That there's people that did stick around for the last afternoon sessions.
Uh It's my pleasure to introduce to you,
Cannon and Janice Slack.
Uh They're from the U A system
and their presentation this afternoon is IITS
-- a tool for sharing Alabama's -- educational resources.
OK.
Good afternoon.
My tear at the top.
Hi.
Um I'm Jan Slack
and I'm programmed and operations coordinator
for IITS and this is Pine counterpart
in Canada and she is our engineer
and we're here today to talk a little bit about iits, what it is, who we are,
what we can do for
those who belong to uh its to the system.
And in a little while we'll talk about who all that involves.
And it is much greater than the three U A campuses.
Although the three U A campuses are our primary players and participants.
OK. Uh
Its began in 1991.
Initially,
we had a room on each of the three U A campuses dedicated for video conferencing.
All the rooms were connected by an ISDN
line which is a hard landline for communication.
This was way before anyone had ever thought of internet,
internet to any of these types of connections.
Basically,
we would do three or four classes a semester as before
we were beginning to learn how to use the technology.
And most,
mostly we were used to support the board of trustees for different
meetings and things they would have because they didn't like to drive.
At the time, we had a lot of older board members, they didn't like to drive,
they like to sit in their home city on their home campus,
um,
which they were a great group. It was very entertaining
since 1991
when we did three or four classes
and we had an employee,
they ran about maybe 300 production hours a semester.
Now we'll jump forward to today.
Today, we run anywhere from 20 plus classes,
semester.
We'll do anywhere from 50 to 60 plus meetings, which could be research meetings.
Uh We have some people who are chairs of journals and they meet with
the other participants on their journals to
discuss new articles that are coming out.
What do they want to publish? What don't they?
Um,
a lot of dissertation defenses, some job interviews.
We, we run the gamut of what takes place.
We've gone from doing 300 production hours to
between four and 5000 production hours a semester.
So needless to say they're no longer, it's no longer a one man operation.
There are now five of us who attend to support the three U A schools in this endeavor.
Plus most of the state of Alabama.
So now you have a little history about who we are and what we used to do
and now we're gonna talk a little bit about what we currently do.
I'm gonna step over this way.
So,
OK, we are a compressed video network
which
we supply video conferencing and all the mediums of that
pertains to for the entire state.
The only institution currently in the state of Alabama who does not use
our network unless they're connecting to one of our sites is Troy.
Troy has built their own network
over the last four years.
At one time.
Iits and the State Department of Finance
were cooperated and we formed what was called
Bonet, which was video conferencing in Alabama.
Several years ago,
they got a new cio who felt he did not want to do video conferencing.
So they shut down their operation.
When they did that,
we took over not only the US schools and a lot of the higher ed institutions,
but we brought in the grandfathered in
the uh junior colleges and some of the universities that dropped
at Montgomery at ISD,
the K 12 schools that were supported by ISD became part of the access initiative
with the exception of Birmingham schools and they belong to IITS,
they're part of our network.
OK.
We are not.
And we don't propose to be the be all end all for how
to deliver distance learning as you've learned since you've been here this week,
the last couple of days,
lots of ways to do distance learning, lots of things are out there. We are
tool to allow the universities,
faculty staff to share and to combine all of those things to deliver to your classes,
to try to get the best of both worlds, not try to make
a world out of one particular tool.
OK. So we are the bridging service. We are your access to the world for live
real time video conferencing TV, if you wanna call it productions for your
distance learning classes. OK.
So yeah.
OK. So this is what we can offer, we can offer you of course video conferencing.
That's what we started out with, that's what we still have.
But add to that, we now do desktop conferencing, we do web streaming podcasting.
We will help you with room design between the two of us.
Tina and I have been in video conferencing for over.
I hate to say it but a very long time.
Um So we have a lot of a lot of knowledge on how to help
guide you in putting your room together if you wanted to put in a room,
how to guide you on what to do if you want to just do desktop and not actually put in a,
a live video conferencing room.
