Communities Resolving Our Problems: the basic idea
[SUP: Sharing Problems]	[THINK: Guidance]	[LEAP: Solving Problems]

Videoconferencing

This file contains basic information on:

desktop videoconferencing beginning with specific implementations over the Internet (slow scan),
large room videoconferencing
and a range of educational implementation concepts

on the topic. More specifically, it covers: slow frame Internet video; tutorial information; software archives; location of equipment for experimentation and exploration; concepts and examples of videoconferencing; online discussion groups; professional organizations; and related resources.

Desktop Videoconferencing

What is Internet Video?
Internet videoconferencing is a form of desktop videoconferencing. When you watch standard TV signals, you are watching 30 frames per second that fill a screen. Internet video is possible by using from a fraction of a frame to nearly 15 frames per second in a small portion of a computer screen. Word or verbal communication can be handled through different technology (phone line) or online through CU-SeeMe along with a text window and slide window.

Because CU-SeeMe is available for free on the Internet, it is often the first one encountered. First designed for point to point connections between two computers, CUseeMe is used in conjunction with a monitor, a computer with a digitizing card, a microphone and a video source (e.g., camcorder, VCR, etc.). Better programs are available commercially but because of its free status it is important to test CUseeMe to see if it meets your needs.

Where's the CUSeeMe software?

You will find the free version of CUSeeMe at Cornell and at many Internet shareware sites. Look for the public domain versions of this program at this Cornell University FTP site. White Pine Software, Inc is the Master licensee for CU-SeeMe(tm) internet-based videoconferencing software.

What hardware can you use to receive and/or transmit?

Look for the computers with RCA and S-VHS input jacks in the back for audio and video. Ask the lab assistant to help you connect camcorder and microphone if they are not present. However, beyond this lab, a wide range of Win, Mac and Unix platforms can be used to send and receive if a digitizing card is present.

Linking More than Two Users

A reflector site is a special workstation with software that rebroadcasts CUSeeMe tranmissions to multiple computers across the Internet. One unix based computer which servers as the reflector site can mix any combination of Mac and Win platforms. Instead of entering the IP# (computer address) of another user, you enter the IP# of the reflector site. All who connect using that same number can see and hear each other. Reflector sites generally default to handling no more than 8 simultaneous users, but that setting can be made higher. A more important limitation is the data bandwidth (the size of the pipe that transmits the data). A second system for transmission to more than two sites is MBONE. Desktop Videoconferencing for MBONE requires special software and hardware requirements for various platforms as well as a network administrator willing to manage your local connection. Read Leigh Anne Rettinger's thesis "Desktop Videoconferencing: Technology and Use for Remote Seminar Delivery" for a detailed example of the use of MBONE for instructional purposes.

Tutorial Information

For a quick visual introduction to CUseeMe features study Cornell's Visual User's Guide. For more background information see the help page, CU-SeeMe Conferencing. This page also includes a listing of experimental reflector sites from which you can receive live video and connect with other live audio/video users. Further sites with tutorial information are listed below:

Videoconferencing Problems

It is not a simple matter to get good audio and video signals between two computers. Put more strongly, Internet video is not for the faint of heart. The best advice is to begin the effort to connect computers well ahead of any special dates for presentation. Numerous conditions and settings on each computer along with settings in the underlying Internet system can act up to prevent communication.

There are several tricks to try to overcome problems.

Pause your video when you begin to talk which will reduce bandwidth needs. If many video feeds could be included through a reflector site, start with just two and only risk adding more if the current number of participants are communicating clearly and satisfied with its operation.
Practice using the keyboard chat feature to stay in touch while work on audio and video quality continues.
Talk with your technical experts or your Internet Service Provider as to whether you have enough bandwidth to reach the level of video quality necessary for your work.

If you have other examples of positive uses of video over the Internet or the problems of such effort, please email the examples or the Web addresses so that I can add them to this page.

Large Room Videoconference Systems

Beyond CU-SeeMe, a wide variety of professional systems are available for video conferencing. In this region, CommunityLink and NCREN represent two different implementations. CommunityLink covers 3 counties (Jackson, Swain and Macon). NCIH (North Carolina Information Highway) connects videoconference sites across the state of North Carolina. From a teacher's point of view, they are managed and supported in very different ways, but the features seen by the student are very similar.

North Carolina Information Highway

An NCIH site requires an on-duty technician whenever it is under operation. Additional information on North Carolina's networking development is also available.

CommunityLink

CommunityLink does not provide an onsite technical operator, instead it trains the instructors. The instructor must master the control of the equipment.

There is a web page Lecture Outline on this region's CommunityLink ITV operation. This file is a clone of the below ClarisWorks file, but in HTML code so that anyone can access it.
It is also in outline format as a Clarisworks file outline format as a Clarisworks file. This ClarisWorks 2.0 file is in outline format so that it is easy to expand and collapse the information to facilitate presentation. If you do not have this application on your workstation and if you have not configured Netscape to be able to recognize ClarisWorks, you will not be able to use this link.

