Partnership with overseas schools

[OverWorked]

Our school has a partnership with a school in Tanzania. This is in early stages at the moment, but I have a few ideas on how IT can help them and us.

It's perfectly feasible for them to get broadband Internet in Tanzania at reasonable prices. They can also get computers donated by charities.

With them on the Internet, we could greatly improve the communication between us. I'm thinking of:-

IP telephony
Video conferencing
Remote Support (like Citrix GoToAssist Express).

Has anyone else already done something similar? Used the Internet in partnering with an overseas school? Any ideas or suggestions would be most welcome.

[ocondron]

Hi if you need web conferencing or unattended remote access the Citrix have GoToMeeting with integrated VoIP and audio works on Mac's also, and GoToMyPC, same technology as the GoToAssist Express model. Their sales number is 08000 112 120 and ask for Olive ! Or reply with your email address to me and I can pass it on.

[dhicks]

Originally Posted by OverWorked

Video conferencing

There's Skype, of course, which is free, and probably worth a try first to see how good video / sound quality is before you actually pay for anything. Did have an idea about viewing a whole class - most webcams are pretty narrow focus, but to view a whole class you want a wide-angle lens. Rather than buy an expensive camera, we're going to try nailing a convex mirror (like you get in shops and at sharp corners) to the ceiling and pointing the webcam at that.

For remote support, VNC over an SSH tunnel is, again, free.

--
David Hicks

[sahmeepee]

We have had a teacher get in touch about video conferencing with our 3 European exchange schools this very week. ATM we are looking at using Skype rather than wait for our LA's videoconferencing vapourware to emerge. Our testing in the office and with a local school was fine, so I'm pretty happy it'll work.

You're brave if you want to take on remote support though!

[elsiegee40]

I've just been at the EIS conference in Ashford today.

We had a good talk from JA.Net about Janet Collaborate video conferencing which is apparently "freely available to the education community"

I intend to look into this further over the next few weeks.

[OverWorked]

Thanks everyone. I'll look into Skype - it's something I've never tried. I didn't know it provided video too. I'll also look into the Citrix products.

At the moment they don't have broadband or even any computers. They're visiting us at the moment and I'm fixing up three laptops for them to take back this week.

This could be a while before it gets going, so there's nothing I can test at the moment.

@sahmeepee & elsiegee40: please keep me posted on how it goes.

Thanks.

[ocondron]

Well the Citrix products work over broadband and even 56k dial up. I use them in Africa where they have no broadband all the time and they work perfectly!

[Hightower]

We used Skype to video call a school in Ghana. It worked pretty well (considering how poor their connection is).

We just hooked an ASUS EEE up to one of the whiteboard for it. If they are struggling for computers could you not donate an ASUS EEE at a couple hundred quid? Might be a start point.