to the meeting.
Option 1 includes RTC funding for 475 sites. Option 2 adds 2 K-12 sites for a total of
477. Members approved RTC funding option
2 with the following motion:
MOTION 2
Mary Gannon moved to accept and approve the
proposed RTC Funding Plan and Guidelines with Option 2 as submitted. Tim Dose
seconded. All in favor. Motion passed.
C. Recruitment of ETC Members for Review of RTC
Plans
Ellen asked ETC members to volunteer to review RTC
plans as they are submitted to IPTV. As in the past, a representative is needed
from K-12/AEAs, community colleges, and independent/regent institutions. Dean Cook volunteered to represent K-12/AEAs,
Merv Cronbaugh will represent community colleges, and Jim Bodensteiner will
represent independent/regent institutions.
D. Recommendation to the ITTC for Educational
Video Rates for FY 2007
Following a discussion regarding educational video
rates, members recommended that ICN educational video rates remain at current
levels for FY07 and the following motion was made:
MOTION 3
Kay Runge moved to recommend to the ITTC that ICN
educational video rates remain at the current levels for FY07. Merv Cronbaugh seconded. All in favor.
Motion passed.
E. Recommended Funding Request for RTC Support
for FY 2007
After a brief discussion concerning RTC funding for
FY07, it was decided that a recommendation be forwarded to the ITTC to restore
RTC funding to the original FY04 funding level and the following motion was
made:
MOTION 4
Mary Gannon moved that the ETC recommend to the
ITTC that RTC funding for FY07 be restored to the original FY04 funding
level. Dean Cook seconded. All in favor.
Motion passed.
Bruce McKee and John Haack will head up the group
of RTC coordinators to write a letter of justification for the FY07 funding
recommendation.
F. Selection of Sub-Committee to Review
Administrative Rules
At the ETC meeting of February 18, 2005, members
voted to change the number of ETC meetings per year from 4 meetings to 2, with
a friendly amendment to hold 1 meeting per year with others as necessary. This change was brought to the attention of
Ellen Kabat Lensch because it was in violation of the administrative rules that
state the ETC council must meet at least twice annually. Before further discussion was involved, it
was suggested that the motion made at the meeting on 2/18/05 be reconsidered.
Motion 5
Merv Cronbaugh moved to reconsider Motion #1 of
2/18/05 regarding changing the number of ETC meetings from 4 meetings to 2 with
a friendly amendment to recommend 1 meeting per year and other meetings as
necessary. Mary Travillian seconded.
Yea-15; Nay-1; Absent-2; Not voting-0; Motion to
reconsider passed.
Following a brief discussion and the motion to
reconsider noted above, the following motion was made:
Motion 6
Merv Cronbaugh moved that the ETC hold a minimum of
2 meetings per year. Mary Travillian
seconded. All in favor. Motion passed.
A sub-committee was formed to review the administrative
rules. Those who volunteered to serve
are Mary Gannon, John Hartung, Merv Cronbaugh, Linda Abel, and Bob
Chittenden. Work on this committee will
be done via email and will not require face-to-face meetings. The sub-committee will prepare a recommendation
for the ETC meeting in December.
G. Funding for Educational Classes Survey
The educational classes survey has been prepared
over the years by Eastern
Iowa Community
College with funding provided by Star
Schools. That funding has come to an
end. Members discussed possible funding
options to replace the nearly $4k no longer provided by Star Schools. It was recommended to approach the ITTC and
John Gillispie for the funds needed to continue the survey. It was also suggested that this funding need
could be included in the justification letter for RTC funding. Discussion
followed.
H. Annual ETC Update to ITTC on June 16, 2005
Mary Gannon volunteered to provide the annual ETC
update to the ITTC.
III.
UPDATES
A. ICN Legislative Update
Tami Fujinaka gave an overview of the ICN
legislative update. For the past three
years the ICN has been looking at various ways to fund the ICN, especially the
capitol assets portion of the budget without having to go to the legislature. At the end of session in 2004, the
legislature passed a bill to sell the ICN which the Governor vetoed. Since then, the ICN has been working with the
Governor’s office and legislators to find funding to keep the infrastructure
intact without legislative funds. The
debt service was paid off in March—another piece of the puzzle completed. Last year the ICN looked at a program that
called for selling of the ICN assets, keeping the ICN business and services
provided to users and sell the fiber located in rural Iowa so that private industry would have an
option to use that for whatever business that they provide to their
customers. That was definitely opposed
by private industry.
