Streaming A to Z

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

Over the past few weeks we have received lots of "How Do I…?" e-mails and phone calls.  The response has always been to provide the answer and direct them to the appropriate blog posting for future reference.

Now it used to be that if you were searching for a particular solution, say getting closed-captioning to work, you had to know to look in the "Tips and Tricks" category and then scroll down until you found an answer to your question.

Well no more my friend! Yesterday, in an effort to speed things up a little bit, I did a little spring/summer cleaning and created a bunch of new categories.

Check out the left-hand side of your screen and you will see categories like: 

• Burning CDs and DVDs
• Close Captioning - Everything You Need To Know
• Get More Booklet Order Form
• Getting the Point Across with PowerPoint
• Grants - How to Find Them!
• Professional Development

And a whole bunch more!

So the next time you or your colleagues get the inevitable "How Do I…?" question, check out the categories on the left to find your solution.

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming

Ok so here we are on Friday and, as promised, here is the third of three postings on The Builders (Assignment, Quiz and Writing Prompt).

Today we’re going to tackle the Writing Prompt Builder.

The Writing Prompt Builder is a tool that allows you to tie together any image that you find on unitedstreaming with a caption they you create. 

Just like the other two builders, you can copy from the unitedstreaming Writing Prompt Builder question bank.  Once you’ve copied them you can customize them to make them your own!

And, like the Assignment Builder and Quiz Builder, your content is stored on the web so your students can access your quiz from any computer that has Internet access - even at home!

The over 500 unitedstreaming writing prompts are based on the national English/Language Arts standards for writing by the NCTE—National Council of Teachers of English.

These prompts also feature:

• Difficulty levels that cover students from those beginning the writing process to those who are in AP courses
• Descriptive, Narrative, Expository, and Persuasive prompts for grades 3-12
• Analysis prompts for grades 9-12

Each prompt includes images that relate to content taught across the country—both literary and non-literary, i.e., social studies, science, philosophy, cultural, community, and more.

To access the Writing Prompt library, log into unitedstreaming and click on the Teacher Center.  Then click on the Writing Prompt Icon.

To search the entire Writing Prompt Library, look inside the Search Writing Prompt Library box and uncheck the top three boxes - leaving only the unitedstreaming Writing Prompts box checked.   And in no time you’ll see the 500+ writing prompts appear on your screen.

I have attached a small PowerPoint presentation to this e-mail.  It includes step-by-step instructions for creating a Writing Prompt.  Feel free to download and customize it to meet your needs! Download writing_prompt_builder.ppt

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming

True or False - within unitedstreaming you can find three great tools to help you integrate technology into the classroom?

True of course!  Way to go you passed the Pop Quiz!

And speaking of Pop Quizzes - let’s dive a little deeper into unitedstreaming’s Quiz Builder.

The Quiz Builder is a tool that allows you to tie together videos and video segments to questions that you design.  You can create Multiple Choice (Single Answer), Multiple Choice (Multiple Answer), True and False, and even Essay questions (unitedstreaming won’t grade essay answers). 

You can even copy entire quizzes and/or questions from the unitedstreaming Quiz Builder question bank.  Once you’ve copied them you can customize them to make them your own!

And, like the Assignment Builder,  your content is stored on the web so your students can access your quiz from any computer that has Internet access - even at home!

You can find the Quiz Builder by going to the Teacher Center. Once there, click on the blue Go To arrow and let your imagination loose! 

I have attached a small PowerPoint presentation to this e-mail.  It includes step-by-step instructions for building a Quiz and viewing a grade report.  Download the_quiz_builder.ppt

NOTE: I recommend that you use the online grade report to view your students grades.  If you choose to have them sent to you by e-mail you will receive individual reports for each of your students - which can add up to lots of e-mails!

Make sure to check back on Friday when we review the final builder in this series, the Writing Prompt Builder.

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming

As you all know by now unitedstreaming is much more than a video library.  It is also full of tools and applications that you can use in the classroom.

This week we’re going to tackle three of those tools, the Assignment Builder, the Quiz Builder, and the Writing Prompt Builder.