We will help you spec your equipment.
Vendors are wonderful.
They are very knowledgeable, but they're a lot like a used car salesman,
they will sell you anything
and anything may not be what you need.
So we kind of like to help because in education, as you all know,
money is hard to come by
and no one can squeeze a penny more than me
when it comes to buying a piece of equipment.
And secondly,
when you get into this medium, we are second tier support.
What does that mean?
Here on the U A campus? They have several video conferencing rooms.
They have a technician that is there to assist you.
They will help you get your powerpoint up.
They'll make sure you have audio video.
If you have any little issues in the room itself, if there a connection in
problems, you're trying to go from UAH to
A B and
you see a blue screen.
Um they call us and we have the equipment and the expertise
in the hub, which by the way, we're housed on the Birmingham campus.
Although we belong to the system
to go in and see what's happening. Why aren't
you connecting, what's going on
and fix that make it happen for you?
OK.
So that is the support that we provide for
all the schools if they're attempting to do video desktop
streaming, whatever.
OK.
So
this is what we currently have. Now when we first started in 1991 we had one V tail MC U
which they do not make. By the way.
Now, what we have, we have two MGC one hundreds
and we've just currently been upgraded and we have one RMX 4000.
We are so excited to have the 4000 because it allows for HD, which is high definition
and it also gives us encryption capabilities which as you all know, hi
has become a
big thing.
And
in order for us to be able to carry video conferencing for our hospitals and clinics,
we had to put in the uh
encryption for EPA
rules. So we were very excited to get that.
By the way, all of this equipment is purchased
by the system with funds that are given from the three U A institutions to support us.
So all of this and all of these
services are available for all three schools institutions,
their faculty, their staff.
As long as you're doing something that is educationally
oriented,
we will provide the service for you at no cost.
The only time there is a cost is if we have to actually make
a long distance call to a site that you're wanting to connect because ma
is going to charge us. So we in turn will charge you for that.
But as far as using this equipment, there's no charge for you.
OK?
Then we also have one PR I which is I know it means nothing to you,
but it's how you connect to the world.
If you got to use an ISDN line, ISDN line is sort of similar to uh hard phone line.
Like your office phone, plugged into the wall. Always gonna work.
You never move it to where it doesn't have cell service
like internet.
OK.
So this is what we have now, what can we do with all of this?
We can do web streaming,
which is we have been doing for,
I guess the last two or three years we have a lot of people who like to uh
stream record their classes to make them available for students.
If they have students who aren't going to be available,
or perhaps they're trying a new teaching technique
or they have something new that they're offering,
they wanna go back, they want to see what they did.
How well did they do it? Are there things they want to tweak
these things we push out on an RSS A URL feed.
The faculty member then is able to pull it, put it on
a server on their home campus.
We don't have the facilities to have a lot of streams for a very long period of time.
The institutions though all have major servers that can hold
lots of stuff. So we will hold it until they can move it.
Then they may manipulate it any way they want,
they can post it anywhere that will take a URL and RSS feed.
They can tell other students it's here. If they want the,
haven't supply them with the URL to get it.
It allows the instructor to have total control over what happens to his property.
We do not make those decisions for the faculty member or the uh chair of journals,
whoever has requested the service.
OK.
Right now, because video conferencing when it first came in, of course,
P CS were dominant Macs were not, most of the infrastructure is PC based.
Um A lot of vendors will tell you you can desktop on a Mac.
Yes, you can.
But no, not really
you can.
If you do Skype, let's say
um Skype will allow you to do a PC R Mac. We do not do
Skype through the bridge through the hub because it is not a secure network.
We try to provide security.
We like for faculty to know that if they're in a desktop conference with someone,
it's gonna be very hard for somebody to find you and come into your meeting
even harder for me not to know they've joined
because if I don't give access to someone,
they're not coming.
So it, it's,
you may not want to use it for everything,
but it's very beneficial for things where you want to know you
have some sense of security and what's happening with your property.