Plan B called for the ICN to be able to find some
other funding sources by: 1) selling services to private telecom providers, not
to the end user but to another company so that they could utilize either the
ICN’s transport capabilities or the Internet and sell it to their
providers. However, private industry saw
this as expansion of ICN services and their goal is that the ICN should not be
expanded in any way. The ICN was unable
to get that to go through, although they did get some pieces of that.
To date, the Governor recommended a $1.7 million
dollar restricted capitol fund appropriation which was passed and included in
the infrastructure fund bill. (At the date of this meeting, the bill had
not been signed as yet.) This
appropriation would help to pay for some of the equipment replacements and
would address some of the capitol assets needs that the ICN faces.
Also, the Part III appropriation of $2.7 million
dollars was included in the infrastructure bill (the same amount as in years
past). The ICN self sufficiency plan
included the ability of Part III sites to be owned by the state. However, private industry is not in favor of
this action. (The ICN could save money
on leases if this were not the case.)
Homeland security and the private sector worked to
put together very specific language that will allow them to use the ICN. The language allows that Homeland security
will support agencies in cities and counties to be able to use the ICN for
testing and in times of disaster.
The pieces of the self-sufficiency program that did
not pass—ability to sell capacity to the private sector; remove some old language
that required the ICN to do a five-year report; ability to eliminate committees
and appoint committees as required; the capitol assets fund; and interest
earned from the revolving fund will continue to go into the General fund rather
than to the ICN.
Current ICN rate language allowed for operational
costs only to be included in determining ICN rates. The language has been changed to allow all
costs incurred by the ICN including depreciation to aid the ITTC in setting ICN
rates.
B. ICN Update—John Gillispie
John Gillispie had not arrived for the meeting when
this agenda item came up. He did arrive
immediately following the adjournment of the ETC meeting and gave a
presentation to those who were still on site.
A verbatim of his presentation follows at the end of these notes.
C. Election of ETC Chair-Elect
Gail Sullivan will be the official ETC chair at the
end of this meeting. A chair-elect was
elected by the following motion:
MOTION 7
Kay Runge nominated Jim Bodensteiner as ETC
chair-elect for June 2006-June 2007.
John Hartung seconded. All in
favor. Motion passed.
Other items
of interest from members and guests:
Kay Runge informed members that the grand opening
of the new Des Moines Public Library is scheduled for April 8, 2006.
John O’Connell informed members that HF 739 passed
creating the Iowa Learning Technology Commission and pilot programs, and
establishes a research triangle and clearinghouse providing for contingent
effectiveness; the commission is made up of 2 voting members including 2
members appointed by president of the Senate, 1 appointed by the minority
leader of the Senate, 2 appointed by the Speaker of the House, 1 appointed by
the minority leader of the House, and the Chairman or designee of the State
Board of Education. They are to develop
and administer the Iowa Learning Technology pilot programs, develop an accurate
assessment of the current status of technology in Iowa public schools,
classrooms supported by reliable data—data collection and assessment shall
include the number of computers and their corresponding use, the cost of
hardware, support staff development, instructional staff, technology support
staff, sources of funds to be used by school districts, technology budgets and
inventory of technology-based K-12 curricula.
It also states that they want t establish a research triangle defined by
the three institutions of higher education under the board’s control, a
clearinghouse with a purpose of sharing projects and results of K-12
educational technology initiatives occurring in Iowa school districts, AEAs,
CCs, and other higher ed institutes with the educational community within and
outside of the State, with a $500,000 appropriation. Members are to be appointed by July 1, 2005.
Mary Gannon stated that the K-12 online learning
policies are nearly completed. She will
have Deb Fiscus forward them to members.
Ellen Kabat Lensch officially handed-off the
Chair’s gavel to Gail Sullivan who was absent.
John O’Connell accepted for Gail.
The June 2, 2005, meeting of the Education
Telecommunications Council adjourned at 10:30 am. The next meeting of the ETC is December 15,
2005, at Iowa Public Television.
Addendum to
ETC Notes for June 2, 2005
Verbatim presentation by John Gillispie
John Gillispie arrived just minutes following the
adjournment of the ETC meeting and presented to those members still
on-site. He distributed a document entitled
“ICN Reorganization” to members.
Verbatim—
I really only have two
topics to cover this morning. The first is the reorganization that I have announced out at the ICN.
The primary drivers behind the reorganization are to move the ICN from a
footing that has historically been instruction to operations. I’ve presented the time schedule and am
actually a little ahead of where I wanted to be. I’ve sent out the written questions to 8
applicants for the deputy position. I’m
about a day ahead of my planned schedule.
