Interactive Video: The Size of Texas

10th November 2005

posted in edtech |

Interactive Video: The Size of Texas
or
Big Bandwidth and Videoconferencing

A presentation at Technology and Learning TechForum: Breakthroughs and Best Practices for Technology Leaders

Carol Willis, Manager TETN (Texas Education Telecommunications Network)
Gerri Maglia
Dan Updegrove

Comments by Carol
- Big bandwidth discussion
- TETN is the consortium of (private network) Texas Education Agency and the 20 Education Service Centers (ESCs)
- started in 1996 with TIF money
- primary video capability, can do voice and data
- interconnect with all 20 ESCs
- ESCs do provide intern
- about 805 districts get internet access through their local ESC

Also installed a connection to Internet2
- TETN has private connection to every ESC network
- behind that are school districts
- technically, could have a conference with about 850 districts, but who would want to do that?

What do we typically use TETN for?
- administrative / update meetings with TEA
- dual credit courses between regions
- high school courses between regions
- electronic field trips (many are Internet2)
- professional development classes
- commissioner meetings with superintendents
- public hearings on commissioner rules
- special projects

Now on special projects

“Texas Connects” project
- showcase interactive video conferencing as a viable support to classroom learning and to TEKS curriculum
- support student interaction with other students located around the state, nation, and world
- give students exposure to experts in an interactive setting

First program was “Pearl Harbor Remembered”
- Dec 7, 2004
- designed as a statewide event to give high school students an opportunity to collaborate and contribute to the udnerstanding of this historical event using video conferencing

format called “mega conference” that is an Internet2 project, that is cultural based, this is curriculum based
- we had 95 schools connected, there were 1700+ students involved
- music, art, drama and debates
- lots of creative presentations by students
- live and taped interviews with veterans
- community relationships by matching students with survivors
- had presentations from the USS Lexington (birthed in Corpos Christi bay), had preso from Peral Harbor Memorial, Hawaii schools and taped presentation from Japan Schools
- Carmen Neely and Rep Grussendorf participated

(showed video clip of students doing music and drama, having a debate from Frenship high school, Pearl Harbor survivors actually located in Hawaii)

This may have not been as good as the discovery channel could have done, but it turned out great
- did not let the students interact as much as we wanted, were very careful with time
- ESCs have agreed to do these twice per year
- 2nd one was in May: “Nature Speaks in Texas”
- for middle school students with object of identifying an environmental issue, either natural or man-made that presents a problem for Texas, and then present a solution

Had less schools but more kids: 53 schools and 3600 students
- presos on deforestation, air pollution, water pollution, erosion of beaches, fossil fuels, strip mining, tornadoes

Next one: Dec 9, 2005 Topic is Sun, Moon and Earth
- for elementary students
- NASA approached TETN to do a day long event
- NASA will be making at least 4 presos throughout the day
- “designed to give elementary students an opportunity to learn how astronomy provides insights into our planet as well as think…”

From doing these projects we have seen spin offs
- Walk Along the Brazos
- Around the State in 60 Minutes
- Internet2 content providers such as the Library of Congress, Cleveland Museum of Art, Megaconference Jr., Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, US Holocaust Museum, Projects with other museums

What have we learned?
- students make great teachers
- they love to talk about things in their community
- this gives them a forum for that
- they get to be the teacher, interact with others
- there is nothing new about “1 way”
- students have an opportunity to interact
- experience live activities in locations around the state and globe
- lots of potential here for professionals
-

Now Gerri Maglia at ESC11 in Forth Worth is talking about videoconferencing in school districts
- gmaglia@esc11.net

The Good “Old” Standards
- course sharing
- lots of dual enrollment, high school
- content programs and virtual field trips is an area that is growing
- school districts not having enough $$$ to hire bus drivers, trying to expand content without leaving the school campus

Are seeing schools stepping into
- middle school and elementary uses
- teaching spanish at middle school to all schools
- course sharing, to address equity issues through videoconferencing

starting to see a trend of students as presenters
- one in ESC14 does a cotton program, delivering out to other sites
- doing collaborative projects, “Read Across Burleson” project
- Vote for Texas Bluebonnet Award project

School weather project from Joshua ISD

doing more international connections
- to a role playing Roman soldier from England
- time differences are a factor here
- Global Nomads: Rwanda, Sudan
- did 8 different connections back from Rwanda, one of the school districts in ESC11 was an interactive district in a connection

Taking students to unique places: Chicago Museum of Science, every Wednesday in the morning they do “Live….From the Heart” - live open heart surgery
- had a student in Northwest ISD actually pass out during the session
- working with a Veterinarian now to see vet surgical procedures
- going to a dairy farm to do a program on science, math and milk (dairy, bison, gas…)
- have satellite interactive videoconferencing system in Ft Worth ESC11
- can go anywhere with that setup
- went to a prairie dog range recently, a router went out on earth and so that videoconference did not work
- will continue to develop programs from remote locations using that system

