Navigating the BOCES Video Streaming Project

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Navigating the BOCES Video Streaming Project From Home

Minimum System Requirements PC Mac

Computer Type Pentium 2 Processor At least 128MB of RAM Windows 98/Me/2000/XP

A 400 MHz PowerPC G3 or faster Macintosh computer At least 128MB of RAM Mac OS X v10.2.8-10.3.x

Connection High Speed/ DSL High Speed/ DSL QuickTime 6.5 or Higher 6.5 or Higher

Browsers Tested Explorer, FireFox, Safari, Netscape, and Camino The digital streaming project at BOCES allows teachers to use media that has been purchased by BOCES for use in their classroom on demand. The goal of this project is for BOCES to have a library of videos that have been previewed and recommended by educators within the Monroe #1 component schools. This goal makes the BOCES project different from other services, because it gives teachers the ability to influence the content that is available to them. The main page for the digital streaming project can be found at, http://boces.streaming.monroe.edu/. This page is where you will begin searching for media titles that you would like to use in your classroom. Before you start searching and streaming, you will need to obtain a password and verify or install QuickTime. Obtaining a Password Due to copyright restrictions and the need to maintain security of the digital rights to the videos within the BOCES streaming project, BOCES can only accept password requests from district based email addresses. If you would like to stream videos from home for preview and use in your classroom, send an email to [email protected]. Make sure the subject of the email is Home Access and you will receive an automated reply with your password and user information. Make sure that you keep this in a safe place. Once you have your user information go to http://boces.streaming.monroe.edu/, so you can try streaming a video. Checking the Version of QuickTime on Your PC and Macintosh Computer The first thing to check is that you have QuickTime 6.5 or later installed on your computer. To see if you have QuickTime 6.5 on your PC click the Start button, go to Programs then select the QuickTime folder, and then choose the QuickTime Player.

Monroe #1 BOCES Last Updated: 9/21/2005

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Step 4 Step 3

Step 2

Step 1

NOTE: If there isn’t an icon for the QuickTime player you will want to go to http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/ to download the latest version of QuickTime. This will open the QuickTime player. To determine what version of QuickTime you have, click on the Help Menu and choose About QuickTime Player.

This will open the following window and display what version of QuickTime, if any is installed on your

computer. If the version


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isn’t at least 6.5, you should download the newest version from http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/.

If you are using a Macintosh computer open your Hard Drive and then open the Applications folder

. Once you are in the Applications folder, find the QuickTime Player icon. Click on the icon to open QuickTime. If there isn’t an icon for the QuickTime player you will want to go to http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/ to download the latest version of QuickTime.

To see what version of QuickTime you have, click on the QuickTime menu on the left-hand


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side of your screen and choose the About QuickTime Player menu

option. This will open the following window and display what version, if any is installed on your computer.

.

Version of QuickTime

Testing Out Streaming

***Note: You should exit out of all programs except your Internet Browser and

QuickTime. Don’t forget about your Instant Messenger. *** To try out streaming you can click on the Digital Streaming logo at the top of the video

streaming page . This opens a page that shows the basic layout of what you will see as you search and stream videos.


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As with the example below, each video that has been purchased by BOCES can be streamed at two different qualities and in two different ways. The two quality settings deal with the speed at which the video is streamed across the Internet. The reason for two speeds is because depending on the computer and other technical factors, a lower speed stream may be needed in order for the video to work properly. However, in the classroom you can use the higher quality stream. Another choice that you have for viewing streamed videos, is whether you would like to view them in small screen or if you would like to view them in full screen. If you are simply going to show the entire video to your class you will most likely want to choose the full screen choice for viewing the video. If you are going to have students streaming different content, perhaps they are using the video in a research project, you may want to have them stream the content in a small screen and resize the window. Using the small screen gives students control of the video so that they can fast forward and rewind in case they want to revisit a section of the movie. Quality

of the video

Viewing size choices

Once you click on the type of movie you want to view, your computer will open QuickTime for you and you will be able view the movie. There are a few things that you should know depending on the browser and the computer that you are using. People using Internet Explorer in a PC environment shouldn’t have to do anything. People using Internet Explorer in a Macintosh environment will have a file downloaded to their

computer called a .qtl file . This isn’t a large file and only links to the site where the video is stored. If you are using Netscape Navigator in the PC environment, or you are using Netscape in a Macintosh environment, the following window will be


