August 2010 Archives

0
Ricardo Trinidad asked:




The Impact of Video Conferencing on Education

Given the importance of education, it’s no wonder that many technologies find some of their best uses to be in the classroom. One technology that has seen a great amount of use in schools and colleges is video conferencing, which is a method of transferring audio and video in real time between individuals in different locations. Video conferencing allows students to speak with journalists, politicians, scientists, and a variety of other influential people, as well as allowing teachers and professors to interact with students who are in classrooms at different schools or sometimes even in different states or countries. Video conferencing can even allow different groups of students to interact with each other, allowing them to take part in joint projects or to share cultures that they might not otherwise have access to.

Video Conferencing in the Classroom

When most people think of video conferencing, they think of it in terms of major companies speaking with overseas partners or offices which are located across the country. Video conferencing technology isn’t confined simply to business use, of course; a number of primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools make use of video conferencing in some or all of their classrooms in order to allow their students to partake in a wide variety of experiences. This technology can allow the students to interact directly with other classes or important figures who have set aside time to speak with the students in various schools. In some cases the video conferencing events take place in a number of schools simultaneously, so that as many students as possible can take part and have an experience that they will never forget.

Teaching Across the Miles

Another important use of video conferencing is to allow teachers to communicate with students in different locations who might otherwise not be able to attend classes with that particular teacher or in the subjects that they wish to learn. This is especially popular in a college or university setting, and allows satellite classes to be set up in outlying areas so that the main school can provide their classes to students who may be an hour or more away. This can also allow teachers to easily schedule guest speakers or other teachers from schools across the country or around the world to interact with their class or to provide opinions or input on topics which are being discussed or subjects that are being taught.

Unique Opportunities

As students have more access to video conferencing, they may find themselves having a greater access to unique opportunities as well. It may be possible to take part in special programs via a video feed, which many students would not be able to attend due to distance, cost, or the program being limited to a specific number of people. By adding a video component, programs and opportunities such as these could be opened up to a practically limitless number of people.

Of course, other opportunities may be opened up for students by giving them this sort of exposure to video conferencing technology as well. As the students gain a better understanding of how the technology works and the situations that it can be applied to, they will be better prepared for future situations in the business world in which they may have to work with similar technologies or come up with ideas for how to improve their company’s communications network.

Filed under Communications by on . Comment#

0
Mark Spreschau asked:




The ever popular video conferencing system has today become a basic requirement in the communication strategy for many companies. Video conferencing is known to be cost-effective, can be used for a multitude of purposes, whilst improving employee productivity, and saving companies thousands in travel expenses which can be considered as quite profitable. These days, most software programs are extremely user-friendly and the related equipment not too expensive.

To begin with, users will need a computer- desktop or laptop, a webcam, a microphone and a high-speed internet connection. For software, many options are available such as Cisco, Polycom, and Tandberg; these same companies can also offer cutting-edge equipment at some competitive prices.

Polycom can also offer several different systems depending on your needs. Some of these systems will include the Polycom HDX 4000, 6000, 7000, 8000 and 9000 series. These offer the highest level of audio and video performance. Other companies such as Tandberg offer systems such as their Telepresence series, Edge series, Profile series, Centric series, Set-top series and many more. This company was one of the first to market their products with state-of-the-art equipment.

As you might notice, there really is nothing that these systems can’t accomplish. Whether you might be interested in high-definition, streaming video or conference scheduling, these systems will all have something for everyone. Buying the equipment can be quite confusing at times, but might be made more easy when a few essential questions are answered. For example, what type of meetings are you planning on having? How much bandwidth will you require and do you have something already in place? Also, will your conferences be held within your offices or will you need the possibility to conference with other companies? Will your video conferencing be with single parties or will you need the ability to get several different parties on the line at the same time? It might still seem overwhelming but a qualified technician can easily walk you through the initial process.

Many companies have quite gladly reported that once they began using video conferencing instead of taking trips to physical conferences, the profit margin for their company began to rise. One company even reported that cutting the cost for just one large trip to a conference easily covered for the cost of the equipment. In this economy, it is always essential to save money and improve one’s means to communicate effectively.