Texas Wildlife Association did session on Quail
- now they are doing a pilot project with 3 districts in the state
- that combine

Higher education is also doing “scanning electron microscope” for higher education
Manhatttan School of Music
Cooke Children’s Hospital, virtual visits and re-entry sessions
- able to reconnect kids back to their friends and family

Presentation is available
- go to ESC11

Also www.Connect2Texas.net
IDeaS at www.ideasdirectory.com
CILC at www.cilc.org
SBC at www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/vidconf
SEDL K12 listserve

Barriers of Boosters
- connectivity and networks
- QOS is key
- Internet2 access is critical

Technical support
- instructional support

Final thoughts
- connectivity and QOS infrastructure
- developing partnerships with people you know in your social network
- getting people who are risk takers!

Now Stan will address Infrastructure for K-12 Apps
- this is the “plumbing” part about infrastructure
- what makes this work, what could make it work better?

Historial approaches to videoconferencing
- dedicated rooms, multiple cameras for high fidelity audio and video
– pros: high
- now with inexpensive webcams and instant messenger
- easy to setup and operate, under $200, teachers can explore/prep at home, students canaccess at home as well
- drawbacks: smaller images…

Internet2 is not a network, it is a consortium
- we set it up in 1996 just as the Internet was being privatized
- mission: to have our own sandbox to develop the next generation network
- many programs, primary one is the national Abilene network

Showed map of network, one of primary nodes is Houston
- you can go online and see how much traffic is moving
- you need a way to get from where you are in Texas to Houston to connect

Notion in 1996 was only research institutioins would connect to I2
- what UT plugged into I2, it did not unplug from the commodity internet
- traffic automatically routes over I2 and commodity
- I2 is added to your current connection
- you can reach I2 sites faster
- there is nothing that is “an Internet2 resource”
- resources on the Internet are available to everyone, the difference is how fast the data flows and moves between I2 endpoints
- end to end connectivity means from the classroom to the building router to the ISD router, to the ESC router, to the ISP, from ISP to commercial backbone, etc
- question is: how many hops, what is the latency at each hop, etc
- I2 only addresses the national backbone issue
- if you have a slow local loop, I2 doesn’t help you much

If you have done everything you can at your site and still having speed problems, I2 may provide a solution
- started to get more K-12 requests
- thought was: if multimedia connections is valuable to universities, why should we deny this access to the k-12 environment

started the “sponsored Educ group participants”
- can bring all K-12
- cost UT 60K to be part of UT plus
- but for 95K can bring in all the K-12 schools, libraries and community colleges
- as of Sept, 34 of 50 states have signed on to this
- SEGP = Sponsored Education Group Participant
- program for Texas, shared costs with TTU, UT, A&M, and others

There is not a single ISP for Texas, if you want to connect to UT the 5 university partners have points of presence in many parts of the state
- agreement with I2 is that entire state pays 95K
- question is how much of a pipe do you want to I2?
- typical cost is $82/Mbps for ISD

New organization: LEARN: Lonestar Education and Research Network
- origins back to 2002
- Texas invited to join NLR: National Lamba Rail, even faster than Abilene
- NLR didn’t know who to call in Texas
- 6 separate state Univ system
- late 2002 invited all state CIOs
- worked toward establishing a statewide network
- is a dark fiber network
– is now lighting the dark fiber
– Texas points are at El Paso Las Cruces, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston

Now Learn has Topology that does include Lubbock
- received $7.3 million grant from Texas Enterprise Fund to start and buy fiber

LEARN Applications
- get to Abilene faster
- increase commodity Internet aggregation
- can provide backup services for all universities
- this is not substitution, this is additive

during hurricanes, some universities lost their abilities to function because they didn’t have backup systems for national disaster scenarios

LEARN built initially to ensure state of the art colaborative reseach infrastructure for universities and academic medical centers
- we anticipate benefits for instruction, admin, clinical care, ….

www.internet2.net
abilene.internet2.edu
k20.internet2.edu
www.texassegp.org
www.tx-learn.net

Lots of presentations available showcasing how high bandwidth networks can be used to improve the quality of teaching and learning in our schools

once the fast pipes are in place, we have lots of headroom to allow you to do what you want to do
- we are going to provide very substantial capacity that your students and teachers are going to be a

Carol Willis
- at least 60% of our schools just have a T1 line for access
- this is “the last mile” challenge

As school districts, the sky is the limit as far as internet access
- if your students had unlimited bandwidth, the picture would be different

Comments from Gerri on the mobile videoconferencing classroom
- using Tanberg Intern2 880 with kids, they have great technical support, great communication
- using a portable battery packs for the systems, has 8 hour battery perfect for museum use

Polycom also makes a cart
Have to figure out

There are good “giga-man” services offered by SBC

My thought: I need to do a podcast on “the last mile”

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