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displayed, if you are viewing a movie for the first time. You will want to select the option Open it with the default application. After doing this once, you shouldn’t have to do anything to view the file. If you are using Firefox as your browser, the following window will appear when you

open a movie . You will want to select the Open with button. Also, if you don’t want to see this message in the future you can check the Do this automatically checkbox so Firefox will open QuickTime for you in the future. *** NOTE: If you are experiencing problems go to page 16 of this document for more

information***


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Finding Titles There are a three different ways that you can search for titles on the digital streaming web site. You can look at all of the videos by grade level. You can view all the videos by grade level and subject area. Also, you can search for titles using the search page. Using Grade Level One of the ways that you may want to search for titles is by the grade level grouping. There are two criteria that determine where the videos belong in a grade level category. One criteria that determines the grouping is based on the recommendations that teachers have given as to what age group a video is appropriate for. The other criterion that determines a video’s grade level is a recommendation from the manufacturer as to who the movies intended audience is. You may want to use the grade level listing of titles as a starting place to see the variety of topics that are included in your grade level. You can simply browse through the list if you would like or perform a simple keyword search using the Find feature. Note: Find will only search for words on the page, it has nothing to do with the streaming web site. To use the Find feature while you are on a page simply hold down the CTRL key and the F key at the same time. This will open the following window

. Simply type the word that you want to find on the page and click Find Next. You will see the word highlighted if it exists on the page. For example, I opened up the High school list of titles and searched for Milestones, which appeared about three quarters of the way down the page. However, if I tried the same search on either the Middle school or Elementary school list of titles nothing would appear, since there are no titles with the word Milestones on those pages. Using Subject Area The goal of the BOCES streaming project is to create a library that has content that is teacher approved and relates to the standards areas in New York State. On the main page one of the options for viewing titles is to view them by subject area. If you want to be able to view only videos that are categorized within your subject area and/or grade level this may be the option that you want to use. Again the two criteria that determine the videos group are applied. You will want to search the subject area in much the same way that you have searched the grade level; otherwise you can simply browse the information within the area.


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Using the Search page When you first begin to look for titles that you want to stream, you may want to use the search page. The benefit of this, is that you can see the diversity of the content that is available. This way you can find videos that are appropriate for the students. Perhaps you want to challenge some of your students with the content they will be viewing or perhaps the goal of the video is to have students practice analyzing parts of the video. Depending on your goal, you may want to use a video that is at a different level than where your students are. To use the search feature once you are at http://boces.streaming.monroe.edu

click on the link that says Complete Search of all Collections. This will open a search page that allows you to do a simple keyword search of the BOCES titles.


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When you enter your search terms the engine will match all of the titles that contain these terms. By entering the word History you will have about 300 hits. The list of titles the search produces is put in order by the total number of terms that appear on a page. For example, if you wanted to see videos on history in the 1980s you could enter the following into the search engine- history+1980. This will return anything that has the words history and 1980 on the page. Using Boolean search operators can also help you refine your search. Boolean operators help you combine words in different ways. For example adding “quotation marks” around a phrase will look for that exact phrase. So if you were looking for the Erie Canal movie you could limit your search by entering “Erie Canal” into the search engine. If you wanted to look for two specific words that appear on the page, but they wouldn’t be part of a phrase, you can use the plus sign + that will combine the two words together. For example if you were looking for history topics on native Americans you could search by entering the combination of history+native which will return only results containing both of those words. By using these search techniques you can find videos that relate to the topics you are looking for. One disadvantage to using the search feature is that you don’t see the grade level or the curriculum area on the web page. Page Overview The next section is to give you an overview of the way a page looks once you have clicked on a link to a movie title. One thing that you may notice before any of the text or links is the color of the page. BOCES has color coded the pages of the digital streaming project to help users distinguish between content that has been purchased by BOCES, content that is being previewed, and content from the WXXI project. Pages with a white

background color mean that the movie has been purchased by BOCES.

Pages with a light blue background color mean that the movie is part of the preview process. This means that it is important that you give your feedback about the movie and its value in relation to your curriculum and goals. Pages with a light

yellow background color mean that the movie is part of the WXXI service. This content will be streamed at a much lower quality, due to the way WXXI content was processed.