Let’s start by saying right off the bat that before creating an Assignment, Quiz or Writing Prompt you will need to turn OFF your Pop-Up Blockers.  When you go to save an Assignment, Quiz, or Writing Prompt, a second confirmation window appears. If you have your pop-up blockers turned on you won’t see this window and thus not be able to continue.

And here’s a helpful hint - even though you may have turned off your pop-ups in your Internet Explorer/Safari settings, you may also have to turn them off in tool bars like Yahoo and Google.

I’ve put together a quick how to turn on/off pop up blocker instruction-sheet for you.  Feel free to download it and share with your peers! Download turning_off_popup_blockers.doc

For this posting we’ll be concentrating on the Assignment Builder.

The Assignment Builder is a tool that allows you to tie together all of the assets (Videos, Images, Sounds, Quizzes, etc) that you find in unitedstreaming and create a unit.  Since the content is stored on the web your students can access the assignment from any computer that has Internet access - even at home!

You can find the Assignment Builder by going to the Teacher Center. Once there, click on the blue Go To arrow and let your imagination loose!

I have attached a small PowerPoint presentation to this e-mail.  It includes step-by-step instructions for building an Assignment.  I’ve also included notes on most slides.  That way you can print out the slides and refer to their instructions.  Feel free to download the presentation and make it yours!  Download assignment_builder_directions.ppt

Tune in on Wednesday when we explore the Quiz Builder!

Talk to you soon,

Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming

My best friend and I share a common love for April Fools Day.  Every year we excitedly plan our ruse.  Every year they seem to be more elaborate.  And every year they produce the same result - our wives roll their eyes as we fall to the floor laughing…and then I sleep on the couch that night.

April Fools falls on Sunday this year.  With that in mind I thought I’d share:

Matt’s Five Ways Technology Has Made Me Feel Foolish.

1. One day a teacher called me to tell me that her unitedstreaming video had no sound.  We rebooted her computer, verified that the video was working on my end, accessed the control panel and adjusted her speaker volume - nothing.  I Googled her computer model, operating system, and sound settings in a valiant effort to solve the problem - nothing.
   Then after 30 minutes of trouble shooting, a beam of light descended upon my frazzled brain and a heavenly choir song a melodious chord, and I said…wait a minute are your speakers turned on?  They were not (sigh).
2. Early in my Implementation career a teacher called and franticly exclaimed, "I need access to unitedstreaming but I can’t play any of my videos.  Please help!"
   Again much time was spent systematically ruling out the issues to no avail. 
   It turns out the the school was blocking streaming and downloading during school hours…"Ohhhh that’s right, I forgot about that" explained the teacher.  This is now the first thing I check.
3. When you are replying to a person’s e-mail, and multiple people are copied, be very careful to reply to sender and not reply to all - I’ll let your imaginations run with that one.
4. It is www.unitedstreaming.com NOT www.unitedstreamign.com - for the life of me I once spent ten minutes typing in the address wrong! I was this close to sounding "The Site Is Down!" alert.
5. Is it just me or have you sent a fax only to find out later that all you really sent were blank pages? I still have trouble identifying which way to insert the paper in the fax machine

So that you don’t get fooled in the future, here are a few links to past postings.  Check them out and access answers to the most frequently asked questions/issues.

Hauntingly Good Tips and Tricks

Puzzled over PowerPoint? Not any more

Crazy Cool Close Caption Tips and These Too

I hope that you have enjoyed these experiences and that they brought you a chuckle or two.

Now if I could only find that darn "Any key" on my computer.  You know the "Press Any Key to continue…" APRIL FOOLS!

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming

What are Webinars?
Webinars are Web-based seminars facilitated by a live Discovery Education instructor.  Thousands of educators have participated in these on-line sessions. 

Webinars have covered everything from an overview of unitedstreaming, to integrating its resources into programs like Google Earth, Inspiration, Photostory, and more.

But this is pretty common knowledge.  Chances are that you have already participated in a Webinar…or maybe two.

However, did you know that we’ve posted our most popular presentations on line?  Yep they’re yours for the taking, or downloading, as the case may be.