Filed under Communications by on . Comment#

0
adityasnv asked:




Communication is a very importance aspect in terms of Business, to have the business on the top, growing and leading, one should be well aware with this fact of how important communication can be, communication is a need of society as it s not necessary whether you are having business, it is like to say that one should know the different methods of communication.

Amongst all the methods of communication, the newest way of communication now days are through video seminars. It is like no need to go anywhere one can establish the communication through video seminar, any one whether from client to employees to potential prospects, it saves time and money.

These all services provided by video seminar live and also one of the services that are provided is webinar and video conferencing. This article will cover all other factors related to these services like, webinar hosting, in what ways webinar provides services.

Webinar is a kind of service that is somewhere conducted like face-to-face seminar while presenting something, the method of interaction is somewhere different that is it is not exactly done face to face when audiences are concerns that is, webinar is somewhere difficult to judge in case of various aspect of personalities and also their state of understanding and also their behavior.

The few things that are to be needed in webinar is host, content features and price, that is the most important is webinar requires hosting. It is important to see that the host should go with your business; it is somewhere difficult to the individuals who are not having latest technology, they are unable to get on.

It is very important to take a glance that the webinar should be open to everyone, as for an example, if somebody is doing webinar on a latest technology than there will be other people or clients from different technologies.

The content is very important aspect of Webinar services; the content of webinar should be very informative and should go with the topic relatively, the presentation should be very interesting so that to bind the audiences and the webinar should be interactive.

One should go for the best webinar company which provides best and affordable webinar services to the clients.

Another important thing is webinar hosting; webinar for successful hosting takes a few steps and also some research as once you know how to better host a webinar then one can successfully host a webinar and also it will be a way to success to both and also to the businesses.

Creating a superior quality content and also to have the webinar scheduled is the basic step that should not be forget and often very essential, as there are some things to look for,  these are reliability, scalability and ability to work with wide variety of technologies.

Moving to Video conferencing, this is something a very strong hand on market as this is the first need of any business and they are using it for the purpose of conducting webinars and meetings, as this saves the time and also the cost of moving to overseas to have meetings, as business owner can seat on one place and have their meetings directly through video conferencing.

There are some points that are required in establishing good webinar by the use of video conferencing, they are

By setting all the equipments of conferencing properly, for successful webinar as the quality of the equipments should be very good, so that it should not affect the video the pixel camera should be of high quality.

The connection of internet should be very fast, as the low speed can somewhere affect the webinar it should be up to 3mbps.

It is important before conducting webinar; one should be prepared with the agenda and the things to do that they need to share with the participants.

While conducting webinar, the invitations to the guest must be send 2-3 weeks before the schedule, and in case of commercial webinar, buzzing the guests to make them attend the webinar.

You have to build an art to attract the visitors; your webinar should not be boring that affects the visitor’s appearance. In case of any details about the products or the services there must be strong contents for it so that it must engage your target audiences.

These are all to conduct good webinars; video conferencing is an art of conducting good presentation platform for any business to raise so get on to good webinar and make you comfortable to face the camera.



0
Magdi Mikhail asked:




A video conference is a kind interaction through devices, which allow two or more people in different places to remotely communicate simultaneously. It is also called video meeting or audio-video remote meeting. It’s different from a videophone because the technology is focused on the conference not the individual.

The most primitive type of video conferencing equipment is the television. Though the transmission of information was one way there is feedback after transmission. The cycle of information and the process of feedback is fulfilled by the television that qualifies it as a video conferencing equipment.

Since the development of digital telephony and internet based services like software, such as NetMeeting, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and other instant messaging web plug ins that allow transmission of messages real time through the internet. The Internet has become the most important tool for video conferencing and other instant messaging services.

Because of the sheer speed that the Internet has within it self and the ability to transfer information real time most of the web based video conference centers puts most of its resources online.

Because of the advancement of Internet technology it has been possible over the years to have simultaneous videoconferencing among three or more remote points. These remote points can be anywhere in the world and the remote locations need not have a special set of equipment or software.