OK? And because it's PC based, of course, it runs in Windows media.
If you own a Mac,
see me later and I'll tell you how you get around this in order to use your Mac,
a,
a Polycom and timber are all talking about how
they will have a new uh upgrades within the next
should be now 5 to 10 days. But we'll see
to allow you to just automatically do desktop on a mac.
So we'll wait and see when that does come out. But
don't walk away, discouraged. We can make that happen for you.
You just have to tweak your Mac a little bit.
Ok.
So the other things that we now can provide for you, of course, is podcasting
works very similar to the stream only. Of course, you push it out,
you own it,
you manage it,
you give your students access to it if you want them to have it.
The luxury of course
is they can download it on their PC, they can put it on their MP3 player,
whatever it is, they have their cell phone, you know, if it,
if it will take a RSS V and then they have it to take anywhere that they want.
We do quite a bit of that here lately. It seems to be, you know, the kids love it
because it, it's portable, they can carry it everywhere.
And even some of the faculty have gotten to where
they like to know that if there's someplace sitting in
an airport and they want to see a place that
they did or whatever they like to be able to,
you know, go out and check it and see what's going on.
Ok?
And then of course, as we talked a little bit about desktop.
Now for desktop, we run a Polycom C MA, by the way, our bridge is Polycom.
That is what we purchased when we first started in, in,
when we upgraded from the V tail
in 91. Let's see, we upgraded what? In 92,001
to a Polycom shop. So our infrastructure is Polycom.
That doesn't mean that if you want to go buy TB,
that you can't or if you wanna buy a life size that you can't,
you can buy whatever you want
and we'll make every attempt to make it work.
Ok?
Um
But for the C ma the, the desktop, what's nice about it is we can stream it,
we can capture it in a podcast,
we can make it ad hoc if you want to say
you are chair of a journal and you're never sure when you're gonna wanna meet,
you can get an assigned number that we will give you.
You can make this available to who you want to come.
You just ship out a text or an email, you know, let's meet at two o'clock on Thursday
and everybody just calls in and there you are.
The only time you will see me is if
I notice that you're up and you're having an issue
and all of a sudden you notice that somebody you couldn't see or hear now you can,
and they're all thinking, oh, it must have been a glitch.
Well, it might have been a glitch on their end, but it was me on this end,
went out and got them and brought them for you.
So, unlike desktop on Skype, Skype doesn't actually, you know,
keep an eye to see if you're connecting.
If you try to call them, maybe you'll get somebody, maybe you won't.
If you're using our desktop, you call somebody's there.
We'll go find your people and get them and bring them in
for you if it's possible to get them in at all.
OK?
We also, we run just a brief thing. We have some people who are using scope.
Scope
is a desktop client that runs on a ra
a vision which we do not own.
It sits on the Auburn,
we use it because
belongs to our network.
They pay dues to be part of our infrastructure to use our bridging services
they purchased through their co op the Rad Vision with Scopio
before we got our upgrade to do desktop on the C MA.
So I have some faculty who have gotten used to using this and have it established.
So
um
it's gonna be nice and let us keep it
so that those faculty can continue just like they always have.
They don't know that there's anything new. They don't have to relearn anything.
They're good, they're happy.
OK?
In both of these products file, they're very easy to use you.
There's a little client, you download it on your desktop. You're good to go.
You can share your video, you can share your desktop.
You can do little edits on your screen.
It's like having a smart board on your computer and you can save it.
You can go back and forth. I mean, they're wonderful.
I love them except for when I'm sitting at my desk and all of a sudden I'm talking
to someone and I had no idea they were going to call me and I'm not prepared,
you know, haven't fixed my hair or whatever.
Ok.
So
that's technically what we have in equipment and
what we can do and what we can provide
anything that you,
you want to bring to this, most of it
can come, can be fed in if you want to do
a Facebook account or something of some kind and you wanna,
there's something on Facebook you wanna drag in.
If you can get it on your computer that is hooked up to the equipment,
it will come across in your live video.