To access ten of our most frequently requested Webinar Presentations, log into unitedstreaming, click on the Professional Development link, and then click on the blue words, Webinar Workshops in the lower right-hand corner (click on image)

After clicking on Webinar Workshops, click on the link "Click here to download Sample Presentations" (click on second image)

Once there, you’ll find presentations for both Mac and PC that you can download, customize and make your own.

The topics cover everything from Digital Story Telling to Primary Sources and everything in between. 

Take a few moments to check them out and make them yours!

Talk to you soon,

Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming

The unitedstreaming writing prompt library now hosts over 500 writing prompts.

The new writing prompts are based on the national English/Language Arts standards for writing by the NCTE—National Council of Teachers of English.

These prompts also feature:

• Difficulty levels that cover students from those beginning the writing process to those who are in AP courses
• Descriptive, Narrative, Expository, and Persuasive prompts for grades 3-12
• Analysis prompts for grades 9-12

Each prompt includes images that relate to content taught across the country—both literary and non-literary, i.e., social studies, science, philosophy, cultural, community, and more.

To access the Writing Prompt library, log into unitedstreaming and click on the Teacher Center.  Then click on the Writing Prompt Icon.

To search the entire Writing Prompt Library, look inside the Search Writing Prompt Library box and uncheck the top three boxes - leaving only the unitedstreaming Writing Prompts box checked.   And in no time you’ll see the 500+ writing prompts appear on your screen.

Tying it all together:
Speaking of time, did you know that on March 19, 1918, Congress enacted Daylight Savings Time into law? I found that out today when I clicked on the unitedstreaming Calendar feature.

And now you can tie the Daylight Savings Time video segments and encyclopedia article to a Writing Prompt and create a unit on Time. To get you started, I found two prompts Too Little Time (grades 6-8) and Inevitable Change (grades 9-12), that address time in two very different ways. 

And now, at this moment in time, you and I have arrived at the end of yet another posting.

Until the next time
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming

Have you ever wondered how to increase the size of the close captioning text when viewing it full screen? 

This tip comes to us via Jeff Smith at the Erie County Technical School in Pennsylvania.

Increasing the Close Caption Text Size
When using closed captioning, the text may not be as large as you would like it to be. To increase the size of the text follow these steps:

1. Download both the video/video segment and close caption (cc) file
2. Open the cc file in a text editing program like WordPad or Notepad. 
3. Locate the line of code that indicates “font size.”  This is usually about the sixth line of code. 
4. Increase the font size to at least 20 pts, or even larger. 
5. Save and close your file in your folder with the video file. 
6. The next time you view the video, the size of the text should be increased

Is that way too cool for school or what?  Thanks Jeff!

Here are the step by step instructions for downloading and projecting cc videos full screen:Download closed_caption_full_screen_viewing_steps.doc

This tip is brought to you by the letter Queue
Are you a Network Administrator or Technology Coordinator responsible for managing your school/district’s bandwidth?  Then this little tip may be right up your alley.
unitedstreaming has a tool called Network Manager.  When activated, teachers find video/video segments and queue them to download later.  That night (or at a time set by the Administrator) all of the queued videos are downloaded onto a local computer or server.  The next day teachers are able to stream and/or download these videos onto their own personal computers.  And here’s the bandwidth management piece; since the videos are now locally saved, teachers stream/download information from a local source and not the Internet.  To see how it works or to demonstrate to your teachers, check out this PowerPoint:Download undestanding_network_manager.ppt 

Details, Details, Details
Here’s a great little tip when you are talking about Primary Sources.  Find an image, any image, and open its large version (click on the Preview link underneath "Large").

Then, on a PC, follow these steps:

• Hover over lower right-hand corner until you see an icon with arrows pointing out from each of its four corners
  
• Click on the expand icon
  
• Click and drag the gray left-right and up-down buttons to zero in on the image detail

On a Mac:

• Open image in iPhoto
• Frame the part of the image that you want to enlarge
• Use your zoom function to enlarge that piece of the image.

To find some really great imagery, click on the Advanced Search and scroll down until you see the Publishers drop down box.  Choose any of the Library of Congress, NASA, or U.S.D.A. Forest Service images and watch as your students imagination take over.

For more great tips and tricks - click on the Tips and Tricks! link located underneath the word Categories.  See it?  Right there…scroll back up and look in the gray bar on the left-hand side of your screen… 

I hope that these tips are helpful. If you have any neat tips, tricks, comments, etc. please feel free to share!

