blogging the conference of course, so prepare to be inundated with what I’m learning. Particularly I’m hoping to write about what I learn about the 4 desktop VC tools featured at the playground.

Finally, Google Ads.

Lastly, it has come to my attention that wordpress is putting GoogleAds on my blog. It costs $30 a year to get rid of them. I never see them because I’m logged in! Do you see them? Are they annoying? Do they come in your RSS reader / email? I am just wondering what you, my readers, think of them and if I should do something different. Thanks for your feedback!

Hope your summer is going well and stay tuned for news from ISTE!!

Don't Miss the ISTE SIG IVC Playground: Early Bird Reg Ends May 1

This year at the ISTE Conference there will be an interesting new playground: a videoconference playground, complete with pirates, treasure maps, and gold (chocolate)! The SIG IVC playground runs Wednesday morning from 9 am to 1 pm.

Come search for treasures to enrich your classroom! Join video conference experts from around the country as they share their expertise in content and hardware to use with H.323 video conferencing. Connect with zoos and museums that offer video conference content to schools, as well as an author and other experts! See the latest in HD technologies. If you are interested in globalizing your classroom, this is the playground for you! Come and learn from practitioners and walk away amazed.

You’ll get hands-on time with various videoconference options, while you dial out to IP addresses to discover who is at the other end. Don’t miss this fun experience at ISTE, as well as other great videoconference workshops and sessions.

Register Quick Before the May 1 Early Bird Deadline!

Sign Up for Two Awesome ISTE Videoconference Workshops

It’s time to sign up for ISTE workshops! (Denver, June 27-30).

I hope you are planning to attend the ISTE conference this year, as there is a great line up of videoconference related content (both standards based videoconferencing and Skype videoconferencing). In addition, on Wednesday from 9 am to 1 pm there will be a SIG IVC playground that is bound to be an interactive, fun, and awesome experience, led by VC Rox and a team of talented and passionate videoconferencing educators.

There are two workshops that you don’t want to miss by award winning presenters. Perfect for integrating Skype or standards-based videoconferencing into your curriculum.

A Novel Hour: Extend Reading with Wikis, Skype, and Videoconferencing

Sunday, 6/27/2010, 8:30am–11:30am
Roxanne Glaser, Content Director of Whirlidurb, with Christina Hum and Rich Hum

Discover how to use wikis, Skype, and videoconferencing to create highly engaging learning environments for intermediate and middle school learners. Read more…

Roxanne GlaserAbout the Presenter:
Roxanne Glaser has presented at regional and state conferences in Texas, NECC 2008,and Elevate 2008 in Alberta, Canada. She was awarded the Excellence in Education Technology Award from COSI Columbus in May 2007 and the Don Foshee Memorial Grant Award from the Texas Distance Learning Association in May 2007 and 2008.

Glaser won two National Distance Learning Week Awards one for MysteryGuest Showcase for her work in staff development and one for Monster Match 2007 for best collaborative project. Texas Twisted Weather (www.texastwistedweather.com) was awarded second place in the 2009 SIG TEL Award.

Designing Quality Interactive Classroom Projects for Desktop or Room Videoconferencing

Monday, 6/28/2010, 12:30pm–7:30pm (an hour break included for dinner)
Janine Lim, Berrien RESA

Design your own videoconference projects using proven research-based instructional strategies. Engage your students in solving mysteries, sharing math and science problems, and more. Read more….

About the Presenter:

Janine Lim has been coordinating videoconferencing for 22 school districts in southwest Michigan since 1999, where her schools create and participate in over 300 projects a year. One of the co-founders of TWICE, Janine has spearheaded popular projects such as Read Around the Planet. Janine teaches two popular online class for using videoconferencing which have attracted participants from all over the world. Committed to promoting quality VC educational experiences, Janine writes a regular blog sharing experiences, curriculum thoughts, new resources, and technology comments related to K12 videoconferencing.

Lim won 2010 MACUL Educator of the Year, and USDLA 2008 Outstanding Leader in Distance Learning. Her videoconference program at Berrien RESA won the Computerworld Honors Program Laureate 2009; and her blog was nominated Best Resource Sharing Blog in 2008.

Register now for both of these workshops! Sign up before May 1 to ensure these workshops happen!

Thinking about Polycom CMA Desktop

This post continues the journey to figure out how to get videoconferencing in the 21st century classrooms in our county. Remember my original vision from 2008 as well. The other tool that is really catching my attention is Polycom’s CMA Desktop.

When I first learned about Polycom CMA Desktop, it had two drawbacks: the requirement to be on the same network as the CMA server (via VPN or physically), and it didn’t work on the Mac. Both of these have since been resolved.