Right now the interviews are scheduled for the 17th of June,
by an interview panel which consists of Molly Anderson, Betsy Bransgard, and
myself. We are in the process of also
searching for telecommunications administrators, one for customer service and
one for sales and marketing. I believe
this puts the ICN on a much better footing for the future and prepares us for
the inevitable changes that we are going to face as IP video and other issues
become very real to us. It (the
document) goes through and describes what the fundamental changes of the
organization are and presents the new organization chart for your review. I have notified the two current deputies that
their positions as currently classified are being eliminated as of July 1st
and that they are welcome and encouraged to apply for open deputy
positions. The current deputies are Mike
Bacino and Kathy Williams. It really
starts to allow us to formerly recognize what the major functions we have to
have from a day-to-day operational perspective are. I’m really moving toward a matrixed
organization from an operating perspective.
And I believe in the long run that this will be the right change. It also reduces the cost of the operation in
the network. So, I’m looking forward to
the change. I’ve had fairly good
response from the organization. There’s
a lot a questions that aren’t answered yet and that is a normal part of any
change process. So, any questions on
that?
Okay, hearing none, the
other topic is one I talked about the last time I was here, which was moving to
IP video. We met with the info tech
officers for the community colleges this week.
I will be sending letters, probably toward the end of this month, to all
interested video parties requesting their participation in the planning and the
specification for what IP video should look like. The reality is that we’ve got some 150 IP
video sites already on this network.
They’re already out there. We are
not getting the kind of performance the end users would like or the
reliability. We’ve got to get to some
specifications and standards to ensure inter-operability across all the video
sites on the network. Our current video
classrooms are 10-12 years old and they are starting to expire. They’re technologically being out-classed by
a lot of the IP video stuff we are seeing happening. IP video really gives you an opportunity to
change distance learning down at its fundamental level. Because it’s not any longer something that
requires the students to come to the education but more the education to come
to the students. And that’s the reality
of the future, that’s what students want.
I’m not saying that all the issues are resolved out there in the state
to allow anywhere, anytime, because we don’t have high speed Internet every
place in the state in a reliable enough level yet to allow truly interactive IP
video. I’ll give you a good example…there’s
a school district who I will not name who was using IP video for their distance
learning. Their local Telco had two T-1s
to the Internet—that’s 3 mb in total…they couldn’t ever get it to work. Every time they’d go to start a class either
they had delays, pixelization, no audio.
It’s absolutely critical that for this next generation we get together
and set the standard and say this is what education is going to look like, this
is how streaming is going to be done, if we don’t set those standards as a
group, what we are going to end up with is a very bifurcated environment and
I’m very concerned that we are moving that direction, and participation of all
interested parties is critical because if a student wants to sit at home and
stream that class after hours they ought to be able to do that. If they want to participate live, they ought
to be able to do that. If they want to
go to a classroom, they ought to be able to do that. IP gives us that capability. We just have to make sure that the standardization
is done now so that 2, 3, 4 years from now that we’re ready for the
change. It’s already continuing to
happen. We’re already starting to see
different classes of equipment that accommodates standards, (and I’ll use that
word loosely), differently. And the end
result is challenges in getting this stuff to interoperate together. The great thing about a standard in the IP
world is that everybody’s got one. The
bad thing about IP video is that everybody’s got standards. What we’ve got to do is select a core set of
standards that will allow people to choose their equipment but say at this
level you must, you must be able to use these standards or you’re going to be
an island—you’re not going to be able to interoperate. The inevitable is here and we want to make
sure the ICN can accommodate that need.
We’re seeing very, very good quality at about 716 kb on IP video—almost
comparable to what you’re seeing out of the ATM network. The ATM network has done a good job—it has
met the need. Education and distance
learning has moved beyond that sit down, push to talk microphone. A great article in Newsweek last week about
Maine where their educational community has got together and wired 80 small
towns and basically there is a picture in the background of an IP video unit
with a quad screen up on it, and three students sitting there. The thing I did find interesting was that
there was clearly a proctor in the room.
But, what does that look like?
The only people who can define education of the future are you. You have to define that. Then once we’ve
defined the education of the future then we can do the standards. So we want to start with what are the
business requirements then move to the technical standards and then get
agreement on those technical standards.
We’re trying to touch everybody but it’s a challenge to get to everybody
who is an interested party.
Question: John, I work in a K-12 school district…will
you call us when you want our input or do we engage with you, or how do we get
in the loop on this up front?
What I would hope is that
I’m going to get this letter out. Right
now, I think I’m up to a mailing list of about 90 different parties, but
probably the best thing to do is for me to send it to all of the ETC members
and then you distribute it out from there.