Ok. So
you may not want all video,
you may want to do some of these other things and we are
big proponents of whatever best meets your need for your teaching style,
your content and your population.
But this gives you somewhere to be able to bring them all to the table.
And at the beginning of your semester,
perhaps you want to actually have a face to face with some of your students.
So you have one meeting video conferencing, it's live,
you get to see the little faces and you, you know, sort of get some eye contact,
explain what you're gonna do.
And then you may not come back.
We have some instructors who may not come back for four or five weeks.
They do everything through their online things that they have going on,
whether it's Facebook Angel, uh black Board, it just depends on, you know,
what everybody's got
and then maybe they've got something that they
want to come back a little while later,
just check in
and have all the students come back to his side and
do another live meeting just to let them know that,
you know,
you're still here and they can see you and there's some contact that takes place.
Then we have other instructors who they strictly want
to stand up there in front of that camera
and talk for an hour, hour and a half, two or three days a week,
whatever for the 10 weeks that, that the quarter goes on or the semester
and that's what they like to do.
But,
you know, we make, we'll make whatever it is that you want
happened for you.
Ok.
So
as an aside, since we don't have enough to do,
trying to do 4000 hours worth of production during the semester,
we also do room designing
and uh we have a very good working relationship with Polycom and Tamberg
and we can call them and say
we have a room on whatever campus and it's the size and they're wanting to video.
Can you send somebody over?
We'll go down with you, we'll talk with them about what it is
they think they want
and it will help them design what they truly need.
And then when their bid goes out,
the bid goes out for exactly what they're gonna need.
No more, no less.
There's no big surprises at the end because you didn't get a cord or you
didn't get the correct size monitor or you bought something that you don't need.
And now you're wondering why I spent $10,000 for this.
Um So we, we try to help with that
and offset the, I bought this. I don't like it. Now, it's sitting in a corner
and it's just collecting dust.
We don't want video equipment to sit and collect dust.
It's an expensive dust keeper.
Ok.
And then as I talked earlier, we do provide the second tier support.
We'll test if you say you decide you want to do
a meeting with three universities outside the state of Alabama.
You give us a name and a number, we'll do all that work for you.
We call them, we test with them. We make sure their site will connect to our bridge.
If they get to our bridge, then you're good to go.
If they don't,
then we'll spend whatever time is required to figure out why they're not
and see if we can't get them in.
Ok. So you don't have to have a lot of this technical
um, expertise yourself.
We'll provide that for you and if we don't know, we will find someone who does.
Ok.
The other thing that we've implemented when I first came in 2000,
yes,
they kept a calendar on outlook.
You have no idea what a nightmare it is trying to not
book a room twice when you're putting it on an outlook calendar.
That's only going to hold five appointments a day in a particular time frame
and you are running
say 15 or 20 rooms.
So we went out and we did a lot of research and the closest we
could get to something that would allow us to keep track of every room,
every minute of every day
and be available on the web because I'm not always in my office and
faculty sometimes want to look and see if there's a place on a particular day and time
they can book.
We purchase meeting room manager.
Now, if you were to go out and do the demo for meeting room manager,
it will not look anything at all like what we have.
We customized it big time to make it work for us. We were there.
We were their test educational institution for this
piece of software when it first came out.
Uh My favorite thing every time I would call them with a problem was,
doesn't anybody else use this software because
they never had heard of this problem.
A lot of trucking companies and places like that used it.
So we've tweaked it over the years to take care of educational needs
and it, it does work very well now and it
gives the faculty or anyone who wants to, to go out and try to find an empty room.
If you go out to the web, you can come in as a guest and while
you can check to see in Birmingham, what rooms are available?
Is it open during this time?
Ok.
So you don't have to just kind of guess or hunt somebody down
because sometimes it's hard to find the person who manages the room.
Ok.
Then we have
done put a lot of work into our web pages. Our web pages are a wealth of information.
