Videoconferencing Out on a Lim

Background: The SIG IVC Playground at ISTE 2010 featured six videoconferencing islands. Participants tried out two HD units and four desktop videoconferencing solutions. We used a pirate theme to make the learning and exploration fun. At each island, attendees had to talk to people in mystery locations to figure out where they were and which content provider they were.

In this blog post, I share what we learned at the Elluminate Live station.

Elluminate Live Setup and Connections

In this picture, you can see that James Yasko, of The Hermitage, Home of President Andrew Jackson. This station did not feature H323 videoconferencing. Instead we were featuring web conferencing. The Hermitage is one of several content providers who are exploring offering their programs to schools in the web conference format so as to reach a wider audience. We stayed connected with The Hermitage for the whole playground time.

This island was set up with a headset and a Logitech QuickCam Orbit. The laptop, headset and webcam were provided by Whirlidurb.

In this picture, you can see that one of the participants was talking with James, while the others are making notes about this island on their “letter of marque“.

At times the Elluminate island was jam packed and crowded!

What I Learned

• The content is the main feature of webconferencing; video is “on the side”. This format works well for PowerPoint-like presentations.
• Elluminate has another product – Elluminate VCS – which connects to H323 systems. I would like to know more about Elluminate VCS. Maybe next year!

What about you?

Did you make it to the ISTE IVC Playground? Or have you played with Elluminate Live or VCS before? What features did I miss?

Filed under: Techie Stuff, VC Community, Vendors | Tagged: iste10, sigivc | Comments Off

Background: The SIG IVC Playground at ISTE 2010 featured six videoconferencing islands. Participants tried out two HD units and four desktop videoconferencing solutions. We used a pirate theme to make the learning and exploration fun. At each island, attendees had to talk to people in mystery locations to figure out where they were and which content provider they were.

In this blog post, I share what we learned at the CISCO-TANDBERG MOVI station.

Tandberg MOVI Setup

In this picture, Lori Colwill assists an attendee with dialing out to a mystery location.

Dallas ISD provided the Tandberg PrecisionHD USB camera (see the picture above), as well as a headset and laptop. The headset made it easier for the attendees and the far site to hear because it was so noisy in the playground. In this picture, you can see an attendee talking to John at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Note the great quality! (The screen could be expanded full size, but hadn’t been.)

At this island, participants dialed out to:

1. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
2. The Mariners’ Museum
3. Buffalo Zoo
4. CET Challenger Learning Center

I Learned

I wanted to spend more time with MOVI, but the playground was so busy I didn’t get to. Here are a few notes from talking to Lori:

• Tandberg MOVI needs to be installed with the VCS (firewall traversal box).
• If you already have TMS, you can get MOVI as an option key with Tandberg Management Suite.
• We were not able to get the far end camera control to work to navigate a Codian bridge menu. But it worked with DTMF tones. Not sure if that’s just because we don’t know. If you know, please comment on this post!
• Just like all Tandberg equipment, it can’t dial the IP##alias format; but this blog post has tips on getting around that which sometimes works depending on the other site’s setup.

What about you?

Did you make it to the ISTE IVC Playground? Or have you played with Tandberg MOVI before? What features did I miss?

Filed under: Techie Stuff, VC Community, Vendors | Tagged: iste10, sigivc | Comments Off

Background: The SIG IVC Playground at ISTE 2010 featured six videoconferencing islands. Participants tried out two HD units and four desktop videoconferencing solutions. We used a pirate theme to make the learning and exploration fun. At each island, attendees had to talk to people in mystery locations to figure out where they were and which content provider they were.

In this blog post, I share what we learned at the Polycom CMA Desktop island.

Polycom CMA Desktop Setup

In this picture Marci Powell of Polycom answers questions, while Sue Porter assists another attendee.

Polycom supplied the laptop and webcam for the playground. I didn’t catch which webcam they used, but it looks like it might be the Logitech 9000. The speaker / microphone is the Polycom Communicator. You can see a better view here:

At this island, participants dialed out to:

1. Kigluait Adventures
2. The Mariners’ Museum
3. Columbus Zoo

I Learned

I had played with CMA quite a bit before (see previous post). But I did learn two new things.

• Zoom Sharing. When you’re sharing your computer (H.239), you don’t have to share your whole screen. You can use the zoom feature to choose just a small part of your screen to share. (It reminds me of the Jing recording screen selections.) Pretty sweet. This allows you to have your slideshow smaller, a chat window, and the far site in different areas of your desktop.
• Multiple USB Cameras. Version 5 of CMA allows you to change cameras on the fly during the connection. So this way you can switch to, say, a USB document camera during your call. I am very interested this option because my schools interested in desktop VC have been asking me about using a document camera with it. However, I was so busy at the playground I didn’t get to see it in action yet. Have any of you? Please comment!

What about you?

Did you make it to the ISTE IVC Playground? Or have you played with Polycom CMA Desktop before? What features did I miss? Please comment!

Filed under: Techie Stuff, VC Community, Vendors | Tagged: iste10, sigivc | 1 Comment »