Learning Curve

Definitely worth the re-filming to get a great final production captured forever. What if there was no news? What’s news? Watch The Nixon Era as Nadia Daher, Laudi El-Kareh, Hayley Joseph, Kelsey Molseed, and Andrew Samy uncover coverups in factual and counter-factual historical scenarios.

Long awaited, definitely worth the extra effort at re-filming. What if there was no news? What’s news? Enjoy viewing an intriguing counter/factual historical interpretations of what daily life might have been during this era with/out news. Created by Peter Cialkowski, Skye McCarty, My Phan, Fatema Rajmohamed, Hannah Rucker, and Courtney Weiss. ENJOY!

Guest Blogger: William Kennington, junior, SHS
Cross-posted on PA DEN

Last week, on May 27, 2009, four groups at Salisbury High School in Allentown, PA presented their Integrated Project. IP is year-long endeavor for students who enroll in the courses of AP US History and Honors English 11. IP is a research-based project that incorporates a final multi-media presentation as well as a stage production that lasts for 45 minutes. We streamed our presentations using two backchannels, one focused on the stage and one on the projector screen. We had no problems streaming it, but the recorded videos were corrupt. You can still watch the two separate stream as they were the day we went live, but the downloaded video was buggy. Therefore, a compiled version of the presentation can not be made at this time, but we are working with ustream to resolve this issue. I have tried converting the presentation thus far with vixy.net, zamzar.com, ffmpeg, adobe media encoder, vlc, and other free media encoders. Ustream has been working on a way to convert their video directly through their website, but this feature is still unfinished and unavailable. Hopefully once this feature is implemented (or when we find a way to convert the video), we should be ready to release the compiled video for each of the four IP presentations. We used Discoverystreaming videos in creating our factual and counterfactual histories, so when we get this problem fixed, we can show you how factual Discoverystreaming videos can be used to make counterfactual scenariors look real.

Interesting and timely, Mogulus, which has often been a go-to choice, has changed its name and website. Mogulus, now Livestream, always supported multi-camera streaming but didn’t have have high quality resolution, but with the difficulties we have encountered, we might switch to Livestream. From their newsletter, here’s what’s new with Livestream:

Recently we changed our name from Mogulus to Livestream, and you can find us at our new home at www.livestream.com. As much as we loved our old name, it was time for a change that reflects our growth and more clearly communicates what we do. We hope you like “Livestream” as much as we do.

Along with the new brand and domain come a re-designed website, and most importantly for you, another simple way to broadcast from the Livestream website.

This new tool offers instant streaming from any page on our website. Just click the red ‘Broadcast Now’ button or go to your ‘My Account’ section.

Go live with one click from almost any webcam or camcorder, and chat or Twitter to promote your channel, all right within the application.

Of course you can still use Procaster (our downloadable desktop application) for the highest possible quality, but for instant no-fuss streaming, the new broadcaster is great.

Now that we’ve changed, what do you need to do?

In short, nothing!

Your channel pages and embedded players will continue to function just as they did before. You may want to update any links to your channel page (i.e. change from “www.mogulus.com/yourchannel” to “www.livestream.com/yourchannel”), but the old links will still work even if you don’t get around to it.

If you’re using the old logo, we’d appreciate it if you update it to the new Livestream logo. You can download it here.
» More Details

For more info on the change, below are a few links to the press release and related stories. Or, follow us on Twitter @livestreamcom.
Discoverystreaming
Ustream.tv
Livestream
IP (Integrated Project)
Education
Technology
Turbo Tagger

So many people who often remain invisible help make IP a success. Parents are the largest support group; I often wish I could be that proverbial fly on the wall and see what a parent sees, or even a student. The “clickers” can make or break a presentation; if their timing is off, or if the people on stage don’t hit their “tag line,” even lighting is off. And that’s my segue for today’s post. Getting lights right involves more that which series of levers to raise and lower, or when to use the spots; it requires setting the lights so they are where they are needed. Our lighting issues are driven by the technology in our presentations–we need light on actors and off of the big screen. Today, when they had a long list of to-do things when school was closed, our custodians rigged our lights. We cannot thank them enough; now our audience will not have to cope with ambient light on the right and left side of the big screen.

Equally important is running lights and sound. Doing these jobs has been a Yorgey family tradition at SHS, and this year is no exception, except that Jeff, as a graduating senior, just made our job harder next year because he’s the last of his siblings. Since we are toggling between video and stage presentation venues, lights are more complicated than past years, all 12 of them. So, a special thanks to the men on lights, and to Tom Smith, who hates having his images captured, who keep the behind-the-scene problems from becoming crises. Bravo for a job well done, and for sending me into a long holiday weekend stress free! Amen.

Cross-posted on Changing Connections and RJS SHS

Try as I would, I was never able to upload any of the IP presentation videos. I did, however, succeed in uploading Jade Letlow and Sam Heddlesten’s independent research project, The Me Generation–1970-1979: How Could Establishment and Anti-Establishment Exist? Here it is.

The Me Decade from RJ Stangherlin on Vimeo.

Me Generation
Integrated Project
Technology
Turbo Tagger