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, Implementation.

Both the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain have become everlasting symbols of the Cold War. Removing these impediments has marked huge milestones towards achieving peace.

To help you illustrate these and other historic events, unitedstreaming has just released 48 historic speeches! These speeches include everything from John F. Kennedy’s address at the Berlin Wall where he famously proclaims "Ich bin ein Berliner" to Winston Churchill’s "Iron Curtain" metaphor describing the increasing political grip of communism.

Other famous speeches include: Amelia Earhart’s belief in the age of flight, Thomas Edison speaking on the future of electricity, and the inaugural speech of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

You can stream and/or download these speeches just like you would with any of the other material that you find on the site.

Finally,transcripts and classroom use guides are available within the Related Materials tab attached to each famous speech.

We hope that you enjoy these resources, and just think, the next world famous orator may just be sitting in your classroom. 

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education

We saw your cry for help when you flashed that big Discovery Education logo in the sky, and faster than a streaming (not buffering) video here we are to save the day!  Please excuse the Batman, Superman, and Mighty Mouse references - this author had previously succumbed to boyhood nostalgia).

OK we’re back and ready to provide you with Close Captioning information - More specifically; how to find the CC videos, what to do with them, and how to get them to play full screen.

Finding CC videos

Whenever you search for videos within unitedstreaming a CC file may appear as one of the video/video segments that match your search criteria.  The catch is that you may have to scroll down and/or page through your search results to find the CC file(s).

However, there is a short cut to yielding only CC files in your search results.  How you ask? The answer, my friend, is the Advanced Search feature.  Click on the Advanced Search feature, type in a key word, scroll down, and place a check in the box next to the phrase, "Include only Closed Captioned Titles."

Now that you’ve found your CC files what can you do with them?  Here are a few recommendations:

• Project the CC videos to assist struggling readers. 
  By projecting the words, students can associate the video’s images and audio with the words on your LCD screen, interactive white board, or television screen.
• Reinforce a vocabulary lesson by projecting CC videos
  Show a CC movie/movie clip to your students and pause it when vocabulary words appear.  Have your students go up to the screen, white board, TV and identify specific vocabulary.
• Reinforce a grammar lesson by projecting CC videos
  Same principle applies here, only this time have your students identify nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc
• Use CC videos to teach English as a Second Language
  For all of the reasons noted above, you can use CC files to help teach ESL students.

How do we play the CC files full-screen?  And, even better, how do we download the CC videos? Great questions - here are the answers:

First a few notes

1. You must have a Windows Media Player (WMP) to play CC files
2. To play the CC files full screen you must have Windows XP and WMP 10 or higher.
3. If you have a Mac you can play (stream) CC files with a Windows Media Player. However, downloaded CC files do not operate on a Mac.

Next you’ll need to make a few adjustments within your WMP.  The adjustments and CC download instructions are listed below or, if you want to print them out, can be downloaded by clicking on this link: Download closed_caption_full_screen_viewing_steps.doc

1. Right-click on the blue download icon next to the CC video or video clip of your choice and select "Save Target As" (Internet Explorer). Navigate to your desired location.  Save the file including extension “.asf” (Tip:  For quick access, save file to desktop.)
2. Return to the unitedstreaming video/video clip page and right-click on the "CC" icon next to the video or video clip that you previously saved.  Select "Save Target As" (Internet Explorer).  Navigate to the same location as the video/video clip.  Save the file including extension “.smi”  (note make sure that you save the .smi CC file with the same title as the video example - Dogs_Playing.asf and Dogs_Playing.smi)
3. When viewing the video, go to your location of the saved files and double-click on the Windows Media Player video file. 
4. Once Windows Media Player has opened, select “Play” on the tool bar at the top of the player.  (Note: You may have to hover your mouse directly above the player to make the menu File, View, Play, Tools, and Help appear.)
5. Scroll down to “Caption and Subtitles” and make sure that “On if Available” has been selected. 
6. Click on the word Tools in your Windows Media Player tool bar
7. Scroll down and click on the word "Options"
8. Click on the "Security" tab
9. Place a check mark next to "Run script commands when present"
10. Place a check mark next to "Run script commands and rich media streams when the Player is in a Web page" (WMP 11)
11. Place a check mark next to "Show local captions when present"
12. Close Windows Media Player and re-open again by click on the Windows Media Player video file.  Your video should play and captions should play across the bottom. 
13. You may resize the Windows Media Player window by clicking and dragging the corner of the player.