Concepts for Videoconferencing

Models

The range of application models for videoconferencing is wide and growing. The purpose of videoconferencing is basic. Put people in visual touch with each other. The examples below are specific to education but could easily be generalized to a number of settings whether business or government.

Between-classroom communication could involve sharing scenes of different classrooms in different states and countries including faces of students, and student and student team project sharing of completed projects. This has many multicultural uses which include breaking stereotypes and recognition of the world's diversity.
Students can work together to complete a project or solve a problem. The concept of project teams can be extended to global dimensions. Schools could develop "time-zone" teams in "24 hour problem-rings" where the team in a given time-zone uses CUseeMe to work on a problem during their school day, then posts their results to a web page. Even working within a time-zone still provides a very wide variety of countries stretching from the North Pole to the South Pole. The next team in the problem-ring" reads the web page to pick up the results of the last team and does their part to move things further through the stages of problem solving, then posts their results to a web page or leaves files in an FTP site. The project is then past from one time zone to the next around the world. One model might be for 24 "time-zone" teams to each work on the problem for one hour. By the time students come to their class a day later, the problem has been worked on continuously for 24 hours. Teams would then need to make a decision on whether they were done or to give it another pass around the world for further editing. Finding a way to setup a ring of 24 schools across the world' time zones poses interesting challenges.
Preservice teachers can use videoconferencing to visit and share with children and classrooms in distant schools without driving. This is a good and efficient introduction to classrooms, not a subsitute for visiting them.
University faculty increase their contact with student teachers that they are supervising and the student teacher's cooperating teachers and stay in touch with a wide variety of classrooms keeping driving time under control.
Virtual hallways can be created where those with some interest in common link live cameras in their rooms to provide the serendipity of the chance hallway conversation. This might include virtual hallways between a remote office and central headquarters where spur-of-the-moment opportunities are rare. But it is just as often useful between different floors of the same building or from one side of a large building to another. The key concept here is to put together people in interesting pairs (or more with a reflector site) and let communication follow some natural course of development.
Different key sessions of conferences could be offered using CUseeMe for those who cannot make the trip to the conference.
Live cameras can provide scenes of remote locations, useful in monitoring science experiments and observations of nature.
There are many examples of other uses. Explore these locations for starters:
- Global Schoolnet Foundation
- Mosaic, Timbuktu Pro & CUSeeMe Discovery & Share Session Two
- Project LINK at the Exploratorium, an educational air-to-ground Internet video conference between the Exploratorium and NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory.
- NASA Teaching From Space - These videoconferences are broadcast live via satellite to thousands of schools across the country at no charge.
- TelePoetics, from slam poetry to relaxed coffee house ambience.
- Advertising, Video conference on our reflector.Open June - Aug - Fri 5pm to Mon 9AM See schedule for upcoming events. Reflector = 204.180.193.12 CU-SeeMe VidBar (open weekends).
- PsychicNet, Video conference with your personal psychic advisor. See the tarot cards as they are dealt.
- Virtual Summer School at UK's Open University, Students of Cognitive Psychology used Internet Videoconferencing and a range of other communications technologies to participate in tutorials and practical lab activities.

Online Discussion Groups

Online discussion groups are teams of people that share email across the Internet. Problems, questions, solutions, discoveries and more can be found in these electronic conferences. If your site has a news server (WCU does) and your browser is properly configured, you can link directly with groups that discuss videoconferencing and other relevant issues.

comp.dcom.videoconf , a newsgroup on VideoConferencing. This videoconferencing FAQ consists entirely of information about the hardware, software, issues, and protocols of videoconferencing and is posted bi-weekly to this newsgroup.
hepnet.videoconf, a newsgroup on VideoConferencing, but this conference appears to be very inactive.

Professional Organizations, National Conferences and Committees

Personal Conferencing Workgroup, is dedicated to identifying, promoting, and encouraging all technologies that will make personal and desktop videoconferencing easier.

TeleCon XV, is the world's largest conference and trade show on teleconferencing (meeting at a distance) and all the various technologies that facilitate people working together over a distance, including videoconferencing.

USDLA, The United States Distance Learning Association is a nonprofit association formed to promote the development and application of distance learning for education and training. The constituents include K through 12 education, higher education, continuing education, corporate training, and military and government training.

Related Resources/Bibliography

Search the Internet for a variety of libraries for books and search CARL's Uncover database and the ERIC database for additional articles on video conferencing. Search the Amazon Bookstore for new titles in this area.

AV LAN Times Index, 1995, a number of articles, often technical in nature on local area network use of videoconferencing.

If you videotape your videoconference sesssions, other uses for your sessions become possible. This in turn leads you to a wider array of knowledge about video production. Consider simple edits of your existing videoconference, or include this video in a larger video production.

AV Video Magazine AV Video is the leading magazine for video, film and television producers. It provides comprehensive information on lighting and shooting, audio sweeteninng, editing, computer graphics and animation.
KIPI Bookshelf Keep that competitive edge! Visit the KIPI bookshelf to find the essential resources you need to keep abreast of today's emerging technologies. Over 70 titles on video, graphics, and multimedia production.

Updated August 6, 1998

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