It will tell you who we are, it will tell you what we do. It will tell you where we can go.
It will provide you with a link to a reservation
form to fill out to ask for what you want,
the days that you want it, what you're gonna do.
Ok?
It also has other things like we have a faculty handbook
for those who would want to read it and see what some of the
little tricks of the trade for doing a live video conferencing might be.
Um,
we have standards that are out there for the institutions
so that they know we are a Polycom shop.
This is what we will support. If you buy anything else, we will help you.
But we make you no guarantee that we're going to
be able to make it talk to the infrastructure.
But we, we will do what we can. However, if you buy Polycom,
we will make it work irregardless.
It's going to work one way or another.
And it also has little things like grant writing, Tan,
I don't know if you're aware of this, but Tan
beg Polycom, I believe even rad vision,
they have links where you can go out and get assistance, writing grants.
They have people who will actually help you do that.
You send them what you think you want to do. Someone that
is an expert in that area will call you back.
They'll talk to you, they'll send you some possibilities. It's a great feature.
I've used it many times trying to find a
way to buy equipment for someone for something.
Um
Then what we have here are the current locations on the three U A schools.
As you can see, University of Alabama has several locations.
So there will be multiple rooms in some of these buildings.
Yeah, these are available for public use.
Um Birmingham is the same way.
And Huntsville, it looks as though Huntsville only has two sides,
but that's not true.
Technology college. All I know if you've been over there has multiple sites there.
It's just not a site,
there are multiple locations that can be utilized there in that room.
So in,
you're welcome to use any of these sites
as a
member of the University of Alabama System.
Ok.
Now, with that said,
we have
what we call IITS non
systems members. That's gonna be the University of um
of course, Auburn
um North Alabama, Jeff State Birmingham City schools A and M
just about anyone who's in video and needs a
hub of breads and infrastructure belongs to the network.
What does that mean for you? It means it's an end for you if you want to teach a class.
Uh we used to have someone who taught at uh a class. They wanted to go to Wallace State
in doin but
Wallace State doesn't right now doesn't belong to the network.
So what we did with was in order to make this happen,
we contacted them, we went down there,
they identified a room they'd let us use because
it was a program their students could use.
And then we piped it in, we took the equipment down, set it up, let them borrow it.
Then when the program was over, we went back, we collected the equipment
and we came back with it,
the students there got the program that they needed
the
um
institution that was offering it,
met a need that they had at the time.
Now, they're working on trying to, um,
put in a permanent facility down there and we'll see how that goes.
But we have all kinds of options.
There's, you know, if you want to go somewhere,
we'll try to figure out a way we will make it work somehow
and it's, it gets very creative. But of course, you know, that's
the challenge of the game and we love the challenge,
then
we'll cover just a little bit about how video conferencing works.
How many of you have been in a video
conferencing classroom or done anything on desktop or whatever?
Ok. Quite a few. Well, these are just,
you know, just little general things for people to know.
One, be aware that if you can see in here you can be heard and seen,
you'd be surprised how many people forget that
because if they're looking at a monitor and all they see is themselves,
I think that they're looking at themselves.
However, on the other end,
they're looking at you too.
Ok.
And then we have just a little thing if
you're doing video or even if you're doing desktop,
some of these hints are handy because if
you need to remember to engage your students,
it's not like they're in a room and they're watching, you know,
your every move and whatever students in a classroom feel as though, you know,
they're there
because you're all in a physical space.
So the energy is here when they're on a monitor
in another facility you don't have.
So you need to be sure that you, you engage them, you know, call them by name,
even if you don't know the student's name, just yell out, you know, hey,
University of Alabama Birmingham, are you there today?
So that they know you're aware
that they're part of your class.
Um,
do seating charts. Those are wonderful things when you do a video class because
Sally should be right here every time you come.
So that then if the camera flips and you
see Sally and she looks like she's daydreaming,
which these students will do because they don't think you can see them,
call them by name.
Watch how quick the whole class can wake up.