In the month of March, thanks to Aaron Schippert at Saginaw ISD, I was able to play with the Polycom CMA Desktop and I’m really quite excited about it. I’m thinking in particular of two of my districts installing interactive whiteboards in all their classrooms, and wanting VC in every classroom if it can be done well.

I’m also thinking of my schools that still don’t have VC, as well as participants from my March session of Planning Interactive Curriculum Connections who were using only Skype. Once they learned what they were missing in H323 content, they were so eager to get H323 VC, but funding is a huge problem. One of the participants had set up a Skype cart for their school. What if, for a small fee, they could get H323 VC on their Skype cart as well??!!

So here’s my thoughts from testing and learning about Polycom CMA Desktop:

Pros

  • It’s super easy like Skype. It has your contact list and an easy call button. It will call an IP address or another person (by name) registered to the CMA server.
  • No echo! Echo cancellation is built in. In our test, we didn’t have to install an additional mic. Polycom CMA Desktop used the audio from the Logitech camera. With no echo. (Better than Skype! I’ve heard a lot of echos on Skype calls!) Echo cancellation is a huge issue when trying to morph desktop VC to work in a classroom.
  • Quality. In my initial tests with a login from Saginaw ISD, the video and audio is GREAT!
  • Scalability and cost. The cost structure is definitely a pro. After investing in the server, you can have unlimited downloads of the client software!!!  Of course, depending on how many licenses you buy (100, 200, 400, 500, & up), you can only have that many people logged in at the same time; and a slightly smaller percentage of those actually in a call at a time depending on setup. But teachers aren’t going to use VC all the time, so if you can just have them logout when they aren’t using it, this resource could stretch a LONG ways in education! Especially if you figure from the 10% use as normal use of VC – which I think is pretty close to a reasonable number when looking at the most VCs I have at the same time and how many codecs I support.
  • It works on the Mac! (starting April 30). Yay! This of course is critical. Not interested without Mac support.
  • When installed with a Video Border Proxy (VBP), it works great across firewalls. No configuration changes to the firewall! I tested a login borrowed from Saginaw ISD while they had a demo VBP at their site. We installed it on a PC behind our firewall, hooked up a 3+ year old Logitech camera, logged in, and we were up and running. Beautiful. Connected fine to several H323 units off our network. No problem. (Note: I understand from talking our sales guys at Polycom that this may not work as well with corporate high security firewalls. In that scenario they recommend a VBP at each network edge.) Just imagine giving an author or expert a temporary login so they can come in via H323! I’ve learned that the reason this works is the new h.460 extension to the h.323 standard. It allows the server to set up a secure connection with the desktop to easily traverse the firewall. Note also that without the VBP, each user off the network has to VPN to connect to the CMA server. Not a good solution in our scenario.
  • Dialing. Another benefit of installing with the VBP is the dialing benefits. I’ve learned that gatekeepers really do help with dialing. For example, if a VBP is installed with the Polycom RMX, the Tandberg bridge can dial in with the alias@IP format (using the VBP’s IP). I wasn’t able to actually test this, but I was told that Polycom endpoints off our network could dial in to a Polycom CMA Desktop user with the IP##alias format; and Tandberg endpoints off our network could dial in with the alias@IP format. This means that I could call out to a classroom involved in a VC, and the teacher would only have to have the computer on and logged into CMA Desktop. I have several districts where they need this level of support. Dialing in/out via H323 is another essential feature for our use of videoconferencing.

Cons

  • H.239. As I got excited and started talking to my districts interested in VC in every classroom, they wanted to be able to share the computer. That means H.239 with Polycom CMA Desktop. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I never use H.239 if I can help it, and I find it incredibly frustrating. There are too many situations where it fails. With a regular unit, that is easily solved by zooming the camera in on the laptop. But how would that work when the laptop IS your VC system? After learning how LifeSize handles H.239 last week, my expectations were raised. I thought I’d test to see how CMA Desktop works when sharing content with the other site having H.239 turned off. Just as expected, it did not allow sending content to Polycom MGC, Tandberg bridge, Codian bridge, Tandberg MXP endpoints all with H.239 turned off. The anomaly was my Polycom VSX 7000 (version 9.0.5.1) which accepted H.239 content whether or not H.239 was turned on, but that must be a fluke. So now I have to decide how critical desktop sharing is to my dream. I don’t want teachers to spend classroom time preparing a presentation and then find out the partner class can’t receive it. Note to Polycom, in a future version, when CMA Desktop detects the other site can’t receive content, could it just send the computer screen and not the webcam? Please!
  • So far that’s all I can think of for a con. What about you?

Hmm. If H.239 didn’t work with the partner school, what about taking the little webcam and facing it to the laptop screen? For that matter the webcam could serve as a document camera by moving it around too. I’ll have to think about this more.