I hope that this posting has provided you with some creative ideas. 

Stay tuned for our next episode when our blogeteers tackle the infamous…(The author apologizes once again for using the Super Hero reference)

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discover Education, unitedstreaming

Has this happend to you?

You recently get a new computer and can’t wait to try your new fancy machine out on unitedstreaming.  All is well until you go to the site and discover that whenever you try to play a video from unitedstreaming you get a Dell/Google Search Page Error?!?

It says something like, “Sorry we couldn’t find http://192.68.48.151…”  Now what the heck is that?

Never fear! This issue actually has a fairly simple “self-service” fix. On new Dell computers, there is a pre-loaded program installed that has to be removed in order to play your videos within unitedstreaming.

Once you uninstall the pre-loaded programs from your computer, you will be able to play your videos again and you won’t notice the difference!

To complete this fix, follow these steps:

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Go to Add/Remove Programs.
3. Look for items named Search Assistant and URL Assistant and remove them
4. Restart the computer.

NOTE: Search Assistant and URL Assistant have been the most common plug-ins found installed that cause the problem, but there may be other commonly reported entries worth removing, including:

• Google AFE
• Browser Address Error Redirector (or BAE, or BAE.DLL)
• MyWebSearch
• MyWay Search Assistant.

Now that we’ve gotten that taken care of, log back into unitedstreaming and watch all of your videos without interruption!

As you know, the Implementation team is here to support you.  In that spirit, we have provided you with resources that provide simple solutions to common problems.

The next time you get stuck, check out the Troubleshooting Guide in the Help section of the website. The 20 most frequently encountered problems and their solutions are located there.

And of course…there’s always the Implementation Blog! We want to give you the tools you need to come up with all the right answers!

Until Next Time-

Christy Rogers Discovery Education, unitedstreaming
Implementation

As you may have discovered by now, Discovery Education unitedstreaming is designed to bring you content fast and make learning on-demand.

But did you know that you can customize your unitedstreaming as well?

That’s right, by clicking on the Preferences link at the top of your toolbar you open the door to making unitedstreaming yours.

The Preferences page contains two tabs.  The first tab, General, gives you the ability to change your password and set your default settings.  This is a great place to come if you are Mac user and want to change your default player from Windows Media player to Quicktime. 

To select your default media player, scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click in the circle next to the blue Q, save your changes, and presto bango you have now made Quicktime your media player of choice.

Pretty cool right?  Well as the old addage goes (put on your ear muffs Language Arts Teachers) "You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!"

Click on the second tab, My Home Page, to make your own unitedstreaming home page.  You can populate your page with calendar events, featured videos specific to your subject area and grade level, and find out what new videos were just published to unitedstreaming.  You can also turn on a tips and tricks box and even find out what teachers from around the country are viewing!

And, should you change your mind and want to customize your page differently its no problem, simply uncheck your choices and select new ones.

I hope you enjoy making unitedstreaming yours.

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming
Implementation

As a Tech Coordinator, Media Specialist, or Administrator, etc. you may be wondering how well your unitedstreaming subscription is being used in your school.

Well you’ve come to the right place!  unitedstreaming has a separate Administrative site.  To access the site, simply type in admin.unitedstreaming.com (that’s right, NO www.) into the address bar of your browser and hit go. 

Once you arrive at the log-in screen enter your unitedstreaming username and password.

To see an interactive list of all of your schools, click on the Account Manager button located in the column to your left. 

But to see the real nitty gritty, click on one of the reporting buttons. Those buttons are as follows:

The Top Videos Report.  This report will list the titles of videos and the number of times they were viewed by your teachers during a given time period.  You can select the date range and choose to see this report at the district or school level.

The Summary Report.  Use this report to track usage during a given time period.  You can retrieve usage at the district, school, and even the user level.

