Remember the Jetsons? Remember all the great futuristic gadgets and devices they had to simplify life? Remember George Jetson receiving a videoconference call from his boss , Mr. Spacely, right as he had dozed off for a nap? Well, ready or not, those Jetson -style days are here and have been here for a while even in the classroom. A quick look at the early videoconference tools – videophone and picturephone it was called. Captain Kirk videoconference – I can’t find a picture :i(
For decades, we've seen videoconferencing depicted as the technology of the future. But while videoconferencing has been around for years, it hadn't offered the quality or convenience George Jetson or Captain Kirk would expect. BUT now those two might be happy. B TW - The first Picturephone test system, built in 1956, was crude - it transmitted an image only once every two seconds. But by 1964 a complete experimental system, the "Mod 1," had been developed. To test it, the public was invited to place calls between special exhibits at Disneyland and the New York World's Fair. In both locations, visitors were carefully interviewed afterward by a market research agency. People, it turned out, didn't like Picturephone. The equipment was too bulky, the controls too unfriendly, and the picture too small. But the Bell System was convinced that Picturephone was viable. Trials went on for six more years. In 1970, commercial Picturephone service debuted in downtown Pittsburgh and AT&T executives confidently predicted that a million Picturephone sets would be in use by 1980. I (Sandy) was musing on that the other day while reading an article in Communications Daily which said "Four decades after the 1964 World's Fair in New York unveiled the first picture phone, cable operators, equipment manufacturers, other tech vendors and independent phone providers are gearing up to introduce broadband videophone service to consumers."
CLICK ON PICTURES – Jericho Middle School New York and OTHERS.
ISDN Multipoints okay mention. No traffic concerns.
Like banks etc. FBI
We at home use iChat a lot. It's the number one, best home videoconferencing unit. I've used it in meetings, too, but for class/large group use, she/he will need the Polycom/Tandberg solution. iChat works well one-on-one and would be fine for a class to homebound but that's about it.
Can record videoconferencing. Allow the media specialist to schedule a video to one or many classrooms simultaneously Capture a play, concert, game or meeting for distribution via the web Allow a teacher to record her/his message to parents for them to view via the web Stream a captured video (like from United) to a classroom or a student on demand Stream a class to a homebound student synchronously
