Streaming A to Z

Man oh man - have I been out and about! My suitcase and I have become best friends as I have had the pleasure of traveling to meet one-on-one with teachers, administrators, and everyone in-between from School Districts up and down the East Coast.

I feel like that Johnny Cash song (or is it the Comfort Inn commercial?), “I’ve Been Everywhere” in fact…

Well, I’ve been to
Long Island, New York,
Arlington, Virginia,
Boston, Massachusetts (that’s where I learned about Google Lit Trips)
Nashua, New Hampshire,
Philly, Pennsylvania,
Bradenton, Florida (and I could name more-in the…)
But I’ve been everywhere man - you get the idea

My most recent trip had me in Broward County and Manatee County school districts delivering training sessions on things like 50 Ways to use Discovery Education streaming

And Differentiated Instruction and DE Streaming (click on link to download presentation)

Finally, a million thanks to Super Star, Carole Gooden from St. Lucie County and Karen Seddon, Super Star from Osceola County, FL for sharing their time and expertise with me and our good friends in Manatee County, FL!

Ok so the last Back to Basics posting was brought to you by the letter "A."

As always, the focus of the Back to Basics blog will be to explain terminolgy in easy to understand language, offer tips and tricks (even for advanced users), and provide suggestions for using technology and unitedstreaming inside the classroom.

The Back to Basic blog postings will operate with this thought in mind, "If I can get my mother-in-law to do it…"

Feel free to distribute this information and, of course add your thoughts, tips and tricks - all are welcome!

So without further ado let’s look at the letter "B"

B
Beta Version
A beta version, at least in the software world, is the first version of a product that people can evaluate, provide feedback, and report any bugs (see explanation down below) that they find in a real-world setting.  Beta level software is almost complete and ready to go to production, but since it may include known issues and bugs, Beta Testers are recruited to give the software a run for the money.

Beta Testers as mentioned above, report issues, provide recommendations, and feedback so that, when the software is ready to be released, it is relatively free of issues.

In unitedstreaming’s case, DEN Star members are often recruited to be beta testers.  They get to see new versions of unitedstreaming before it is released to teachers nationwide.  Their feedback helps to shape the product that you see and love today.  Thank you DEN Star Members for all of your help!

Bookmarks Defined
Bookmarks are place holders that you can save on your computer so that when you want to find a website or page again you don’t have to search for the page; you simply click on your bookmark.

To create and access your bookmark using Internet Explorer follow four simple steps:
1. Find a website or page that you would like to visit again (without searching for it)
2. Click on the word “Favorites” in your Internet Explorer tool bar
3. Click on the “Add to Favorites”
4. To access your newly created bookmark, click on “Favorites” and then click on your link

As we covered in the previous Back to Basics blog posting, unitedstreaming has a book marking feature called "Adding Content."  That way when you find a video, image, quiz, etc. that you really like you can add it to your content. Then when you want to come back to this asset you simply go to My Content and click on the link.

BUGS Defined
Bugs are those little things that can sometimes drive you crazy!  Those little errors that cause the software not to do what is supposed to do are called bugs.

Common folklore traces the history of this term back to 1947 when a moth made its way into a Harvard computer and caused the computer to malfunction.  But, in fact, the term may have been tossed about as early as Thomas Edison!

Bytes Defined
Bytes are individual units of data that computers use to show us video, compute equations, play sound, etc. Generally, the hierarchy works out to something like this:

1000 Bytes = One Kilobyte (KB)
1000 Kilobytes = One Megabyte (MB)
1000 Megabytes = One Gigabyte (GB)
1000 Gigabytes = One Terrabyte (TB)

With today’s computers and servers we’re pretty much working with Megabytes, Gigabytes, and Terabytes.   In fact, as microchips and processors (your computer’s brains) get smaller, you can now carry around one gigabyte of data storage on your keychain with a thumb drive for less than $100!