The Interactive Training Report.  Want to see how many of your schools and teachers have participated in the on-line training component of unitedstreaming?  Use the Interactive Training Report to track your schools participation down to the minute!

I know what you’re thinking - this is pretty cool stuff, but I don’t have the time to learn how to manipulate these tools.  Have no fear, the reports are simple, all you need to do is point and click!

Check out the attachment to watch a step-by-step presentation of each report: Download how_to_create_reports_in_admin.ppt

As always let us know your thoughts and questions.

All the best,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming
Implementation

Over the past year a fair number of teachers have asked me if it was possible to take the videos that they have downloaded onto their computers and turn them into DVDs.

The answer is…You Bet You Can!

Now here’s the skinny:

In order to take a downloaded video and put it onto a DVD you first have to make sure that you have DVD burning software (programs like Roxio, NERO, Movie Maker, etc) and hardware (DVD R drive) on your computer.

Once you verify that you have both the software and hardware on your computer you will need to make sure that your software can recognize .asf files.

If the file type, .asf, is not recognized by the DVD burning software, don’t lose hope! 

Many programs do not recognize .asf files but do recognize .wmv files. Therefore, if you run across this problem, try renaming the downloaded video from "whatever-the-video-name-is.asf" to "whatever-the-video name-is .wmv."  For these purposes they are essentially the same thing.

If you need to convert .asf/.wmv files to a different format using a different piece of software, make sure that the format you convert the video to is supported by both your DVD burning software and whatever device (hardware) that you wish to play your video on (i.e. computer DVD drive, DVD player that is connected to your TV, etc.)

Note: Most newer stand alone DVD players recognize the DVDs that are created on personal computers.  However, older DVD players have a hard time reading this format and may not play your newly created DVD.

If you experience difficulty burning your DVD with your DVD program you should check out the documentation that exists on your manufacturer’s website.

Now what would our blog be without a couple a helpful take aways?  Well…not our blog for one thing!

If you have a PC and are running XP you can download Windows Movie Maker for free from Microsoft.  With Movie Maker you can not only create movies using unitedstreaming’s editable titles, but you can convert them to DVD’s as well.  And best of all it is FREE!

To download this free software click here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/moviemaker2.mspx

Microsoft has also posted easy step by step instructions for burning a DVD on their site. To access those instructions click here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/moviemaker/create/savetodvd.mspx

Now that you are burning  with this knowledge feel free to spread it around.  Tell you colleagues about this blog!

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education unitedstreaming, Implementation

Over the past few years your school/school district has purchased lots of different technology components; interactive Whiteboards, digital editing software, graphic organizing software, not to mention unitedstreaming. And then they said "Ok go use it!"

These are all great tools to have in your classroom, but how do you combine their utility into a lesson plan that fits your curriculum?

Have no fear, we’ve put together some handy-dandy lesson plans for you to use.

Log into www.unitedstreaming.com and then click on the words Professional Development located in the blue bar at the top of your screen.

Once there, click on the Project Demonstrations to not only see how to tie together your interactive white board with unitedstreaming, but download lesson plans too.

Once there you can:

• Download lesson plans and activities for your Promethean or Smart Board - Language Arts teacher check out the lesson plan on Vowels!
• Develop a Digital Story Telling project with your students with lesson plans from the Digital Editing section.
• Explore the great monuments around the globe or chart Santa’s progress using Google Earth and unitedstreaming
• Find interactive activities that incorporate Timeliner and Inspiration.

Of course your Implementation Representative is only a phone call away.  Give us a buzz at 1-800-323-9084 to help you incorporate these tools and more into your classroom.

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, Implementation

First of let me apologize for the delay in posting this blog.  If you had the trip that I did you would understand!

First I started off in Bethesda, Maryland, then zoomed off to the other side of the world to experience an Aboriginal ritual dance in modern-day Australia. 

I then visited the birthplace of Kung-Fu, traveled the Silk Road and planned my next adventure, herding cattle within the world’s largest commercial cattle herd in São Paulo, Brazil.

I also explored examples of historic Islamic architecture in the west African country of Mali and the Middle Eastern country of Yemen; communed with Vikings, and joined a polar bear party in Russia.