And I expect that the first one is going to be a fairly big
discussion. But I need leadership from
the ETC on the business requirements. I
believe the ETC absolutely has to lead on the business requirements. The ICN can’t… I mean, that’s not our
role. Our role is technical in nature
and to accommodate your business needs into design solutions. So I need someone out of the ETC who says I
will lead that effort to design those business needs for the future. So, clearly, you are a key component in this,
as is the TIE group, as are the Coos at the community colleges and at the
regents, and everyplace. We’ve got to
get those people to play. But distance
learning has got to lead. They have to.
Question: Is this different or is
this in addition to the committee that was set up last time?
I requested that, but it
never happened. I’m trying to kick start
it by getting a letter out. Because I
feel like the network is just falling farther and farther behind in educational……………..to
get the whole ETC together on that I think would be a challenge, but if I could
work with a couple of members then they could become that communications
pathway for me into the other members of the ETC. Obviously we want all the input we can get
from the business requirement side. They
seem to be varied…they’re many faceted...what people are looking for from the
platform of the future.
Question: What exactly do you mean
when you say you are looking for the educational community to provide you
guidelines or whatever…what exactly are you looking for?
Will every class be
available for streaming? How much
content are you going to want to integrate into that, are you interested in
creating a common platform for distance learning? And there are a lot of business decisions
that aren’t really within the hands of the ICN. And to start with…the ICN…we do video and
then the content was done surrounding that platform. And there were a lot of people engaged up
front in the development f that platform.
The platform was standardized so every classroom is the same. But education is changing in what it wants.
COMMENT: That is part of the deal—there is no standard
anymore in education. Everybody is doing
anything anymore and whatever…Going way back, the standard in education used to
be like 1 credit hour, 15-16 contact hours.
Right? You’re sitting in front of
your professor, so 3 credits you’re in front of your professor 45-50 hours. Today with web delivery and integrated
courses, all that’s gone. I mean it’s
literally up to the instructor as to how they decide what a 2 credit, 3 credit
hour class is. And I don’t know what the
benchmarks are.
Well, you can understand
where the ICN’s at then. Because what we
are seeing is continuing video declines,
…because people are doing a lot more but just
don’t….
And that’s fine. What we want to do is accommodate there. What I’m primarily concerned about right now
is IP video. IP video—we’re getting very
bifurcated and we’re getting islands out there.
And what’s going to happen is if we let the islands continue to
proliferate, we’re going to have 15, 20 islands we’re trying to figure out how
to get to interoperate across each other.
The network was built to
create equity in education and I know that some of these are tough issues to
wrestle with but I think that if we don’t wrestle with them that we going to
find that the old classroom die a slow death, people are going to move to IP
video. We’re going to have performance problems, okay? The way IP video is delivered today to the
K-12 is through the AEAs. Can you
imagine what’s going to happen to the AEA if we get 60 IP sessions going, we’re
going to chew up every ounce of bandwidth they have and there will be no
ability to move data. So the fundamental
architecture has got to change if IP video is going to be successful on a
reliable one on one basis.
Question: Who is going to explain
the parameters of this to K-12?
I’m not sure I understand
the question?
Question: Well, okay, I understand
that the video classrooms are being used less--I see that in my monthly
readings. What you are talking about is a scenario of
endless possibilities, and that’s wonderful, but who is going to explain what
those possibilities are to the K-12s?
Will it come from their AEAs, will it come from the TIE group? Because
they are going to have to know what’s out there on the menu, and yes, I know
there’s going to be a lot of things on the menu, but how is it all going to
come about, and how are they going to arrive at what they need?
Well, the way this
happened the first time is that education really led and said these are the
capabilities we want in the classroom.
And then the ICN was constructed to meet those needs. And the TIE was created to create and support
that defined set of needs. That defined
set of needs has changed. People don’t
really want a push-to-talk mike anymore.
They want to deliver web content into the classroom, they want
independent study. The fundamental
question in my mind is where does the ICN fit into that and how do we
accommodate that changing set of needs?
This technology change isn’t going to stop, it’s just going to continue.
COMMENT: What the ICN did was really continued on
historical education, face-to-face education.
It just meant that we could be face-to-face near here and I’m out 50-100
miles away. So the ICN didn’t really
require the people philosophically change how they thought about delivery of
education…it was simply delivered the same way.
A lot of our courses are still done…we have somebody teaching on campus
to 10 people and another 15 out in the state, they’re still done exactly the
same way they were 30 years ago, except that you do push a button and see each
other at a distance. So that is not
where the philosophical change is.
There really wasn’t a philosophical change there. But now the stuff you are talking about, the
web delivery and so forth, this is big time change and I don’t know that higher
education at least has really dealt with this.