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The overview of the movie

Movie details

There are five specific areas of the page. The first area that you may notice is the set of links in the top right hand corner of the page. These links will take you to different areas of the streaming service. Home will take you to the main streaming page with the Surfer icon. Back will take you to the last page that you were viewing. Index will take you to the entire listing of titles in the media collection. Search will take you to the main search interface, which will allow you to perform keyword searches. Help will take you to information on who to contact about help with streaming. The next link you may notice is the Click here to fill out evaluation form link. This will take you to a web page that gives BOCES feedback on the video that you are viewing. These evaluations are important if you really like a piece of media. The more feedback that is given on the videos the better BOCES can serve the needs of teachers.


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Once you have given some feedback on the video, the information will be collected in a database and reviewed prior to the next purchase of media. Share those videos you think are significant with your coworkers and have them fill out evaluations about the video. This way BOCES can see that the video is a significant resource and add it to the permanent collection.


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The text under the evaluation link is a description of the video, which includes the title of the video, the call numbers, the length, and a short description of the video. These descriptions are from the manufacturer of the video and are intended to give you a general overview of what the video is about. The links after the description, in the small table, are links to the video itself. Once again, there are two ways that you can stream the video content either small screen, giving you control over the video or full screen. In full screen you can pause or play the video by using the spacebar. The last section of the page is the HTML code that you can include in your web page to link directly to this page. You can copy and paste this into the HTML code of your web page, giving you a direct link to the digital streaming content. Book Marking Pages There are several ways to bookmark or save the location of the movies that you want to use later. The easiest way to do this is by using the favorites menu in Explorer. Once you have found a movie that you like and want to save its location, simply go to the Favorites menu in Internet Explorer and select Add to Favorites.

This will open a window that looks like this

. You may want to create a new folder depending on how you like to organize your favorites. If you organize your favorites according to the units that you teach, perhaps you want to add the link to those folders. If you want to have a separate folder just for movies, then create a single folder. To create new folders select the New Folder button.


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Now that you have your folder, you can save the movie within that folder. Fill in the Name area of the screen with a name that you will recognize the next time you are looking for the movie and click OK. This is the easiest way to save the web page so you can access the movie later. An easy way to make these saved movies available to your students after you have saved their location, is to export the selected links. To do this from Internet Explorer go to file>import and export… this will open a Wizard that will take you through the process.

Click Next to start the wizard.

Select the option to Export Favorites and then click Next.


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Select the Favorites Folder where the links to the movies you want to export are saved.

Now Browse for the location where you want to save your document.


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Now click Finish and you should see the following message pop up.

Click OK and you are finished. Now you can share these videos with your students or other teachers. Adding Links to Your Web Page BOCES has made it easy for you to add links to your web page to allow students access to a video from study hall or while working after school. If you create web pages by using HTML the HTML code is provided at the bottom of the page. If you are using something like Microsoft FrontPage, simply link to the movie page just like you would to any other Internet source. These movies are not accessible outside of the Monroe #1 BOCES schools at this time. Students will not be able to access this material at home.


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HTML code for you


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Network Settings PC These are the most pertinent QuickTime settings for the Digital Streaming Service. You'll find these settings under edit/preferences/QuickTime preferences. The Streaming Transport setting and the Streaming Proxy setting seem to be the most important, as you may have intermittent issues if the "use system settings" or "automatically determine the best protocol and port ID" boxes are checked.

Macintosh The settings in QuickTime should be almost identical; the only other known setting issue is that you will probably encounter the following error when clicking a link on the streaming server within Internet Explorer.

“Internet Explorer doesn’t know how to handle the type of file you have selected. You can choose to save this file to your disk or you can configure a Helper application for this file. MIME Type: application/x-quicktime-media-link File Name:movies.qtl”

Cancel out of this error message. You need to create a file helper under Internet explorer.


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In Internet Explorer click “Edit/Preference/File Helpers” Click “add” underneath File helper listings

Then Choose “Download Options” and make sure “Always use download location from appropriate file helpers” is checked This will keep any QuickTime files from downloading to the desktop, while using digital streaming with Internet Explorer.


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*** If you are using Safari and find that you have QuickTime Files being downloaded to the desktop you can change the location of the download folder in Safari by clicking /Safari/Preferences and choosing a new location under “Save downloaded files to:”


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***NOTE: changing this means that all files that you download will end up in this folder. Firewalls and Other Security Some of the security features you may have set up at home may prevent you from being able to stream video to your computer. Firewalls and security software may be an issue. If you are having trouble with streaming you can choose to turn off these programs or settings. However, BOCES can not accept any responsibility for your doing this and doesn’t suggest this unless you are sure about what you are doing.


Documents

Navigating the BOCES Video Streaming Project