Shawn Wheeler’s Thoughts on Education & Technology

Ironically, this week also gave me an opportunity to look at a product we own along with its cousins, Safari Montage. Simply stated, it rocks, but I will come back to Safari Montage in a bit. 

For the past 10 years our classrooms have seen the data projector enter at an increasing rate and for good reason…  19, 27 even 36 inch televisions don’t work well when trying to view a video in the classroom.  If you want to view content from a computer on the TV… forget about it. The data projector really is the best option.

The challenge for Technology Educators is what do we do with existing and new schools?  How do we deliver video content to all the classrooms?  How do we deliver off-air content to all the classrooms?  How do we deliver the popular student announcements to all the classrooms?  How do we upgrade our closed-circuit TV systems and affordably replace our aging and soon to be obsolete analog TV’s.  Enough challenges, it gets better!  What about all those videos with copyright licencing, which does not permit them to be viewed over a closed-circuit system?  Do we buy DVD players to accompany the TV?  Wait, we still need to be able to show computer content which leads us back to the data projector.

OK, we have the solution… The data projector right?  What about all those questions?  If we put data projectors in the classrooms, we can solve all of those questions through technology.

The technology comes from Safari Video Networks.  One of my favorite tools from this company is the Safari Montage server which comes in two flavors, the LAN server which works on your school’s private network.  That’s right, the video is not coming over the internet.  The other flavor is the WAN server which is similar to the LAN server but it is designed to serve your entire district over the district’s private network.  Of course, this product requires very high-speed, dedicated network.  I am fortunate enough to work in a district, which will soon be lighting up our own private fiber-optic network, (enough bragging!).

Back to the Montage… This machine comes equipped with 1000 searchable titles by subject, grade and state standard.  They are also chaptered and segmented down to specific topics.  See K – 8 titles here.  See 9 – 12 titles here.  See K-12 titles here.

Why is this so cool?  Please… This is content on demand delivered to the computer in your classroom when you want and need it!  The best part is the time you will gain by using Safari Montage.  No longer will you have to burn 30 or 40 minutes of your class playing the full video when you only need your students to view two minutes.  If that is not cool enough, you can create play lists.  If you need to show your students 4 different video clips from three different videos, not a problem.  Create a play list for that lesson.   You can even share it with your fellow teachers.

Don’t go out and try to buy this just yet.   You can also get this server equipped with Creation Station, which allows you to upload your own content.  Imagine your students creating their own content to teach their classmates a concept.  What about recording the staff development workshops in your school to be used for remediation or with new teachers hired in the coming years.  You can also chapter and segment your own uploaded content.  Now, go buy it!

Okay, if you have been keeping score, we still have a few outstanding issues.  For instance, off-air content, student announcements what about some of the quality content on YouTube or other streaming services we can’t use with our students because of all that naughty content available?  Safari Video Networks has a solution for all of these challenges.  They call it Safari Montage Select Video Streaming and the web site says this product will:

STREAM:

• Pre-selected Internet URLs with video appropriate for the classroom

• Pre-selected cable TV channels appropriate for the classroom (requires consent from cable provider)

• Live video from digital cameras – such as Live School News

While I don’t have firsthand knowledge of this product, I am looking forward to the day I can put this product through its paces.  Given the track record with Safari Montage, I think it too will be a hit.

As long as I am sharing all the cool products I saw this week, I need to mention another product I am curious to see live since I have been looking for a viable solution for another issue for a number of years.  The product is called Safari Montage Live and it provides a solution to distance learning with video, file sharing, chat, live polling, screen sharing and according to the web site, session recording is on the way.  I love podcasting and this would be killer application for online learning.

I don’t have a clue where we will be in another ten years but I am willing to bet it will include targeted on demand video. 

Do yourself a favor and check out these products.  Heck, get started right now by watching their introductory video.

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