Page 50 - College Planning & Management, March 2018

SETTING GOALS IN A DIGITAL AGE
has two facets. First, GTC delivers col- lege classes to students through distance learning, allowing students to earn college credits while still in high school. Second, for a small fee, partner high schools use the equipment to deliver distance learning courses to other high schools.
“In this way, larger districts share their resources with smaller districts,” Robshaw indicates, “such as offering a German class.”
With the equipment, administrators are able to offer classes even when class sizes are small. “In an older model,” says Robshaw, “if we didn’t have 30 students
on one campus to take a class, we couldn’t offer it. Now, we can run a class with, say, five students in Racine, five in Kenosha, and five in Elkhorn. Because we’re all about access and opportunity, it has been a great tool for providing a variety of offerings to students when they want them.”
Through the years, GTC administrators have struggled in terms of bandwidth with the high schools. “It wasn’t as affordable as it is today,” says Jeffrey Zellmer, Learning Innovation Division infrastructure techni- cian. “And the way their networks were configured with firewalls gave us some issues. We recommended they use another circuit and add PBX devices. Adding co- decs has made managing it easier, and it has streamlined things for them as well.”
Another hurdle with which the college has dealt has been vendors offering one- on-one video conferencing models. “With video conferencing, it’s becoming a model where you click on a link and join a one- on-one conference immediately,” Robshaw observes. “Vendors may have overlooked the considerations that the education industry has, such as the one-to-many experience. It has created numerous issues for us in terms of organizing and scheduling classes.”
Yet there’s a benefit to the one-on-one link. Zellmer indicates that they’re hoping to use it via their Blackboard learning manage- ment system for students to have one-on-one meetings with their professors during open office hours without leaving their homes.
Also in the future, administrators plan to offer mobile video conferencing technology at an advanced center, such as engineering or nursing, with a mobile camera and a facilita- tor. “We hope to have an instructor interact- ing live with students and guiding them
with real world experts to provide a richer educational experience,” says Robshaw.
For the immediate future, the team is researching vendors and their services, contemplating a change. “We have to always be assessing our technology options because things change rapidly,” Robshaw says. “It’s important to be ahead of the changes, as opposed to reacting to them.”
CONNECTED. Gateway Technical College has created a Virtual Academic Network (VAN) in order to deliver classes through distance learning across multiple campuses, including 15 high school locations.
GTC HAS THE EQUIPMENT
Here’s what GTC administrators have to support their video conferencing education program.
1. Two video conferencing Multipoint Control
Unit(s) with 25 ports each. These devices allow several video conferencing codecs
to conference together. For example, five simultaneously occurring classes with five locations each would use 25 ports on an MCU.
2. Two video conferencing recorders. The recorders allow video conferencing codecs to record camera/content near or far, all video conferencing connections, or local source video/content when codec is not in a conference.
3. One manager/scheduler. This server-based application is able to show the real-time status of all video codecs registered to it and can schedule connections between codecs, MCU and video recorders.
4. A typical video conferencing room contained the following: one video codec, one wired microphone, two cameras (one facing front of room and one facing students), one multi- media switcher/scaler (for switching content sources between document camera, local
PC or laptop), and two projectors/screens (one facing front of the room and one facing the back).
5. A typical portable wheeled cart contains the following: one video codec, one wired microphone, one camera, and one flat panel display (55 to 80 inches).
6. There are 65 video conferencing codecs: 50 at GTC campuses and 15 at eight VANguard High School locations.
48 COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / MARCH 2018
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