Um
Just, you know, just general things like that, make sure you ask them questions
when you and you're in a class. You know, you'll say,
well, I don't know what color is the sky today.
Someone in the class is assuming you're talking to them and they'll respond
the people on the other end, they won't,
they're waiting for the people in the class where you are to respond.
So say University of Alabama, what color is this guy today?
So that they'll respond back.
You have to always keep, you have to always keep pulling them in
because they get wrapped up in the TV mode that we all
get in and we assume the TV is not talking to us.
But in a video conferencing class. It is talking to you.
Ok.
Um
Of course,
it's always handy if you'll familiarize yourself with how video does work.
And we do have information out on our web page. So we'll tell you that
it's always good, not as bad now as it used to be,
but have a plan if you're teaching a video
conferencing class and you have four or five sides,
you always need a backup plan.
We have run the gamut from power outages
that are caused from squirrels getting in transformers
um
to, you know, major storms that will take place.
And all of a sudden you've lost a sight somewhere,
they fall off the face of the earth because
there's no power to wherever they happen to be.
Well, we,
we try to, to make sure especially for things we know are important.
We'll stream it just because we can
so that you can call us. And you can say,
you know, I lost those people in Birmingham. I don't know what happened to them
and we can then tell you, well, that's ok. We, we saw that they were gone.
We started recording it right away
and you, if you want,
you can send them the feed for this and they can go out and they can watch it that way
we monitor, which is not the same. We don't spy.
We hear so much that goes on, we don't hear it
so general conversation.
It's just like, it's just a background noise that goes on all the time.
We're running like four TV S that are covering five different things.
And I've got a desktop going. I mean, you just can't imagine how loud our office is,
but the minute something's not right,
we pick up on it just like this
and before you can call us, we already know you have a problem
but call us anyway because we could be trying to fix two or three other problems.
And, and that way, you know, and you can tell me,
you know, this is, I can't wait for you to fix those other two problems.
You got to fix this one right now.
Ok.
All right. So what else do we have?
Then a couple of other things that are handy,
whether you're doing a Facebook presentation desktop, whatever,
always be aware when you do transparencies or when you write, try, you know,
try to one.
We,
we advise that you don't handwrite because
it's so hard to read people's handwriting,
but use big fonts that can be seen.
Um, what you can see on your computer
doesn't look the same when you put it up on a
big screen and it's hard for people to read somewhere else.
So, you know, just be aware and make sure that you write big enough people can see it.
And then, like I mentioned earlier,
we can record your class if you want it recorded every time there's a little place
on the reservation form that says record me every time if you want a podcast,
every time you can mark that.
So we know
um
and then something that we do not do,
but we always try to make faculty aware of if we know ahead of time,
if you're going to do something that's copyright
like a Disney movie, perhaps
we, we do not do the copyright for you. We just
assume that you've taken care of your copyright issues.
And then some other things that are always fun
things to do is we talk about the colors.
It used to be a big thing, not so much anymore,
but colors that you wear when you do video conferencing are important.
If you wear red, it tends to bleed out all over the place.
If you wear plaids, it looks cute little things crawling on you
if you happen to be. Uh
And for instance,
our old Vice chancellor would do this to me every time he had a meeting,
he was an older gentleman who was very fair and he had white hair.
He would always wear a white shirt with a black tie and a black coat.
Then he would always set himself in front of a
white wall.
So on the other end, all you saw was a black tie and a black coat talking to you
be aware that we
when you're in a room, it's not a production room.
There's not a, a nondescript blue wall behind you making everything OK.
That's not how it works
on the other end of the Continuum.
I used to have a dean at U A who was African American. He would always wear a dark shirt.
He would always sit in front of a blackboard.
He would call me every time to point out to me that you could not see him.
I could never get him to understand he needed to
move out from in front of the black board.
So be aware, you take on what's around you
when you do any kind,
even if you're doing desktop or if you're making a movie
of yourself that you wanna put out on the screen,
be aware that these are, they don't sound like big things but they're important.
