Case study that illustrates the increase in video adoption from VideoCourier by Lee County Schools.

1. Case Study:
Teacher Adoption of
VideoCourier in K-12
How an Easy-to-Use, Multi-Media Delivery Solution
Impacts Classroom Use of Video
SYNERGY BROADCAST
SYSTEMS
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Addison, TX 75001
972-980-6991 or 800-601-6991
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2. School districts in the state of Florida, like other states, face a
constant budget battle. Funding for schools is not supporting the
needs for teachers, infrastructure, classroom support and
operational requirements so it is imperative that schools look for
solutions that provide a value for their investment and lower total
cost of ownership to reduce operating and support costs while at
the same time providing more services and support to teachers in
the classroom.
The purpose of this document is to discuss how two school districts
and the Florida Department of Education are improving services
while keeping costs down in their efforts to deliver educational
video to the classroom.
Lee County Schools
The Lee County School District in Fort Myers, Florida operates 80+
schools and educational facilities and supports the needs of
80,000+ students and 9,900 staff personnel.
Like many school districts, Lee County operates an Instructional
Television Station to support the district’s classrooms and
surrounding county. Programming was previously delivered to the
schools using ITFS or EBS which is a point-to-point wireless
technology that broadcasts programming direct to schools using
an antenna and receiver at each school. During the hurricane
season of 2004, the district was pummeled by four different
hurricanes and lost many of their ITFS school antennas. The cost to
replace the antennas was staggering at best and given the growth
of the Internet, IT and networking, the district looked for lower cost
alternatives to deliver better video services to the schools for less
money than it would take to rebuild the EBS system.
A plan was already moving forward to increase district-wide
bandwidth from 1.5Mbps to 10Mbps to handle the increase in data
and take advantage of new voice platforms so the district was
interested in utilizing some of this bandwidth to also deliver video.
However, even with the increased bandwidth the potential
demand on the network from 80+ schools and thousands of
classrooms would likely overwhelm the expanded bandwidth.
The district does not operate on a 24/7 basis so half of the
Is your network fully network’s bandwidth was not being utilized after office and school
utilized? hours. Seeing this as an opportunity, Lee County contacted
Synergy Broadcast Systems to implement their VideoCourier Video
Delivery solution.
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3. VideoCourier is a hybrid video delivery solution designed to provide
school districts with a turnkey solution for managing video
distribution and delivery to the classroom that maximizes
bandwidth and minimizes support requirements in the classroom,
regardless of infrastructure.
All of Lee County’s schools were built with a coax cable and TV’s in
each classroom so they could receive both cable TV and the
district’s 4 channels of educational programming. With
VideoCourier, each school received a small 4 channel video server
that was connected via the network to the district’s media center.
These VideoCourier remote units provide the schools with video
storage, 4 video on demand channels and a web interface to
provide teachers with an easy-to-use solution to search and access
classroom content.
Programming can be requested by the teachers using their web
browser and also pre-scheduled for the schools by the ITV
It is the supreme art of department in advance of lesson plan needs. Here’s how it works -
the teacher to teacher requests are collected by the system and combined with
awaken joy in the pre-scheduled programming in the VideoCourier system each
creative expression day. When school closes each day this opens up the network
and knowledge. during off-peak hours. VideoCourier begins moving video to all of
the schools that have either requested content or are scheduled to
-- Albert Einstein receive content. MPEG2 files are transferred throughout the night
so teachers have the content when they need it. Each day
teachers use the same web browser to access programming from
their local server to deliver video to the classroom on demand
when it supports their lesson plan and teaching efforts.
Is your network fully The advantage of this system is the district fully utilizes their
utilized? investment in network bandwidth on a 24/7 basis without
compromising voice, data and support services and without
increasing staff.
“I am really excited about
this system and the
forward compatibility The impact on the classroom has been significant. Al Shilling,
capabilities it provides. Assistant Director, Career and Technical Education at Lee County
We have been tracking responded to the system’s success this way, “I am really excited
usage to schools and about this system and the forward compatibility capabilities it
classrooms and have provides. We have been tracking usage to schools and classrooms
documented significant and have documented significant increases in utilization over the
increases in utilization over past school year.”
the past school year.”
Prior to installing VideoCourier the ITV department was able to
Al Shilling, Lee County
deliver 4,400 programs per semester or 8,800 programs per year
over the 4 broadcast channels. Installing VideoCourier increased
the district’s channel capacity from 4 to 328 total channels and the
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4. Before VideoCourier:
4,400 video programs teachers ordered and utilized over 66,300 programs per semester
used. or a 15x increase in utilization. Unlike ITFS/EBS, the VideoCourier
system allows each school to have it’s own schedule and video on
With VideoCourier:
66,300 video programs
demand programming allowing for better alignment with state and
used. district academic standards and student needs as well as
protecting network quality of service.