I mean, they just let instructors say, “I’m just going to do this class
on the web,” or whatever, and Department of Ed and others say fine. They have
absolutely no idea what is going on for content or how it meshes with what was
delivered to a 15-18 hour on-site class.
People can disagree if they want, but it is highly individualized as to
what an instructor defines as the class.
COMMENT: To a
small extent, the leap from the ICN classroom to IP to direct conferencing with
a student, I teach online right now.
That’s a small leap. What the
larger leap is going to be is the 24-7 aspect that you are talking about. Being able to reach that student 24-7 when
they don’t have that access from home, when they don’t have that high speed
Internet, and that’s one critical link that’s lacking right now. But it’s only a small leap to go from that
ICN classroom to the IP within a classroom day.
The student is there, the bandwidth is there. But outside that classroom…and I have taught
on a 24-7 with teaching students at night using I (eye?) Visit in order to be
able to reach them on a 24-7 basis…it’s very effective. But that’s where the gap is right now, for
K-12.
If all we do is agree
upon a common IP standard, that will be a huge step in the right direction, and
then if there are add-ons…If we were asked, “well what’s the IP standard
platform that you recommend?” by a group of school districts…we don’t have
one. It’s kind of proliferated outside
of the realm of the ICN. And that’s
okay…what I’m concerned about is inter-operability challenges in the
future. And if we can get that core set
of standards we would be better off.
Question: So
what are you asking in your letter that you are sending out?
For participants on IP
video standardization.
Question: When
were you looking at trying to get that group together?
Probably July.
Question: Let’s say something to Gail…we could send out
an email to the ETC to look for participants. When’s the letter going out?
I’m hoping to get it out
in the next couple of weeks. Like
everyone else, it’s on my list of things to do.
Question: Let me
ask you a question...you were talking about the technology in most of the rooms
now is about 12 years old or something like that. Have you found, and we just heard a rumor
recently, that an ICN room had some kind of a break down and the local school
district is not fixing it—it will be just shut down. Are you hearing much about that?
There’s onesy-twosies
like that. That’s really the school
district’s choice. One of the beauties
of IP video is that it is no longer
something you have to do in a fixed spot.
Actually there is stuff one third the size of that that literally rolls
very nicely, it’s got a pop-up LCD projector in it, pretty sweet stuff, built in
an MCU. Teacher can start it all and don’t
really need any participation from the ICN other than to make sure the
bandwidth is there.
Question: So the better job we do of developing the
standards, the faster the two-way video classroom becomes even more
obsolete…and that’s what you’re trying to transform at the ICN…you get out of
the two-way video classroom business and you help us set standards for the IP
video…
And we know we’ve got to
bridge between the two worlds for a period of time. The question is how long. There will be some school districts who
decide not to go this way.
COMMENT: Right
now just trying to figure how to get those units through our firewalls is
driving us crazy…and so any help we could get to help make those things work
would be great.
That’s really why we need
to get some standardization. That’s
really what…you know…you pick up and move that video unit to a new building and
they haven’t penetrated the firewall, you’re dead. And there stands the teacher saying I’m ready
to teach and I can’t go. So, that standardization
of the technical firewall is very critical…you know we’re all going to use a
port, hacks(?), and everybody’s going to
open that port up on their firewall.
Then the next one is whether they have intrusion detection. Because sometimes video is looked at as an
intrusion on a system and it shuts down there.
It just goes on and on in the IP world—stuff that technically the ICN
solved by having a dedicated classroom.
But it’s very clear to us that education doesn’t really want that
dedicated classroom. They would rather
use that space for other things and that’s why the IP is proliferated. And we are all for that, we just want to
support it, make sure is performs well.
Cause we can isolate the data traffic from the video traffic s that we
can say yes, when you want to run video it’s going to perform well, it’s going
to connect, it’s going to stay up. That’s one of the problems—mid-session, it
just goes down. We can solve that
problem if we do it technically now. If
we wait 2 or 3 years it will be very, very difficult to undo a lot of that.
Question: Are you talking about
managed megabyte type?
Yes, manage the alliant
services. And we’ve tested it, but ran
into firewall issues when they moved the cart to another building.
COMMENT: We are
dealing with that this Friday. Phil’s
going to present to us and we are going to try to do a test with 36 sites,
using Tannenberg Solution as well as Polycom…both say they have solutions, plug
and play.
*********************************************************************************
Multiple discussions between the members caused the
recording to be garbled at this point, so was unable to transcribe the ending
of John Gillispie’s presentation.
3300.doc