And I did it all without leaving my seat!

And now you can take your students on an amazing trip without leaving your classroom.  It is as simple as logging into unitedstreaming.com and clicking on the Discovery Interactive Atlas Map located in the Teacher Center Box.

Then simply launch the Atlas and explore your world!

And here’s a trick to get your videos to play full screen:

Once your selected video starts to play, click on the video image with your left mouse button and then click on the image again with your right mouse button.  This will open up a small menu.  Hover over the word "Zoom" and then click on the words "Full Screen."

Put it all together in a Webquest or Google Earth presentation.  And if the thought of those two items leaves you scratching your head, Don’t worry - We’ve got you covered.

Sign up for one of our Complimentary Webinars to learn how!

Happy travels,

Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, Implementation

We’re coming up to one of my favorite traditions - Halloween!

You have to admit, its pretty fun to don a costume, consume tons of candy, and, of course, greet three to four foot, PowerRangers, Harry Potters, Dora the Explorers, and Little Mermaids as they shuffle to your door and shout "Trick or Treat!"

And while I can’t share a piece of candy with you today, I can provide you with a few tricks so that you can treat your classroom to unitedstreaming.

Listed below are a few questions/problems that have been haunting teachers and their solutions/answers.

Q:  My video keeps starting and stopping when I play it - it says it’s "buffering." How can I get it to play smoothly?

A:  Buffering occurs when your connection to the internet is filled with lots of traffic. Think of your internet connection as a highway. The more cars on this highway the longer it takes to get to your final destination.
Downloading the video first, instead of playing it live from the site, should solve your problem.

If you download your video onto your computer you can play the video without ever getting into this traffic.

Q:  I keep getting bounced back to the log in screen or I keep seeing some weird errors.  What can I do to fix this?

A:  It sounds like you may need to clear your cache (i.e. delete your cookies).  Everytime you go out to the internet a little piece of information, or cookie, is stored on your computer.  This helps you to get back to websites quickly.  Sometimes you get a bad cookie and you need to clear them from your computer.

To clear your cookies, pleae follow these step-by-step instructions.

1. Open up your Internet Explorer, then click on Internet Options
2. Click on the Delete Cookies button
3. Click on the Delete Files button - Make sure you check the box next to Delete all offline content - and the click on OK
4. Click on the Settings Box
5. Click in the circle next to Every Visit To the Page
6. Click on OK and then OK again
7. Close out your browser
8. Open up your browser and go to unitedstreaming.com
9. Search for your content.

Q:  Help!  I can see the video on my computer screen but I can’t see it projected on my big screen.  How do I fix that?

A:  We need to adjust the Hardware Acceleration on your computer.  Basically your computer is spending lots of its resources trying to run a particular program and needs to spread out its brain power, multi-task, if you will.  Most importantly show your stuff on more than one screen!

To adjust the Hardware Acceleration please follow these steps:

1. Right-click on your desktop
2. Click on the word Properties
3. Click on the Settings tab
4. Click the Advanced button (lower right-hand corner)
5. Click on the Troubleshoot Tab
6. Move the carrot in the middle of the box from "Full" to a location that is somewhere between "Full" and "None"
7. Click Apply, and then OK

Q:  I am playing your videos but I don’t get any sound.  Why can I see the video but not hear it?

A:  First you should check the obvious.  Check your computer settings to make sure that the volume is turned up and that your speakers are working.

If that doesn’t do the trick, it sounds (sorry couldn’t resist the pun) like you may need to update your Windows Media Player Codecs. To do so please go to this link, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/format/codecdownload.aspx scroll down and choose the package that corresponds with your operating system.
After you download the appropriate codec you should be able to hear the video.

Q:  How do I get my video to play full screen?

A: To get your videos to play full screen simply press play and then click on the full screen icon at the bottom of the blue box. See picture to the right.  NOTE:  You must have Windows Media Player to do this function. 

Only Windows Media Player v10 enables you to see CC full screen.  Now this WMP 10  is only compatible with computers operating Windows XP. If you don’t have this operating system or Windows Media Player 10, you can’t see the captions when you go full screen.