Here are some tie-ins to unitedstreaming:

For every minute of video that you download your computer requires about two megs (MBs) of storage space.  If you were to download one hour of video you would roughly need 120 (MBs) of storage space - not too bad when you consider that you can use that one gig (GB) keychain to store the video.

You do; however, want to watch how much content you are downloading so that you don’t fill up your computer or drives.

unitedstreaming streams (plays live over the internet) video at 256 (kbs) per second.

If you were to download the entire unitedstreaming library you would need a little over three terabytes (TBs) of storage space.

I have updated the glossary of terms (with pictures and tips and tricks) and have attached the document to this posting.  To download and share it with your teachers click here:

Download back_to_basics_document.doc

Talk to you soon,

Matt Monjan
Discovery Educator Network

The idea of this posting, and its subsequent postings comes, from my good friend, and DEN Star Member, Stevie Kline - Intermediate Unit One Coal Center in Pennsylvania.

During a recent conversation Stevie asked me if we could include some information for users that are not only brand new to unitedstreaming, but may be getting their feet wet with technology as a whole.  I thought this is a great way to turn tech-NO-logy into Tech-KNOW-logy (sorry I love a cheesy pun).

As we all know there is a great diversity of tech skills and knowledge within our schools and workplaces.  To help level the playing field (just a wee bit), I’m going to create a series of postings called "Back to Basics." 

Each Back to Basics blog will address technology and/or unitedstreaming terms and break them down into layman terminology.  They’ll also include tips and tricks, and easy-to-follow instructions for you to share with your colleagues. 

I’ve also created a Back To Basics Category (located in the grey bar on the left-hand side of your screen).

Finally, I’ll update and attach this information as a Word document so that you can print it out and use as a reference.

We’ll start with the A’s and go through to the Z’s (I may have to be liberal with some letters like X or Z).  Of course I welcome your input so please feel free to add your knowledge to the postings - I’ll capture your comments and add them to the document.

Ok let’s get started!

A
Adding Content - unitedstreaming allows users to save ("bookmark") links to unitedstreaming assets (videos, quizzes, images, assignments, etc) so that, once they find them,  they don’t have to search for them all over again.  Links to these assets are stored in the "My Content," "School Content," or "District Content" folders. 

Now here’s the really cool thing, you can organize your unitedstreaming bookmarks and create customized folders. 

For example, let’s say that I want to teach a unit on Cells.  I can click on "My Content," create a folder called "Cells" and store videos on cell division, images of mitochondria, articles on the nucleus, quizzes, writing prompts, assignments and more, all in my Cell folder.  Then, when I want to access my unit on Cells, I simply click on My Content, the Cell Folder, and voila - there’s all my stuff!

It is important to note that this material is not physically saved on your hard drive, it is simply saved as a link within unitedstreaming.  To print out step-by-step instructions, click on link at the end of this posting.

You can also go to the blog posting My Content, Your Content, Our Content.

Audio Files - unitedstreaming houses elementary songs, famous speeches, and over 3,000 sound effects.   These audio files are in MP3 Format.  MP3 is an audio-specific computer format. It takes the audio and compresses it (makes it smaller) by filtering off certain sounds that cannot be heard by the listener, i.e., outside the normal human hearing range.

Since the audio files are compressed, they can easily be downloaded and embedded (put inside) things like Word, PowerPoint, and even Google Earth!

To search for a unitedstreaming audio file simply log into unitedstreaming and choose Audio: Songs, Audio: Sound Effects, or Speeches in the "WITHIN" box and hit Go.

Now here are some really cool applications:

1. Use unitedstreaming images and sound files to help English Language Learners by inserting them into Word or Powerpoint
2. Make your own Student sound files and combine them with images to tell a digital story
3. Use the unitedstreaming songs as activators in your elementary classroom
4. Use the unitedstreaming songs, images, and speeches to help illustrate a lesson or unit

Check the attached documents to see how to do step by step instructions for some of these ideas. Download back_to_basics_document.doc

Tune in for the next Back to Basic when we discuss terms like "bandwidth, bits, bytes and more"

Talk to you soon!

Matt
Discovery Educator Network!