[LM_NET] hit, video streaming

[jo turrentine <joturrentine@YAHOO.COM>]

Systems mentioned:
United Streaming or Discovery Education
Safari Montage
New Dimension's CCC! Video on Demand,
Learn360
 
We've had United Streaming for 3 years now. If your district goes with that
and can do a 'Day of Discovery" it would be well worth it. Discovery offers
quite a lot in the areas of science and social studies. In the basic package
they don't offer much for language arts, but if you upgrade you have access
to much more. What most of our teachers like is the fact that you don't have
to download the entire video - you can just load the little parts you want
to show. As part of the service you have access to shared lessons as well as
a lesson builder. With this you can create an unit for the students to use
on campus or at home. You can create tests and have them scored through
this.

For me, as the keeper of the budget, the biggest drawback is the fact that
it is pricey and so few teachers in my school use it. The 5th grade social
studies teacher and the middle school science teacher are the two main
users. To me, 2 out of 25 isn't a great deal of usage. Discovery won't come
out to your site for less than a whole day, which we can't do. This means
that the 4 of us who went to the Day of Discovery hosted by a local district
will have to in-service the rest of the staff and that won't be the same.
__________________________
We have United (Discovery) Streaming.  It is used extensively but I think some of 
the videos are a bit dated.  Perhaps that will change with it now being part of 
Discovery Education.  The teachers like it and we are thrilled that we can log 
students in to use images and video clips, as well as watch videos in areas they 
might need more help with.
__________________________
I do not know about Safari, but our teachers LOVE United 
Streaming.  You can create lessons with segments of video, 
built in questions, create assignments and quizzes; there 
is a built-in set of lesson plans and worksheets for many 
of the videos, there is a great atlas built in, there is a 
Writing prompt builder, there is built in professional 
development and you get a Discovery newsletter with 
updates.On As I said, our teachers use it regularly.
Connie
________________________________
We are a Jr. High with about 960 in Gr. 7 & 8.  We use United Streaming in our 
district.  I have had one SS teach 2 yrs. ago feel United Streaming might talk down 
to the students.  

You can determine a grade level subject to be search.  You can download videos to 
your computer and make a copy of it of the video and retain it for as long as your 
district pays for the service.  The videos are all divided into segments, so you 
can show short snippets.

You can set it up so your students can go in and view a video as a part of class.

We have some special ed. teachers that really like it for their students.
­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_______________________________
 
United Streaming for us. I THINK with Safari Montage you have to have
their "server" in building which costs $$$.( plus the subscription).
Don't know if cost is major factor with you. We've have had United
Streaming for about 4 years and my teachers love it.
Jennifer Kilgore
_________________________________
Safari is our choice because it loads and you don’t have the lag time of the 
internet as you do with United Streaming.  Our teachers love it. 
__________________________

You might also want to check into New Dimension's CCC! Video on Demand,
<http://www.cccvod.com/>, and Learn 360, <http://www.learn360.com/>.  They
are smaller companies but have some good features, including price!
______________________________
We use United Streaming and it is great!  I am not familiar with the
other to compare though.  United has many ways to search and download.
______________________________
I have used united streaming for the past two years and it is a great 
resource- especially if your teachers have Smartboards.  It provides instant 
background information on all topics/all levels.  You can use a whole video 
or just the segments of the video to compliment your lesson.  Some teachers 
rely on it too heavily- like use it in place of teaching, but responsible 
educators use it in addition to what they already teach.
____________________________________
I like Learn360 better.  It has a neat correlation feature to state standards.
__________________________________________
My school has been using United Streaming for 3 years now and we love it.  There 
are many pros like you can make a still image from any moving video.  There is 
curriculum information to go along with the video.  The only con is that sometimes 
if you have many people using the resource at the same time, United Streaming might 
slow down a bit.  But, all in all the students and the teachers love the resource.  
I think it is well worth you getting.  Hope my two cents helps.
______________________________
 
Our teachers love Safari Montage. We got it in September 2007. Due to our county 
wireless system, we actually have the server in our building so Safari can be used 
with or without internet.
­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_____________________________
One school that has both Safari Montage and United Streaming said that Safari 
Montage was faster.
One school had tried both products and chose Safari Montage in the end.
One school district uses United Streaming for the secondary schools and Safari 
Montage for the elementary schools.  The respondant thought the images were 
"better" in Safari Montage than in United Streaming.  She recommended we get a free 
trial of United Streaming before we make up our mind.  (Good idea)


_________________________________
We are a new Gr 6-9 school on Maryland's Eastern Shore and the only
school in our school system that currently has Safari. We love it! We
also have ebeam technology so that the images from Safari are
projected
onto a large white board and the definition is outstanding. The
speakers
in the ceiling do a great job with the sound too.
   We especially like the Creation Station which allows us to download
our own video productions on the server to show the entire school
whenever they wish to view it. 
    Highly recommended!
______________________________
Baltimore County Public Schools, the 24th largest school district in the U.S., made 
a decision to purchase SafariMontage rather than Discovery United Streaming for the 
following reasons:

*    
    Safari Montage is a complete management solution for our digital assets, e.g., 
BCPS video productions, professional development video productions, and other 
public domain video programs.
    
*    
    Core collections K-8 and 9-12 represent quality content from reputable video 
producers.
    
*    
    Safari is a partner with our Dell platform and Promethean interactive 
technologies, thus allowing seamless use of all technology assets.
    
*    
    Technical and customer support is stellar.  Immediate response to questions is 
their hallmark
_______________________________________
I saw your request for information on the LM_Net listserv.  Plano ISD has both of 
these services.  United after being purchased by Discovery has not added much 
content in my opinion that is directly classroom content related.
 
The safari content is of higher quality and name recognition these days - Disney 
educational, A&E etc...  The resolution is sooo much better with Safari it is 
beautiful when using projectors.
 
There is no buffering as it is not "streaming" but file sharing so the files are 
larger and of better quality.
 
We have been very happy with Safari in the past year and the use has continually 
increased.  I see the United content decreasing over time due to their Dated 
content.
 
More than happy to supply further information if you would like it.
 
______________________________
 
Baltimore County Public Schools purchased Safari Montage last year. After our team 
evaluated United Streaming and Safari along with Video Furnace it was easy for us 
to choose Safari. The issue of limited bandwidth within BCPS was one of the 
determining factors in selecting Safari. BCPS has 170 schools in the system along 
with Curriculum Offices and other supporting offices. As you probably know video on 
demand takes up significant bandwidth on a network. We were able to design the 
Safari system so that each school and office building had its own server with an 
additional central WAN server that can distribute material to all the school sites. 
This design pretty much eliminates any bandwidth issues since all the media is 
stored and accessible from each school's individual server. United Streaming 
content has to be downloaded from their site before it can be used. This would have 
slowed the school system's entire network so it was not a feasible solution
 for us.

Another Safari feature that was key to our decision was Creation Station. It's 
software that enables us to develop our own video content and distribute it 
throughout the system. We produce a lot of model classroom lessons and other 
professional development content that is distributed via Safari. Principals, 
Professional Development Staff and Curriculum Offices utilitze this feature to 
provide high quality staff training. They have a choice of delivering the training 
in a workshop setting, faculty meeting or via self directed methods. We have 
received excellent feedback from a number of teachers and offices that utilized 
this feature.

We have been extremely pleased with Safari if you would like any other information 
or would like to talk more about it please don't hesitate to contact me.
 
 


Jo Sorrell
Mabel School
Zionville, NC
Home
Boone, NC
joturrentine@yahoo.com
 
Wag More, Bark Less


      

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