Online videoconferencing: Web tools such as uStream make video broadcasting accessible.(TECHNOLOGY)

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A K12 PLANNING SURVEY I REviewed several years ago indicated that ideoconferencing was a top technology application of interest. At the time, the cost of equipment and the need for broadcast studios were major obstacles, so few districts participated in videoconferencing. All this has now changed, thanks to Web technologies that make broadcasting video easy to use and accessible to every school district. Best of all, the tools are free.

The following information includes overviews of the major online video technologies used in schools, examples of district applications, and places where you can get additional information. These emerging tools have implications for administration, public relations, communications, collaboration, teaching and learning throughout your school system.

uStream

I became a fan of uStream videoconferencing last November when a colleague asked if he could "uStream" the professional conference keynote discussion I was about to have with DA columnist Will Richardson.

My colleague pointed the Webcam attached to his laptop at the stage, "Twittered" to a network of friends that he was about to broadcast the presentation (see sidebar), accessed the uStream Web site and clicked the "Broadcast Now" button. As a result, numerous people across the country stopped what they were doing to watch the broadcast and used uStream's built-in chat feature to discuss what was happening, which produced 22 pages of text. You can see K12-related uStream examples, including Richardson's recent Web 2.0 presentation to deputy state education superintendents, on the Weblogg-ed TV site listed below.

uStream differs from previous implementations of Web broadcasting in numerous ways. No special hardware, software or recording studios are required, since any Web camera and high-speed Internet-linked computer can broadcast the video. And if you only need sound, you can transmit the audio alone. It's built-in chat feature allows participants to discuss presentations as they are happening, and since broadcasts are automatically archived, countless numbers of viewers can access programs long after they have ended.

For example, Philadelphia's Science Leadership Academy (SLA), a public high school, uses uStream to record class discussions and presentations for later review by others, and to connect absent students to classes they would otherwise miss. SLA also hosted the recent professional conference Educon 2.0, and broadcast every presentation through uStream. While 250 people attended the conference physically, more than 1,000 participated virtually. Students were also assigned to monitor each live chat, so questions could be shared with people at the live event.

SLA's principal Chris Lehmann says, "Our classes have interacted with students and teachers from all…