There is a bridge though that connects all of these remote peripherals on to the network and that is called the MCU or the Multi Channel Unit, it allows different computers to run the same format code to et communicate in one network.

There are MCU bridges for IP and ISDN-based videoconferencing. The MCUs used as bridges on IP and ISDN connections are most of the time pure software, and others that can be found in other forms of connections are a combination of hardware and software.

An MCU’s type is determined according to the number of simultaneous calls and conference participants it can handle, its ability to carry out information exchanges, shared programs, shared documents, shared application and other different kinds of sharing peripherals available on the conference. One god thing about MCU’s is that it can be a complete stand alone software for conferencing since it does not need hardware acceleration because it is purely software accelerated.

Because of the needs and the technology available to meet those needs, video conferencing has been more than a necessity for education, medicine, law making, and business.

For education the impact of video conferencing to it and the system can be seen easily. Because high speed Internet connection is becoming a much-needed part of modern curriculum, video conferencing has also been part of the next step towards modernization of the school system. Because of video conferencing special lecturers can now remotely conduct lectures, teachers can be on location and still deliver the lesson and correspondence between schools can be easily done through video conferencing.

Videoconferencing classes also adds to the possibility of a conversation in the scenarios such as a live conversation is needed between people in different countries. A visual information is an important component of the telephone conversation, the parties of the conversation can’t physically come to the same location.

The expense or time of travel is a consideration because these situations calls for something drastically fast and efficient.

Filed under Communications by on . Comment#

0
Ricardo Trinidad asked:




Video conferencing isn’t necessarily a new technology, but it has come a long way since it was first introduced and for the most part makes good use of the new technologies that have been introduced in recent years. By allowing people to communicate either with video and audio or video and text, video conferencing serves a number of purposes in business, as well as for personal use and even use by groups as diverse as the court system and NASA.

In order to understand how video conferencing works, however, it’s important to take a moment to learn how the technology first came about and how it has been adapted over time to meet the needs of businesses and consumers.

Origins of Video Conferencing

Early forms of video conferencing originated with the advent of television, using a pair of closed-circuit televisions which were connected by cable to allow the users at either end to communicate. Later advances on this theme were used by news reporters on location, who transmitted a signal back to the station from a truck filled with equipment, and also by NASA who used high-powered radio waves to transmit signals to and from space missions. Attempts were made by AT&T and other companies during the 60′s and 70′s to make video conferencing more accessible, but poor picture quality plagued these early systems and even when more powerful devices were made they still did not become popular.

Modern Video Conferencing

In the 80′s, new technologies such as ISDN networks made it possible to guarantee a minimum transfer rate and compression rate for video and audio which in turn made video conferencing much more feasible. Dedicated networks for video conferencing began to develop, and ISDN was soon accessible from most parts of the world. Video conferencing was originally prohibitively expensive for most, but as new advances in technology continued to be created the prices of video conferencing equipment soon dropped and it became much more common.

The advent of the internet did much to bring video conferencing where it is today; once the technology was developed to transmit live video and audio over internet protocols, much of the equipment previously needed to create video conferencing connections was no longer required. Many free programs and services soon began to include webcam video conferencing in their chat features, allowing computer users to communicate as never before.

Uses of Video Conferencing

Video conferencing has a number of uses, both at home and in business. When using a webcam or other form of video conferencing from home, you can use it to stay in touch with friends and family across the city or around the world. It can add a bit more of a “human touch” to conversations or chat sessions, as you can actually see the person that you’re talking to instead of them simply being words on a screen or a voice on the phone. In business, the applications are even more useful; business meetings can occur among several different offices or individuals in different parts of the world. Not only can this add a great deal of convenience, but it can also save money that would have to be spent on transportation and time that would have to be spent on organizing the meetings and getting all of the parties in the same place at the same time. Video conferencing can also be of great use to educators, science professionals, and a variety of other individuals who can see the advantage of being able to speak face-to-face with others without the need for actually meeting each other in a specific location.

Filed under Communications by on . Comment#