Friday 18 February 2011

The Rainforest Connection

RainforestConnection

Check out Rainforest Connection. An opportunity for your students to connect to experts in the rainforest of Belize. This is only available until the 25th February. Get onto it now if you are interested!

Monday 7 February 2011

Managing URLs

I’ve been using Tiny Urls for quite awhile to simplify & share strange web addresses that i create. But today i started using http://tiny.cc in the first instance because it allowed me to customise the url with a meaningful name instead of a bunch of random numbers. Then when i logged into tiny.cc i found that i was able to keep track of the urls i had made – search for them, add notes, edit them and even get some simple stats feedback.
More than anything this will be really valuable for me to keep track of the urls i have created over time as my cyber-pathways get more and more congested and complex. Very handy dandy!

image

Tuesday 1 February 2011

VLNC on EVO

The first VLN Community meeting of the year today, and i was able to join the VC through EVO.

evo

EVO is free to use, just register download the client app. put the IP number of the VC unit or bridge you want to connect to and you’re away! (The default is mute so don’t forget to unmute…)

This has been very convenient for me to access VC meetings without having to travel and find a VC room to accommodate me. The quality has been fine with the low bandwidth I have at the moment (.66 down, .47 up) but i don’t transmit video and use audio only. I have explored using Polycom PVX software or CMA server (hosted by AsNet) to join the VC bridge but i just can’t seem to get the network settings to work from home. They work OK from a SchoolZone school but defeats the whole purpose about being able to access the VC Bridge from anywhere. I am looking forward to the launch of Adobe V8 later this year which is said to have the capability of linking with H323 (this is the protocol used by NZEdVCNetwork). This will enable more of our schools to access some of learning opportunities that are currently only offered through the VC Network without the need for buying expensive VC equipment. (Though bandwidth will still be an issue for some of our schools – roll on RBI!!)

Here is a help sheet for using EVO to access VC.