Broadcasting September 29, 2009

Broadcasting Assignment
For this assignment I chose to use dimdim.com. My archived recording can be seen here.
I decided to share with my colleagues my experiences with the website Edmodo. I use Edmodo with my 6th and 7th grade music classes and I think that other teachers in my school would find it very user friendly. I feel it would be another way they could easily integrate technology in their lessons.
I made sure to inform of the meeting, gave them the url to attend and we "met" after school. It was an interesting experience that I would like to share not only in my reflection post but here also.
My first experience with dimdim was at home with a few participants. It went very well and I was pleased with the out come. I see great potential with broadcasting for the classroom. Not only could teachers "bring in" guest speakers, they would be able to hold after hours study sessions, department meetings and even conduct parent meetings. This virtual experience is not the same as really being there but it definitely provides teachers, students and parents another way to communicate and connect the classroom with the world.
Now when I tried dimdim at school, that was another totally different experience. I have linked the second session that I broadcast because the first session was a true learning experience. There were many complications and we all learned quite a bit. We all agreed that the concept has great potential but I think that it was a bit much for our school server. You can see from my recording here that it is difficult to hear and understand although the actual session was much better. I recommend that your school's Internet capabilities are considered when an attempt is made at broadcasting. I prefer the broadcasting methods like dimdim that allow for viewers to "talk" to the presenter although text speak over voice might be preferred with slower systems.
As a lone teacher in my school, with no other music teachers, it would be nice to connect with the other music teachers in my diocese occasionally to share ideas. Would I do broadcasting again? Yes, absolutely.

Because I am now like a dog on a fox hunt, I had to try something else. Here is a quick broadcast from ustream.tv. I liked the video quality and it does have a pop up chat. I will need to try this one with my colleagues. The recording is much better. 10/1/09 update: I tried ustream with the teachers at my school. The video is titled Edmodo in the Classroom and can be found at the same link. You can see that the recording is not good at all. I think that our streaming capabilities at my school are  not up to snuff. The actual broadcast was great. My teachers could hear and see me without any issues. But for recording, not good at all. This would be okay to just broadcast but if you wanted to archive your talk, not an option from my school.

PS: I consider broadcasting a great success when my colleagues all asked me this week when we could try it again! Anything that gets them excited about using technology is worth doing over and over!