What you're looking at yourself on a on a video that you've made.
Yeah, don't have stuff going out of your head,
you know, don't sit in front of a plant,
these types of things.
OK?
Audio tips.
And I'm the worst offender here.
It's you don't have to yell.
Microphones will pick up, especially like even your little desktop microphone,
very sensitive
will pick up any kind of noise.
So if you do desktop,
we always suggest that you use a headset because then that way you
can cut out all the ambient noise that's going on around you.
People walking by telephones ringing because they just blare on the other end,
you think it's loud where you're sitting,
you cannot imagine how much louder it is when
it comes out the monitor on the other end.
Ok?
And then we cover some of this, you know, look at the camera when you're talking,
doing whether you're doing video conferencing and you
can always tell where the camera is.
You know, you can see it up on the wall or the ceiling or whatever.
Don't look at it all the time, but every once in a while,
engage it because the person on the other end, they see you looking at them then
and sort of, you're always looking down
or you're always looking over here,
you make eye contact with them. And the only way you can do that is look at the camera,
the same goes for if you're doing desktop,
if you're in a desktop conference and your camera is up
a portion up in the top of your little desktop,
uh, screen
and you're looking down at your keyboard, this is what they see.
And so you're just a talking top of the head.
It doesn't sound like a lot,
but it's very distracting to hear something and not see the same thing.
How many of you have every once in a while you'll be watching TV,
it doesn't happen very often but it does,
you'll, all of a sudden you'll see someone, their mouth is moving,
but the words aren't coming out exactly the same time.
That's very distracting.
If you're watching a class,
you cannot concentrate on what the instructor is telling you because you're trying
desperately to line up the words with the movement of a smile.
Ok? So
these little things can make or break sometimes your content
and what a student will get out of your class.
It avoids swift movements, especially on video. It comes out like this
because it has to wait for everything to catch up.
So if you slowly move the camera will keep up with you.
If you rush,
it's trying desperately to follow the shadow of
your hand as it's whipping across the room.
All right.
So we've kind of covered all these but the mistakes that
most people make when they do video desktop in a room,
whatever is they fail to acknowledge people at the other side.
If you're doing a class and you have the material you want them to have,
be sure you put it out there before you bring it up in your class.
Um Not having a contingency plan, like not preparing for, you know,
the squirrel to get in the transformer, which by the way happened to me.
Not once but twice during a board meeting,
they were not happy
and I was so sorry that I could not
run to Tuscaloosa and jerk that squirrel out and beat it for causing me all this grief
because the board had lost their connection in Tuscaloosa.
OK?
Always set your ground rules with your students. What you're gonna expect.
I want a seat chart. I want to see you in your same seat every day,
come to class.
A lot of times these kids will actually
think the professor doesn't notice they're not in class
because he's not in the room.
So you need to let them know that you actually are gonna see them.
You never know where I'm gonna call on you. So you might want to show up
last semester. We actually had an instructor who in a class made the announcement.
If you are here today,
you do not have to come Friday for an exam.
How unhappy do you think the people are that did,
were that did not show up that Tuesday?
When he made this announcement,
the instructor did not even come to class for the exam. Everyone got a bad grade
for
not being in class
and he knew exactly who they all were because they all showed up for class.
So like you see lots of tricks, it's really amazing.
Ok,
always start and stop on time,
especially if you're using one of our classrooms because
somebody else is waiting to get in behind you.
Everything runs on a time frame just like TV.
You know, if,
if it's eight o'clock and Little House on the Prairie is supposed to
be on Little House of the Prairie is coming on at eight o'clock,
whether
24 is over or not
video conferencing is live runs the same way
we will cut you off because we have to put somebody else in.
All right now,
we did a little demo here just to kind of show you two
of the sites that we have and some of the things that they're doing
um as far as technology, OK.
This is a prey
demonstration presented by the University of Alabama system,
this interactive
system
University
just
for
some
University of Alabama against
it.
We are viewing a telepresence conference in progress.