Server Based VC

Initially in my interest in morphing desktop VC for the classroom, I wasn’t interested in server based videoconferencing. I keep thinking of the schools that install Polycom PVX and are up and running tolerably well. It is such a low cost entry starting place. How would they get started without that? Of course PVX is painful to get working through the firewall. But still, it’s an easy low cost starting place (read a success story here).

As I’ve learned more, though, I understand that Skype works so well because it too is using a “server” – a distributed system/server of course – but still it’s not stand alone. It’s the server that helps make the VC on the desktop so super easy.

So, now I’m thinking, educational service agencies or others could offer a service to schools to get access to Polycom CMA Desktop for less than the cost of the school/district getting their own server. This way tiny schools that want to start with H323 VC could get started without investing in a $8K cart or their own server. Then as they have funds they could upgrade to a full codec/cart once they saw the benefits of additional peripherals and quality.

Dr. Phil’s Choice

While I was thinking about this whole issue in March, I ran across this article on how Dr. Phil switched from Skype to Polycom CMA Desktop (and other endpoints/infastructure). Very very interesting!

Finally…

This post concludes (for now) my little journey into desktop VC. I realize some glaring omissions include LifeSize Desktop and Tandberg Movi. But I don’t know any K12 people who have an installation that I could play with and learn about in an unbiased fashion. Plus spring break is about over and I’m about to get sucked into the last 2 months of busy VCs for the school year. So feel free to comment if you have anything to add to this thread and I’ll try to add more to it later. Maybe at the ISTE playground in June I’ll get more info to share. I also was awarded a SmartBoard with all the trimmings with the MACUL Educator of the Year award, and once that is installed, I will be playing further to see what could possibly work. That’s a summer project too.

Thanks, everyone for your comments and questions as we all learn together!

Full disclosure: Polycom funds the Berrien RESA VC Content Provider Database. They also link to my blog. However, they do not dictate, edit, or pre-approve anything I write here.

Thinking Again About Vidyo

This post continues the journey to figure out how to get videoconferencing in the 21st century classrooms in our county. I’ve been learning about Vidyo over the last several months. Here are some early posts: first learning about Vidyo, and Craig’s comments about the future of VC in schools, and the results of the fall experiment with Vidyo hosted by Craig.

Pros

  • Quality. Everytime I see Vidyo I am amazed at the quality. I’ve seen it under a variety of conditions, including the pretty low quality of conference bandwidth at our MACUL workshop and it has been excellent.
  • Easy Link. More like a webinar, when you want to participate, the host sends you a link to click and after a little download you are up & running. It’s really easy. Imagine sending this link to an author or expert to talk to your students.
  • Mac and PC. It works on both the Mac and the PC, which is an essential feature for our use.
  • H323 connectivity through a gateway. This is both a pro and a con, but at least it includes H323 connectivity! That is also a must for us!

Cons

  • CPU intensive. It requires a newer computer and in some cases you may have to close all the other applications in order for Vidyo to run well.
  • Echo-cancellation. The echo-cancellation isn’t totally there yet, but I know they are working on it and it keeps getting better.
  • Cost structure. The more I learn about other server based videoconference tools, the less I’m excited about Vidyo. If you have your own server, there is an annual license for the software, as well as the cost per download. However, you could also access Vidyo through a reseller and depending on their plans, just pay for the use you have. However, this scenario seems to be designed for much less frequent use of VC than we have.
  • H323 connectivity through a gateway. This is also a con because the gateway is limited in the number of connections it can do. It’s really designed for you to use for mostly Vidyo to Vidyo calls, with a few calls to H323 here and there. Whereas 95% of our calls are off our network via H323. So this solution would drastically limit the number of calls we can do at at time. In addition, a “Hollywood squares” layout within Vidyo doesn’t connect well to a “Hollywood squares” layout on an H323 bridge (the same problem you have with connecting this layout between two H323 bridges).
  • Pet Peeve: Legacy. I do have one little pet peeve about how Vidyo refers to H323. They call anything that is H323 “legacy”. Legacy is a term used in the videoconferencing industry to mean a videoconference system that is no longer supported. For example, our Polycom Viewstations are legacy because there are no more software updates coming out for them. But to call ALL H323 legacy is offensive to me. As if no one else is making anything new in H323. Which obviously isn’t true at all. Calling all H323 stuff legacy is really annoying to me! Just my little quirk I guess!

Conclusion. For our area at least, Vidyo does not seem to be the ideal solution. We do too many calls off our network. However, for meetings or professional development or scenarios where most calls are within a district or region, it may be a potential solution. I just prefer to invest in VC that we can use for all applications: content providers, student projects and collaborations, meetings, professional development, classes, etc.

A Couple Places to Get a Demo

If you want to try it out, you could contact one of these places. I’m sure there are more, so feel free to comment if you want to add to this list.

So what do YOU think? Please comment if you have any additional insights or comments on using Vidyo in K12 education.

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?!

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!