What made the difference in terms of teacher adoption and
VideoCourier
usage? We believe three things made this transition easy for the
Easy to use
Flexible teachers: (1) the VideoCourier interface is very easy-to-use, (2) the
Cost-effective ITV Department created a training video (available on our web site
Saves staff time at http://synergybroadcast.com) that illustrated how easy it is to
IT Friendly use and also what the teachers can gain by using the system, and
(3) the ITV Department dispatched personnel to the schools to
answer questions and supplement the video with a live orientation.
We know from research studies that video in the classroom, when
used properly, does a variety of positive things to support and
enhance learning. As a result of VideoCourier’s ease of use,
flexibility and cost effectiveness the teachers were able to add
more teaching tools to their daily activities without increasing
technical problems or requiring additional support personnel thus
realizing significant value for the district’s investment.
Florida Department of Education
In addition to improving the delivery of video to their schools, Lee
County has also gained significant savings by using VideoCourier to
download finished, educational programming from the Florida
Department of Education, which also uses VideoCourier to run their
Florida Knowledge Network satellite broadcast. FKN provides
school districts in Florida with thousands of video programs each
year by satellite. In a traditional delivery methodology, schools are
required to set up VCR’s and record the programming they want
for classroom use. This method is “hit and miss” at best and always
requires the schools to do additional editing in order to use the
program in their existing video or broadcast system.
By utilizing VideoCourier, Lee County is able to access the FKN
database of video programs and download the programs they
need rather than record them to tape or some other format. By
downloading finished programs the district saves a significant
amount of money on staff and preparation. Instead of editing and
quality checking the programs, the district simply downloads the
file and loads into their VideoCourier solution for broadcast over
their cable channel or delivery to individual schools using the
VideoCourier file transfer solution.
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5. Monroe County Schools
Lee County Schools operates with a small staff of video and
technical professionals to serve their 80+ schools. At the other end
of the spectrum is Monroe County School District in the Florida Keys
that operates 15 schools and three centers. Their video
department is a staff of one, Barbara Cavanah. Barbara is in
charge of the district’s video broadcast system that provides video
to the schools and county cable system among her other duties.
“Last year we added
VideoCourier to connect to the
Barbara uses VideoCourier to download programming from FDOE
Florida DOE video library. just like Lee County does and the savings for her are significant. As
Being able to easily access and a staff of one with multiple duties she does not have the luxury of
download files from the DOE time so downloading finished, ready-to-air programming for her
library has enabled us to schools is a significant time saver. She uses the VideoCourier
increase our programming software to browse and select the programming she wants and the
opportunities for teachers and VideoCourier solution at FDOE downloads her content at night so it
students in Monroe County.” is available for use the next day.
Barbara Cavanah
VideoCourier
Program Specialist
No two schools or districts are the same so it makes sense to utilize a
system that can scale to individual needs and requirements.
VideoCourier increases staff productivity and provides instructional
“Do not train children to and training personnel with simple and effective tools that benefit
learning by force and all students.
harshness, but direct them
to it by what amuses their
As technology transitions to HDTV, forward compatibility and utility
minds, so that you may be
are essential. VideoCourier can also provide streaming, channel
better able to discover
with accuracy the and digital signage, live video feeds and other features to
peculiar bent of the enhance your district’s educational technology efforts.
genius of each.” VideoCourier and its related peripherals can be upgraded and
- Plato expanded easily. This scalability is important as broadcast and
distribution formats change quicker than most institutions can
adapt. VideoCourier builds capacity for educators and institutions
with a proven, reliable cost effective video storage and playback
system that enhances the classroom environment and curriculum
VideoCourier:
delivery.
-Video On Demand
-Video Distribution
-Cable TV Conversion If your district is concerned about legacy equipment, VideoCourier
-Live Video is the only solution that can fully utilize legacy analog content and
-Announcements distribution and assist you in making the transition to digital on a
-Emergency Alerts timetable that makes full use of your budget and requirements.
-Weather Alerts
-IPTV and Streaming Additional resources are available on our web site and include a
-Utilize Legacy Equip variety of White Papers on topics such as “How to Use Video in the
-Digital Signage Classroom”, “A Guide to Selecting a Projector for Classroom Use”,
-Use any programming
and “How to Manage the Legacy Zone: The Transition from Analog
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6. to Digital Video”. Please visit our Web Site
(http://synergybroadcast.com) for more information on these
documents.
For more information about VideoCourier you can reach us or
interact with us in a variety of ways:
Please call at 800-601-6991
Visit our website at http://synergybroadcast.com.
Our Blog is at http://synergybroadcast.com/blog1
Join us on Facebook at http://tinyurl.com/sbsfb
Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/synergybcast
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