It has been recorded that the Polycom Rx 4000.
This picture in a picture shows both the Tuscaloosa
and Gaston locations in the upper right corner.
The main screen is a powerpoint presentation
that is being presented by the guest and location
showing
here is just
a
simple
gass,
them
showing several powerpoint slides.
This is a demonstration of their Elmo document camera,
an image is captured and displayed in real time in
the event that an instructor needs to show handouts,
brochures, etcetera
finally get into sharing their desktop by launching
an internet web page in real time.
OK. What we had there was a class
demonstration.
I
don't,
I
don't tell him
the University of Gadsden was a classroom.
The gentleman you saw at U A was a desktop and
an office just to give you an idea of how they,
you can merge two mediums.
OK.
All right.
Then we have our web pages which we won't go into
because I understand we're running low on our time here,
but you can go out look at it tons of information.
Um
So that's pretty much who we are and what we can do and what we have.
So, do you have any questions, any comments?
So that's basically in that
student
screen,
view,
screen
and
archive for a short amount
that
yes, what we'll do is we'll stream it the minute the class is over.
Of course, it's available then li online for your students and for you to access,
we will host it on our server and for
the semester.
And then by the end of the semester,
we ask that everyone get their things and move them to a host on
their own campus so that we have room to start the next semester.
There are three
you
but down
here on
your
-- H 10 -- strength.
Yes.
Yes, you do.
All the campuses have one.
Got it
right
high.
Do the same range of work for people in the podcast.
Wow.
That hosting and
um we can store the podcast for semester
as well.
Yeah, the podcast is a little bit different than the, the streaming product.
The podcast is a self contained
uh element that you can move,
move around and repurpose to any use that you are your content manager and
doctor
putting in web pages, putting it in your uh course management program,
whatever you
isn't it.
Yes.
Not
all the different sides.
Yes.
Um
I can answer that
our C MA uh
application as a, a unit that will allow us to
give access to certain people.
We register them by basically by name and email address.
And um
they receive access to a file that they can download
and run on their computer. They have to have administrative rights
to install this piece of software. When they do, they automatically register with
our present server, which is also
the
uh C ma desktop appliance.
And
you could go on there and you can make point
to point connections between your desktop and another buddy.
Have your buddy list
and you go in there and you click on your buddy's
name and you can launch a video call to your buddy.
Um and it is secure. Nobody else can get into that video call
more than
your buddy
to participate.
Have an ad hoc conference.
I have several of those
and you can
um if you're given a number, you dial that number, you and your buddies get in
your desktop sharing.
Um you know, presentations, you can do
whatever you need to do with your desktop application, you have your video
as well. And when you scream out and report it,
um the way that I have set our system
is to um
both the video of the person as well as the desktop application,
the collaborative part
and it records um
interes
so that they
continuous with each other.
You can go in and edit that letter and put in um
some typing.
Yeah, the close capture, you can go and add those you can do go in and add chapters,
you can go in and
bookmark different section.
So that when the students come back to it later,
they can see they can skip in the content
to this section and it automatically skips to the video
and the other string
and you have some
uh Yes, yes, we can.
Uh most of the
that we do that
we give them
a preclearance uh pin number
they put in the pin is like on a teleconference call
when you call in and you get the interactive voice response
system
with the video conferencing. When you go in,
you'll be asked for
a
it puts you in the right location
going to
why?
Right.
That
information
I
right.
This
problem.
Yeah.
What?
First day
one?
But
uh
yes. Um we are
not really limited so to speak as much
as um constrained because we're running other events.
We try to keep some resources in reserve. Um
But we have a limit of around 60 participants
per conference.
So
that
time
we can, we can stream it to over 1000 simultaneously
but to have interactive speakers um on limited
thousands.
Yeah.
OK.
No,
-- but it was the same -- transform
pro
I'm sorry.
Yeah,
we got.
That's right.
Yes.
Balance.
That's
OK.
Like
is
not the
story
outside