1	Digital Delivery for Education: More than just bits & bytes Mike Kern Wisconsin Educational Communications Board
2	“At your door in 30 minutes—or it’s free”
3	Not quite—but we’re learning a lot— and so are they!
4	Lessons from a variety of projects
5	Feedback from Cherokee Middle School “Of the three, datacasting was the best” School technology specialist “It provided students a way to easily use a wealth of resources” “Teaching history could become less chronological…have much more depth” “Students had an authentic learning experience” 8^th grade teacher
6	What do educators want? Part two 46 educators rank content options – Fall 2002 Package of searchable rich media & other resources (DAM) – 1.70 (on 1=high to 4=low scale) Interactive/enhanced TV (resources wrapped around episode) – 2.23 Access to video episodes or clips, but fewer other assets –2.77 Access to other providers’ resources (museums, etc.) using DAM –3.09
7	What do educators want? Part two 44 educators rank delivery options – Fall 2002 Datacasting –2.01 (on a 1=high to 5=low scale) Internet –2.46 Pre-loaded hard drives on network –3.30 Via digital cable/satellite STBs –3.44 Shipped CDs or DVDs –3.57
8	Design, production, digital format issues Age appropriate, interpreted for use Suggested inquiry paths to aid teacher prep Closed-captioning needed Succeed at a few things first, then build upon Get systems integrator for complex projects Lots of QA & field testing Keep time frames realistic Indexing deeply takes time – 8:1 ratio for clips Small files sizes, even for datacasting
9	Working on interdisciplinary teams Keep all informed of big picture Have project coordinator involved in all aspects of day-to-day activities Ask all groups about needs, issues Scheduling around 24/7 operations Assume nothing
10	Datacasting issues Follow instructions carefully How would we make this a smooth part of daily broadcast operations? Problems using entire bandwidth we dedicated to datacasting How ensure reception—acknowledgement server, forward error correction, repeating? How could hundreds, thousands of receivers be supported?
11	Technical issues at schools Schools vary widely – aim for LCD? School filtering & proxy servers Extensive on-site technical tests first How much server capacity is enough? Need to support diagnosis during initial use FOD – datacasting software fixes on demand
12	Network issues at school
13	Datacasting & other options CDs were least desired, but most reliable Multiple delivery methods may serve best (still took 20 hours to datacast about 8 GB) Consistent datacasting adds up (sent 90 GB in 14 days of testing with opportunistic data only) Datacasting could allow DVD content to be used on computers without DVD drives
14	Evaluating datacasting options We’ve tested Triveni, Skystream & Kencast Some factors to consider: Ease of installation Reception Scheduling of datacasts Monitoring of receivers; ensuring reception Delivers consistent datastream Security, encryption of selected content Management of data storage Let’s challenge them to a shootout!
15	Teacher professional development Introduction & full day of training Provided hands on training and allowed for lots of brainstorming Instructional design skills – taught in preservice? Needed release time to be trained Metatag list provided, but too little time to prep Depth of content—better for extended project In-service videos could be part of package
16	Students and tech skills
17	What can schools support? Part two Middle school had to upgrade all lab computers Consider lab availability – not like TV in class What will network allow? (CD drive was hidden) Lots of CDs called for notebook system Internet to classroom doesn’t mean easy to use with entire class In focus groups, concerns expressed about server costs
18	Digital rights issues We need answers to these quickly because one of the most common questions we heard was: “Can we keep it?”
19	"Any questions?" Any questions? (We’ve still got plenty, but we’re excited about the future.) www.ecb.org/dtv mkern@ecb.state.wi.us