The first time I had ever heard of video conferencing software is when my son was a part of a “Classroom Without Walls” experience. He said, “Mom, we spoke to kids in Iraq.” I asked my husband, Casey Olson (Programmer/Analyst for the school district) how this worked. Our school district received two technology grants that funded over $300K worth of Polycom video conferencing equipment plus other districts funds. Through this purchase, the district was able to purchase 40-50 Polycom units, plus supportive data center infrastructure. With this capability, our students are able to connect with classrooms around the world in history, geography, music, science, math, you name it simply by calling in. It can also be used for medically fragile students so they can gain access to the classroom and their peers without leaving their homes/safe environments. It is also used for staff training, school board meetings, collaborating for professional development and conferences. It can be used from any technology device via the Polycom app and the meeting room number. The top reasons the IT department decided to expand (through grants) their Polycom system was it was the Premier Room System, they were able to manage the system in-house with their own servers, Polycom uses high-quality robotic HD cameras and it was a leader in the industry at that time.
You do not have to have a $300K+ video conferencing system to connect to classrooms/training around the world, but you will not find the quality of a whole room experience unless you contract out to a telecommunications company for a hefty price. If you want to use collaborative features that are slightly more limiting (bandwidth, drop calls, poor video/call reception)to expand the depth of your classroom, you might try:
References:
Olson, Casey. Personal Interview, January 29, 2019.
aksoldotnaedtech 
Technology can be used for so many learning experiences. Nice blog.
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When I was visiting Goodnews Bay, they had a similar system for their high schoolers to use. The village wasn’t able to get a high school math and science teacher so the students would gather and teleconference with their teacher. She would teach them the math lesson just as a teacher would in a traditional classroom when the teacher stood by the board the entire time. I wonder how a virtual teacher would work individually or in small groups in these situations because the camera is set up to where you can see the student’s faces and not necessarily their work. I think it’s really cool that your son got to participate in Classrooms Without Borders.
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Wow! That seems like such an expensive tech tool. I like that you included other video conference options because I couldn’t help but think about those while reading about the Polycom system. You mentioned a couple benefits to Polycom, but I would be interested to learn more about the advantages to using something that is so costly over a free/cheap program.
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The reason I included this costly tech option is to give some variability to the scope of cutting edge tech outside of the classroom. With huge budget cuts, school districts are looking more to online, learning, consolidating and collaboration…..our school district has a strong foundation to optimize these new ideas that are quality, reliable, well established and easy to use while expanding opportunities with broader support. KPBSD has approximately 1200 employees, this is hardware that will support ALL needs: training, video conferencing, collaborating, administrative needs………..from support services, certified staff administration, accounting…………you name it. The free platforms are for smaller scale and individual use.
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Hi Katie, I hope your rehabilitating nicely nothing like cold temps to help facilitate days indoors! great post and write up on Polycom! For a brief time I worked with a company that provided Polycom integration, Polycom has been a titan in the video conferencing space, sounds like the district is heavily invested in that solution. The robotic cameras give a near/far perspective when conferencing in large rooms and doing complicated virtual classroom scenarios as well as technology for international sessions etc. Some great counter points to large scale solutions in the above responses, and with the moore’s law effect, video conferencing solutions are getting better and cheaper every day. One of the aspects of video conferencing that is much better is the codec and compression technologies for sharing video during a session. At the time a company called Vidyo (https://www.vidyo.com) was leading with embedded video communication. I have used everything from gotomeeting, WebEx, to more basic and mostly free applications like FaceTime and Skype. It really comes down to bandwidth capabilities and what functionality and what type of experience you want to create for participants. I like to keep it simple and cheap as possible without sacrificing the experience as a rule of thumb.
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