Thursday 2/18 I set up my first video conference with the MegaConference Jr. 2009. I can't say everything went smoothly but we survived and made it work. I set up my unit at about 8:15 and I couldn't get it going for some reason. (Remember this was my first attempt at using the unit.) Well after looking at all the connections and making sure everything was plugged in I realized I hadn't turned on the video conferencing unit's main switch. DUH! Well, one thing accomplished. Then the images started streaming in however they were highly pixilated and indistinguishable. Also there was no audio. I called the service providing the stream from the MegaConference and I was assured nothing was wrong on their end. So I called my district Tech department and they came to the rescue. One of our technology integration specialist walked me through a few things and then decided he would come straight over. In the end 3 techs showed up and worked on my connection.
The problem, I was told is that our school runs on a T1 connection and since all the classrooms in the school (about 50) were on the Internet ahead of me by the time I tried to squeeze in there was not enough bandwidth left. But our specialist saved the day, they made calls and slowed down some Internet connections across the school to accomodate the video conference and from there it was pretty much smooth sailing.
It was a realy great learning experience. My favorite part of the conference was watching the world's youngest teacher Adora. Click on the clip below to learn more about her.
The problem, I was told is that our school runs on a T1 connection and since all the classrooms in the school (about 50) were on the Internet ahead of me by the time I tried to squeeze in there was not enough bandwidth left. But our specialist saved the day, they made calls and slowed down some Internet connections across the school to accomodate the video conference and from there it was pretty much smooth sailing.
It was a realy great learning experience. My favorite part of the conference was watching the world's youngest teacher Adora. Click on the clip below to learn more about her.
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