Wow, Long Time No See!

Okay, I'm embarrassed. I've been so into my own general blog, my education-in-second-life blog, and my classroom blog, not to mention my podcast and my day-to-day-teaching, that I've sorely neglected this poor orphanblog.

Well, I have to say that part of it problem is that I haven't really seen very interesting newsnotable items. This morning, however, via vcinsight (itself a quirky little site dedicated to IVC and sponsored by the "big guys," I discovered a most interesting post about Sony's new desktop "Walkman for Videoconferencing" system. Read about that, and whilst reading, note the new theme of IPM (IP Monitoring) that seems to run through the site's posts. For network-connected folks, it seems that QOS (Quality of Service) settings are (duh, slapping my forehead) absolutely key to performance. Perhaps a little intro to QOS might help. I'll look for that soon. Meanwhile, perhaps the best tack to take is to bake a batch of yummy chocolate chip cookies for your system administrator, or perhaps gift him/her a nice bottle of scotch :)

For those watching trends in the high end players, you can also read at vcinsight.com about Tandberg's purchase of Codian. That's significant for a number of reasons. I'm sure the Calista-rooted Codian folks are feeling quit pumped about the sale of their project to Tandberg. This team of developers may now move on to the next big project. Wonder what it will be...

I'm rambling. See what you get when you make me feel guilty?

Cheers!

Learning is Messy -- Videoconferencing in the Classroom with Skype

One of my favorite blogs, The Infinite Thinking Machine, shared this today and I want to spread the love. Head on over to "Learning is Messy" to view a VERY cool video about how a class of 4th graders bring a classmate who suffers from leukemia into their classroom with the aid of Skype videoconferencing. Priceless.

My own class did a similar thing using Skype earlier in the year to chat with a 4th grader whose family was in Holland for the first several months of the school year. If you missed that, here's the link to its "celebration" posting. There's a brief movie clip there for you, too.

Possibilities are endless, dontcha know?