If you do have WMP 10 and XP make sure that you select the following settings:

• Click on the word "Play" in the WMP toolbar, then "Captions and Subtitles", and then choose "Play Captions when present"
• Click on the word "Tools" and then "Options" and choose the Security tab.
• Once you do place checks within the boxes "run scripts when present," and "show local captions when present"

Here’s a document that you can download that outlines the steps above - Download closed_caption_instructions.doc

Of course the Implementation team is only a phone call away to help you trouble shoot and solve your technical woes.

We await your call.  In the mean time, I’m going to visit Monika’s cube and snag a little Halloween candy!

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education unitedstreaming
Implementation

When you found out that your school had access to unitedstreaming, you proclaimed the news from the rooftops!  After the campus police encouraged you to come down, you held the initial training, registered your teachers, and familiarized them with the site.  You dutifully passed out your school kit material and hung up your posters.  Teachers were excited about it….and then little or nothing happened.

Is this you (except for the rooftop thing – that was for dramatic effect)?  Are you struggling to re-engage your staff?

How about incorporating a Teacher Challenge into your weekly faculty meeting? 

Sounds’ cool, “What’s a “Teacher Challenge,” you ask?

A Teacher Challenge can be any number of things that encourages teachers to incorporate digital media into their classroom. 

One way you can challenge your teachers is to provide a 10-15 minute demonstration of a new initiative in your school.  You can even work with your dedicated Implementation Representative to present the initiative, create a unique e-mail, newsletter, or just brainstorm.

For example, you and/or your Rep could demonstrate hyper-linking unitedstreaming videos into Inspiration or embedding videos into Power Point.  Then “Challenge” your staff to incorporate this new technique into a lesson during the week. 

At your next faculty meeting, encourage teachers to share how they used digital media the week prior.  This is an innovative way to utilize your staff’s creative energy to inspire the use of digital media.   It’s also a great way to continue to engage your staff.  For more ideas, call your Implementation Representative today.  Or, even better, share some of your "challenges" with us by responding to this blog!

Talk to you soon,

Sabrina-Yvette d’Almeida

Discovery Education unitedstreaming, Implementation

When Virginia Richard and her Polk County, FL team implemented Discovery Education unitedstreaming, teachers took to the site with gusto. 

As more and more teachers began exploring the site, Virginia wondered how she could get her school district’s 100+ principal’s just as excited.

It was not too long before the metaphorical light bulb went off above her head Virginia created folders within her District Content and filled them with quick-links to staff development videos.

She gave her folders titles like: Aspiring Leaders - New Administrator Series and The Principal as Instructional Leader Series. 

Virginia then attached a number of video segments to these folders; segments like: “Reaching Consensus” from the full video “Principal Series, The Survival Tips,” “Orient New Faculty” from the full video, “Principal Series, The Principal as Culture Shaper,” and “Focus Professional Development on School Goals” from the full video, “Principal Series, The: Principal as Instructional Leader.”

(Note you can access these videos by clicking on their links but you need to be logged into Discovery Education unitedstreaming first!)

Now you don’t have to be an Administrator to share your content.  And you’re not limited to just sharing videos.  In fact, you can share images, quizzes, assignments, writing prompts and more!

To share your content simply go to “My Content,” find the item that you would like to share, and select “Share” from the drop down menu. (Click on image to make it bigger)

A pop-up window will appear and you will be prompted to share your video with your school and/or district. (Click on image to make it bigger)

Note – Be sure to choose a “Parent Folder when saving your content in the School and/or District Content.  A parent folder is a folder that already exists like “School Content” or “Play lists.”

One more note about sharing content. The default setting for sharing content is “Controlled Sharing.”  Controlled Sharing means that someone within your school and/or district has to give your item a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” before it is shared. 

unitedstreaming users that have administrative access can turn this feature on or off. 

To toggle this feature off these users should log into unitedstreaming and click on the Sharing Administrator link, select their school and/or district, and then change the setting to “Open Sharing” (click on image to make it bigger).

Of course your Implementation Rep stands (more likely sits) ready to assist you with this feature.  To quote James Taylor “…all you have to do is call (800-323-9084) and we’ll beee there…you’ve got a friend…”

Talk to you soon,

Matt Monjan
Discovery Education unitedstreaming, Implementation