Ed-Tech @ DU

Last month, I participated in a phone interview with the education team at Adobe to talk about how the University of Denver is using Flash Media Server to stream both live and on-demand content across campus and out into the world. The resulting article was recently published on the Adobe Developer Connection website.

Topics covered include our CourseMedia™ system, live events, and various video uses across departments. It’s a fairly quick read and a comprehensive look at what DU is doing with media streaming using the Flash Platform.

Check it out: Q & A with Joseph Labrecque

I’d encourage anyone going to Educause in Denver to stop by the Adobe Booth (#909) for a theater presentation by myself and John Schuman.

Streaming Video for Education
Wednesday, November 4
12:45pm–1:15pm

In this session, you will learn the inner workings of a real-world video solution for higher education based on Adobe Flash technology. Join John Schuman, Adobe education solutions architect, and Joseph Labrecque, senior multimedia application developer at the University of Denver and an Adobe Education Leader, as they take you through the underlying technologies that went into the creation of the amazing video applications of the University of Denver.

During the opening day of Adobe MAX 2009 in Los Angeles, two separate sessions featured DU video systems.

Firstly, Joseph Labrecque, Senior Multimedia Application Developer for the University of Denver and Adobe Higher Education Leader included mention of the ALORA Embed Generator video player and its ability to tap into Google Analytics during his session for the FITC Unconference:

Custom Event Reporting from Flash to Google Analytics
With the ability to define and report custom events from within your Flash application, you retain control over how specific events are reported and the information contained in these reports. This presentation will cover the implementation of the Google Analytics Tracking For Adobe Flash ActionScript 3 API for generating custom events and the generation of unorthodox event logging from within Flash.

This presentation was streamed live by FITC and Influxis.

Another strong mention was made by John Schuman, Education Solutions Architect for Adobe Systems during his session on video delivery systems in education during which he focused on the CourseMedia™ application:

Customizing the University Experience with a Rich Media Delivery System
Explore the potential of developing a customized, security-focused, RSS-driven delivery solution. This session shows how you can use Adobe Flash Media Rights Management Server, Flash Media Server 3, and Adobe Media Player

While there were some inaccuracies presented during the session, the spirit of our system was well-represented and we thank John for his coverage of CourseMedia™ and other DU video delivery mechanisms.

The archived presentations from the recent Adobe Education Seminar Series are now available for viewing.

Join Adobe in this three-part seminar series to learn how you can create and stream engaging video on the web.

Session 1: Video Use Cases in Higher Education: Expand your audience through video

Discover new and exciting ways to increase the exposure, enrollment, and fundraising potential of your university through the use of video on your university’s website. From distance learning, to the broadcast of live athletic events and artistic performances, to campus tours and new student orientation, all of this and more can be brought to life on your website, increasing the interest of potential students, keeping alumni engaged in their alma mater, and thereby bringing more revenue to your institution.

Hear from representatives from the University of Denver about their successes with Flash video on their campus!

Presenters:

Joseph Labrecque
Senior Multimedia Application Developer
Adobe Higher Education Leader
University of Denver

Leslie Trumble
Director Visual Media Center
University of Denver

Session 2: From Concept to Distribution: Products that will help you capture, edit, and distribute your video online

Learn about the Adobe video workflow from end-to-end. We will start with authoring content in Adobe® Creative Suite® 4 Production Premium and follow the process to Adobe Flash® Media Server for secure streaming of video content to your website. John will talk about some of the workflow options that are particularly relevant to educational usage of streaming video including the robust options that are available for Digital Rights Management of Adobe Flash Video.

Presenter:

John Schuman
Solution Architect
Digital Video Solutions
Adobe

Session 3: Making it all happen: A discussion of how to implement a video solution at your institution

In this final session, you will learn how to implement a video solution on your campus, using the tools and technologies previously presented in this series. Nick and John will go deeper into the technology behind a complete video solution, steps for implementation and decisions to be made in your implementation, all the way through getting video live on your website.

Presenters:

John Schuman
Solution Architect
Digital Video Solutions
Adobe

Joseph Labrecque
Senior Multimedia Application Developer
Adobe Higher Education Leader
University of Denver

Nick Hippe
Sales Engineer
Digital Media
Adobe

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro is an awesome service for presenting and collaborating at a distance. Unfortunately, not a lot of people at the University of Denver have a Connect Pro license and have to look elsewhere for such services. In preparing for the H1N1 Influenza virus, faculty actually have a lot of options beyond setting up a standard Blackboard course. Both Google and Adobe offer some great free tools to help users collaborate across great distances.

One of the services provided by Adobe is called ConnectNow, which actually shares a lot of functionality with Connect Pro. You won’t be able to conduct an entire class with the service (as it only supports a limited number of connection per room) but you can share your desktop, take control of a student machine to work through a problem, and it includes rich whiteboarding and chat tools.

Couple this with Buzzword, Presentations, and the tools from Google, and you can easily conduct your course at a distance in the event of student or faculty illness. I’m fortunate enough to have a Connect Pro account and conduct all my office hours through that service.

Today’s faculty have a set of really robust, free tools at our disposal and should take full advantage of whichever ones complement our specific courses.